COMSOC 2025 is the 10th workshop in the interdisciplinary workshop series on Computational Social Choice. It will take place at the TU Wien, Vienna, Austria, from 17-19 September 2025.
We welcome not only researchers and professionals but also students, newcomers, and individuals interested in the fields of Economics, Political & Social Sciences, and Computer Science.
The poster for the conference (including the large program committee) is here.
Akhil Vohra's paper on unraveling is in the latest AEJ:Micro. It proposes a novel cause of unraveling of labor markets. Unraveling--early hiring before competitors--can arise for multiple reasons...
Here's a modern short story about privacy, and dating. A dating app allowed women to widely share information about men. The app asked women to reliably identify themselves. It was hacked...
The NYT has the story
"A fast-growing app for women was hacked after it shot to the top of app download charts and kicked off heated debates about women’s safety and dating.
"The app, Tea Dating Advice, allowed women worried about their safety to share information about men they might date. Its premise was immediately polarizing: Some praised it as a useful way to warn women about dangerous men, while others called it divisive and a violation of men’s privacy.
"On Friday, Tea said that hackers had breached a data storage system, exposing about 72,000 images, including selfies and photo identifications of its users."
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"Share experiences and seek advice within a secure, anonymous platform. Tea is built on trust; screenshots are blocked and all members are verified as women"
The 78th World Health Assembly in May, 2025 recognized kidney failure as a global problem, with transplantation as the preferred treatment.
Here's a news story from the International Society of Nephrology (ISN):
Historic win for kidney health as WHO adopts global resolution
Here's the resolution:
WHO Resolution: Reducing the burden of noncommunicable diseases through promotion of kidney health and strengthening prevention and control of kidney disease
"The Seventy-eighth World Health Assembly
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"(PP5) Recognizing that approximately 674 million people live with chronic kidney disease, comprising 9% of the global population2 and concerned that kidney disease is one of the fastest-growing causes of death globally and is projected to become the fifth leading cause of death by 2050, with a projected 33% increase in age-standardized death rate and a 28% increase in age-standardized disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) if no action is taken;
"(PP6) Recalling resolution WHA77.4 on increasing the availability, ethical access, and oversight of the transplantation of human cells, tissues, and organs, which urges countries to adopt preventive strategies and incorporate transplantation into the continuum of care of non-communicable and other diseases that may lead to the need for transplantation in accordance with their national contexts, and that requests the Director-General to support Member States in implementing the elements of the Resolution, particularly through the design of a Global Strategy on Donation and Transplantation."
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" URGES Member States, in accordance with their national context and priorities, to:
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"(6) take measures to promote progressive access to kidney replacement therapy, of which kidney transplantation is preferred, enabling timely referral for transplantation, as well as by implementing interventions to maximize the availability of organs for clinical use aligned with the WHO Guiding Principles on human cell, tissue and organ transplantation"
In June, the British Parliament passed a law to permit medical aid in dying, which still needs further action before going into effect.
The Guardian looks at the harrowing situations facing some proponents of MAID:
Here's the backstory:
"MPs have voted to accept the assisted dying bill, with 314 votes in favour to 291 against, a majority of 23.
The bill will now go to the House of Lords for further scrutiny".
This is a segment exploring the latest papers in climate finance and banking.
In low-income countries, many markets, including credit, insurance, land and information, are frictional or missing altogether.
Empirical Market Design is an emerging research field, blending the theoretical underpinnings of market design with novel empirical approaches that are sometimes related to those used applied…
Market failures are present in many markets, and governments throughout the world design interventions to address them.
The idea of this session is to bring together microeconomic theorists working on dynamic games and contracts with more applied theorists working in macro, finance, organizational economics, and…
This session will bring together researchers from political science and economics who apply economic theory to the study of politics.
This workshop will be dedicated to research that studies how gender influences economic outcomes and decision making.
This session will bring together researchers working on issues at the intersection of psychology and economics.
This workshop is dedicated to advances in experimental economics combining laboratory and field-experimental methodologies with theoretical and psychological insights on decision-making, strategic…
This session discusses the latest advances in theoretical and empirical issues related to financial regulation, defined broadly.
This session invites scholars and policymakers to explore the multifaceted dimensions of China's evolving economy and its global interconnections.
The idea of this session is to bring together labor economists and macroeconomists with interests in labor markets with two goals.
The session will cover recent work on the causes and effects of changes in volatility and uncertainty in the aggregate economy, which is incredibly topical given the ongoing domestic and wider…
This sessions aims to bring together scholars, both young and established, in as diverse fields as labor economics, public economics, industrial organization, and macroeconomics, who are…
The past five years have seen an explosion of work in macroeconomics using the “sequence-space” approach to solving and analyzing models.
Several countries have now record high levels of public debt that are comparable to the ones inherited from WWII.
Agence France Presse (AFP) reports on the bike race, and speculates on the historical competition between drug takers and drug testers.
"Pogacar himself brushes off the suggestions of skulduggery he has had to face ever since his first Tour win five years ago, always insisting that he should be "trusted".
"Last October he said to dope "is to ruin your life". "I don't want to take the risk of falling ill one day," he added, pointing out that cycling was "a victim of its past".
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He continued, with an air of resignation: "There is no trust, and I don't know what can be done to restore it."
Dope-testing on the Tour
"Around 600 blood and urine samples will be collected from the peloton during this year's race, with 350 out-of-competition samples taken in the run-up to cycling's blue riband event.
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"A selection of the samples are held for 10 years to allow for retro-testing with the advance of new detection techniques.
The UCI also inspects bikes to prevent any technical cheating.
While ketones to help store energy are permitted and widely used, the UCI banned the inhalation of carbon monoxide earlier this year.
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"Pogacar's ability to smash records set by infamous dopers like disgraced seven-time winner Lance Armstrong or Pantani is remarkable.
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"And as in other sports, cycling has made enormous progress since the EPO years.
"Technology has led to faster bikes, with the Tour's technical director Thierry Gouvenou suggesting a there has been a 10% gain in performance just thanks to better two-wheeled machines. Nutrition and training have also evolved."
Last month, INFORMS' Division of Manufacturing and Service Operations Management awarded Yash Kanoria the 2025 MSOM Young Scholar Prize.
Here's a slide from the prize announcement (shared with me by Omar Besbes).
Here are two papers of his that I admire:
Ashlagi, Itai, Yashodhan Kanoria, and Jacob D. Leshno, (2017). “Unbalanced Random Matching Markets: The Stark Effect of Competition”, Journal of Political Economy 125, 1: 69-98. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/689869
Ashlagi, Itai, Mark Braverman, Yash Kanoria, and Peng Shi, (2020). Clearing matching markets efficiently: informative signals and match recommendations. Management Science, 66(5), 2163-2193 https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.2018.3265
In March, JAMA publishing a rather unconvincing but passionate attack on a modest proposal to incentivize non-directed kidney donors. The editors presumably received many letters in reply (and declined to publish mine*), but have now published one (to which I was alerted by Frank McCormick).
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*Earlier:
The Washington Post has the story:
FDA lets Juul market vapes in the U.S. three years after trying to ban them
Federal regulators first announced a ban of Juul products in 2022, although a court order allowed them to stay on store shelves while the company filed an appeal. By David Ovalle and Shannon Najmabadi
"The Food and Drug Administration has authorized Juul Labs to market its electronic cigarettes, years after the agency tried to ban the company’s products amid outcry over its role in fueling the popularity of vapes among young people.
"The agency, after reviewing scientific data provided by the company, concluded that Juul’s electronic cigarette device and refillable cartridges in tobacco and menthol flavors can help adult cigarette users reduce smoking or switch to less harmful products, outweighing the risk to youth.
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"The news comes a few days after the Vapor Technology Association, an industry group, said it launched a seven-figure ad campaign urging President Donald Trump to draw a distinction between vape products targeting youths and “safer, adult-focused alternatives” touted as smoking-cessation tools. Trump previously offered enthusiastic support for vaping and promised to protect the industry while campaigning in 2024.
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"A 2024 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey found vapes were the most common tobacco product used by middle- and high-schoolers. About 1.6 million students use electronic cigarettes, according to the survey — and nearly 90 percent of those who vape prefer the flavored liquids, the survey reported.
Thursday’s Juul decision drew immediate outcry from public health groups that assert vapes are addictive and can harm the development of maturing brains."
The NYT has the story:
“Give me something that’s going to help me with this,” she begged her doctor.
“There is nothing,” the doctor replied.
"Overcoming meth addiction has become one of the biggest challenges of the national drug crisis. Fentanyl deaths have been dropping, in part because of medications that can reverse overdoses and curb the urge to use opioids. But no such prescriptions exist for meth, which works differently on the brain.
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"Lacking a medical treatment, a growing number of clinics are trying a startlingly different strategy: To induce patients to stop using meth, they pay them.
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"Even those who are uncomfortable with the general concept are starting to come around, said Dr. Sally Satel, medical director at a methadone clinic in Washington, D.C., and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “Most people recoil at paying people to do the right thing,” she said. “But we’ve got plenty of data that shows this works. So I think we just have to bite the utilitarian bullet.”
The NYT has a disturbing story this morning about organ donation after circulatory death. These are cases in which a decision has been made to remove the patient from a ventilator, in anticipation that they are irreversibly dying. If death (via cessation of heartbeat and breathing) occurs almost immediately after removal, the patient may still be a viable organ donor, and otherwise not. Organ procurement organizations (OPOs) are not supposed to be involved until after death has been declared, but apparently in some small hospitals they get involved earlier, and have sometimes pressured physicians to proceed prematurely.
A Push for More Organ Transplants Is Putting Donors at Risk
People across the United States have endured rushed or premature attempts to remove their organs. Some were gasping, crying or showing other signs of life. By Brian M. Rosenthal and Julie Tate, July 20, 2025
"Across the United States, an intricate system of hospitals, doctors and nonprofit donation coordinators carries out tens of thousands of lifesaving transplants each year. At every step, it relies on carefully calibrated protocols to protect both donors and recipients.
"But in recent years, as the system has pushed to increase transplants, a growing number of patients have endured premature or bungled attempts to retrieve their organs. ... a New York Times examination revealed a pattern of rushed decision-making that has prioritized the need for more organs over the safety of potential donors.
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"Most donated organs in the United States come from people who are brain-dead — an irreversible state — and are kept on machines only to maintain their organs. Most donated organs in the United States come from people who are brain-dead — an irreversible state — and are kept on machines only to maintain their organs. Circulatory death donation is different. These patients are on life support, often in a coma. Their prognoses are more of a medical judgment call.
"They are alive, with some brain activity, but doctors have determined that they are near death and won’t recover. If relatives agree to donation, doctors withdraw life support and wait for the patient’s heart to stop. This has to happen within an hour or two for the organs to be considered viable. After the person is declared dead, surgeons go in.
"The Times found that some organ procurement organizations — the nonprofits in each state that have federal contracts to coordinate transplants — are aggressively pursuing circulatory death donors and pushing families and doctors toward surgery. Hospitals are responsible for patients up to the moment of death, but some are allowing procurement organizations to influence treatment decisions.
"Fifty-five medical workers in 19 states told The Times they had witnessed at least one disturbing case of donation after circulatory death.
"Workers in several states said they had seen coordinators persuading hospital clinicians to administer morphine, propofol and other drugs to hasten the death of potential donors.
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"Circulatory death donation used to be largely forbidden. That began to change in the 1990s, when a dying patient asked the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to remove her life support and donate her organs. The hospital honored her wishes, then spent two years creating guidelines for future cases. Use of the practice gradually spread.
"Procurement organizations attributed the procedure’s recent growth to technological advances. Dozens of employees at the organizations said it was largely because of government pressure.
"Citing the number of Americans waiting for organs, H.H.S. said in 2020 that it would begin grading procurement organizations on how many transplants they arranged. The department has threatened to end its contracts with groups performing below average, starting next year. Many have raised their numbers by pursuing more circulatory death donors."
It turns out we don't just fade away...
New Scientist has the story:
Rapid bursts of ageing are causing a total rethink of how we grow old
Suddenly feeling old? Evidence now suggests that rather than a long, steady decline, we dramatically age around three specific times in our lives. Might it be possible to stay younger for longer? By Graham Lawton
"participants clustered into four groups: the under-34s, those aged 34 to 60, people aged 61 to 78 and the over-78s. Within each group, the protein profiles were very similar, but at the ages of 34, 60 and 78, they suddenly changed, with levels of some proteins rising dramatically while others plummeted. What’s more, some of the proteins that became enriched in the older age groups were already known to be associated with cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s"
The Pew research center has been keeping an eye on religious affiliations around the world. More than half of us are Christians or Muslims. Only about two tenths of one percent of us are Jews. Their headline takeaway is the growing number of unaffiliated:
Nearly a quarter of the world’s population is religiously unaffiliated
How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020
Muslims grew fastest; Christians lagged behind global population increase By Conrad Hackett, Marcin Stonawski, Yunping Tong, Stephanie Kramer, Anne Shi and Dalia Fahm
Here's a story from The Atlantic about a decision that captures the Trump administration's policies towards food aid, carbon emissions, and the Biden administration:
"Five months into its unprecedented dismantling of foreign-aid programs, the Trump administration has given the order to incinerate food instead of sending it to people abroad who need it. Nearly 500 metric tons of emergency food—enough to feed about 1.5 million children for a week—are set to expire tomorrow, according to current and former government employees with direct knowledge of the rations. Within weeks, two of those sources told me, the food, meant for children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, will be ash.
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"Sometime near the end of the Biden administration, USAID spent about $800,000 on the high-energy biscuits,"
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