The AEA and the job market

Should the American Economic Association make further interventions to facilitate the job market for new economists?  Should it issue a code of conduct to guide behavior in various realms in which economists interact?  Both of those are under consideration, as announced today on the society's website.

Here's the text of the email announcement to members:

Statement of the AEA Executive Committee

October 20, 2017 To: Members of the American Economic Association From: Peter L. Rousseau, Secretary-Treasurer Subject: Statement of the AEA Executive Committee Many members of the economics community have expressed concern about offensive behavior within our profession that demeans individuals or groups of individuals. The American Economic Association strongly condemns misogyny, racism, homophobia, antisemitism and other behaviors that harm our profession. AEA President Alvin E. Roth has charged an ad hoc committee on professional conduct to formulate a set of guidelines for economists to be considered by the Executive Committee. The ad hoc committee is charged with evaluating various aspects of professional conduct, including those which stifle diversity in Economics. It will submit a report in time for discussion in January. There will be a period for comment by the AEA membership on that report following its release. The Association is also exploring the possibility of creating a website/message board designed to provide additional information and transparency to the job market for new Ph.D.s, and will be surveying departments to assess what information about their search processes might be shared.

The ASSA / AEA meetings, preliminary program

This year's ASSA preliminary program is now online:  https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2018/preliminary 
The AEA sessions were organized by President Elect Olivier Blanchard (and his program committee).  David Laibson will give the Ely lecture.

Here are two sessions that caught my eye from just the first page (of 11).

Thursday, Jan. 4, 2018   5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
 Marriott Philadelphia Downtown, Grand Ballroom Salon H
 Econometric Society Presidential Address

Drew Fudenberg, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

Inner Workings of Organ Markets and Organ Allocation

Paper Session

• Chair: Eric Budish, University of Chicago

The Inner Workings of Kidney Exchange Markets

Nikhil Agarwal

,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Itai Ashlagi

,

Stanford University

Eduardo Azevedo

,

University of Pennsylvania

Clayton Featherstone

,

University of Pennsylvania

Omer Karaduman

,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Abstract

The market for kidney exchange was created to address the shortage of kidneys for donations. The market allows patients with a willing but incompatible live donor to swap donors, so that they can perform transplants, and has grown to about 800 transplants per year. This paper uses detailed administrative data to describe the functioning of this market. The most striking finding is that the market is fragmented into dozens of small platforms instead of working in a single large platform, with most transactions happening in platforms that operate within a single transplant center. This may lead to substantial inefficiency if there are increasing returns to scale to matching patients in a large, thick market.

A Regulated Market for Kidneys

Mohammad Akbarpour

,

Stanford University

Abstract

The persistent shortage of kidneys for transplantation is a global problem for end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients. Many countries have tried to address this issue by increasing deceased donation, by introducing kidney exchange programs, and by optimizing the allocation algorithms. Despite such efforts, the problem of shortage is growing in most countries, with more than 100,000 people waiting for a kidney transplant only in the U.S. Iran is the only country in the world that has introduced a different program of living unrelated renal donation, which includes two kinds of monetary compensation of donors: a "gift for altruism" from the government to donors, as well as an additional compensation from the patients themselves. We will discuss the impacts of this program on waiting times, organ shortage, and its equilibrium effects on other kinds of live donation.

Strategic Behavior in the Kidney Waitlist

Nikhil Agarwal

,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Itai Ashlagi

,

Stanford University

Paulo J. Somaini

,

Stanford University

Abstract

A transplant can improve a patient's life while saving several hundred thousands of dollars of healthcare expenditures. Organs from deceased donors, like many other common pool resources (e.g. public housing, child-care slots, publicly funded long-term care), are rationed via a waitlist. The efficiency and equity properties of design choices such as penalties for refusing offers or object-type specific lists are not well understood and depend on agent preferences. This paper establishes an empirical framework for analyzing the trade-offs involved in waitlist design and applies it to study the allocation of deceased donor kidneys. We model the decision to accept an offer from a waiting list as an optimal stopping problem and use it to estimate the value of accepting various kidneys. Our estimated values for various kidneys is highly correlated with predicted patient outcomes as measured by life-years from transplantation (LYFT). While some types of donors are preferable for all patients (e.g. young donors), there is substantial heterogeneity in willingness to wait for good donors and also substantial match-specific heterogeneity in values (due to biological similarity). We find that the high willingness to wait for good donors without considering the effects of these decisions on others results in agents being too selective relative to socially optimal. This suggests that mild penalties for refusal (e.g. loss in priority) may improve efficiency. Similarly, the heterogeneity in willingness to wait for young, healthy donors suggests that separate queues by donor quality may increase efficiency by inducing sorting without significantly hurting assignments based on match-specific payoffs.

Discussant(s)

Utku Unver, Boston College

Glen Weyl, Microsoft Research

Benjamin R. Handel, University of California-Berkeley

Evolution of kidney exchange markets, and other short videos from the AEA Poster session

Below is the video interview that goes with my poster presentation at the just concluded American Economic Association/ASSA meetings in Chicago:

AEA POSTER PRESENTER VIDEO

Al Roth on the evolution of kidney exchange markets

Subtitle: Al Roth is the current president of the American Economic Association and the Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He sat down with the AEA to talk about the market for a product (human kidneys) that can't legally be bought or sold, and the potential for huge savings in the U.S. health care system if we do a better job facilitating kidney exchanges across international borders.

You can also find the video here, on vimeo.

Al Roth on the evolution of kidney exchange markets from American Economic Association on Vimeo.

Here's the poster itself: The Ongoing Design of Kidney Exchange: Recent and Prospective Developments

You can videos related to other posters at the 2017 Annual Meeting Videos , and here you can see the whole poster session.

AEA Annual Meeting Webcasts

2017 AEA Annual Meeting Webcasts of Selected Sessions

View Webcasts of selected sessions from the Annual Meeting in Chicago on January 6-8, 2017! (compliments of the AEA):

January 6, 2017

Brexit: Six Months Later (Panel Discussion)
Presiding: Olivier BlanchardJonathan Portes
Andrew Lilico
Karl Whelan
View Webcast

Nobels on Where is the World Economy Headed?
Presiding: Dominick Salvatore
Where in the World Is the World Headed? Angus DeatonSeeking Political Keys for Economic Growth Roger MyersonHow the Left and Right Are Failing the West Edmund PhelpsEconomic Risks Associated with Deep Change in Technology Robert J. ShillerNew Divisions in the World Economy Joseph E. StiglitzView Webcast

AEA/AFA Joint Luncheon - Will the Market Fix the Market?Eric Budish, introduced by Alvin E. RothView Webcast

Gender AgendaPresiding: Muriel Niederle
Quantifying the Disincentive Effects of Joint Taxation on Married Women's Labor Supply Alexander Bick and Nicola Fuchs-Schuendeln
Long Hours and Women's Job Choices: Cross Country and Within United States Evidence Patricia Cortes and Jessica Pan
The Expanding Gender Earnings Gap: Evidence from the LEHD-Census Claudia Goldin, Sari Pekkala Kerr, Claudia Olivetti, and Erling Barth
Competitiveness and Education Choices Muriel Niederle
Discussants: Erik HurstView Webcast

AEA Richard T. Ely Lecture: The Economist as Plumber: Large Scale Experiments to Inform the Details of Policy MakingEsther Duflo, introduced by Alvin E. RothView Webcast

January 7, 2017

Economists as Engineers (Panel Discussion)
Presiding: Alvin E. Roth
Paul Milgrom
Atila AbdulkadirogluView Webcast

Economic Issues Facing the New President (Panel Discussion)
Presiding: Greg Mankiw
Jason Furman
Glenn Hubbard
Alan Krueger
John TaylorView Webcast

AEA Nobel Laureate Luncheon Honoring Angus Deaton from Princeton University
Presiding: Alvin E. Roth
James Heckman
David Laibson
Christina Paxson
View Webcast

Publishing and Promotion in Economics: The Curse of the Top Five (Panel Discussion)
Presiding: James J. Heckman
George Akerlof
Angus Deaton
Drew Fudenberg
Lars Hansen
View Webcast

AEA Awards Ceremony
Presiding: Alvin E. Roth
View Webcast

AEA Presidential Address - Narrative Economics
Robert J. Shiller, introduced by Alvin E. Roth
View Webcast

Richard Ely and the founding of the American Economic Association

Some history of the AEA, and Richard Ely.

First, from the Democracy Journal, published before last year's AEA meetings in SF, but just as interesting this year...

Economists of the World, Unite!

"Indeed, the AEA was founded both to conduct scientific research and to agitate for reform, both inside academia and in the public sphere. At its start, the two missions were inextricably linked. The old economics claimed to have discovered immutable laws governing the distribution of wealth, derived from a theoretical construction of an abstract, idealized economy. The founders of the AEA, on the other hand, looked first to study economic outcomes as they found them. Treating income, wealth, work, wages, depressions, trade, and so on as contingent realities as opposed to abstract truths naturally led to the conclusion that they could be altered by policy. That implication clashed with the political bulwark against so-called “class legislation,” namely any attempt to alter the social hierarchy through collective action or public policy. At all levels, therefore, this approach defied the intellectual foundations of classical economics.

"The leader of this group of young Turks was Richard Ely, a 31-year-old professor at Johns Hopkins University. Ely was a committed evangelical and a believer in the “social gospel” movement, which preached the application of Christian ethics to the creation of a just social order. But he was also an ambitious, modernizing professional academic. This combination of traditional and modern values drove him into the area of public persuasion, where he felt called to present economics as a friend to the common man rather than an apologist for his employer."
*************

Another window on Ely (who turns out to have had racial views on eugenics) comes from this MR post:
Richard T. Ely, Alt-Right Founder of the American Economic Association, by Alex Tabarrok

Tabarrok's post is in response to this article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed:
When Economics Was Radical  By Marshall Steinbaum and Bernard Weisberger 

2017 CSWEP Junior Mentoring Breakfasts at the Chicago AEA meetings in January

 The American Economic Association's Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP) is pleased to announce the 5^th Annual Mentoring Breakfasts for Junior Faculty to be held at the 2017 AEA/ASSA Meetings in Chicago. At these informal meet and greet events, senior economists (predominately senior women) will be on hand to provide mentoring and networking opportunities.  Junior economists are invited to drop in with questions on topics such as publishing, research, teaching, grant writing, networking, job search, career paths, work-life balance and the tenure process. Rotation of mentees throughout the event is encouraged so that they may have the opportunity to connect with the greatest number of mentors.  This mentoring experience is intended for junior economists who have completed their PhD in the past 6 years or graduate students who are on the job market.  The event is open to both males and females.  A light continental breakfast will be provided.

CSWEP will host two sessions. Please see below for registration details.

Friday, Jan. 6, 2017, 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Hyatt Regency Chicago, Regency B
Session I Registration

Sunday, Jan. 8, 2017, 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Hyatt Regency Chicago, Regency B
Session II Registration

Senior economists who are interested in serving as mentors are asked to send an email to cswep@econ.ucsb.edu indicating the date(s) they are able to attend.

We hope to see you there!