Jerusalem summer school in Economic Theory: Imperfect Cognition and Economic Behaviour: June 26-July 5

 Here's the announcement and call for applications:

The 33rd Advanced School in Economic Theory: Imperfect Cognition and Economic Behaviour

Mon, 26/06/2023 to Wed, 05/07/2023

GENERAL DIRECTOR: Eric Maskin, Harvard University

ORGANIZERS: Elchanan Ben-Porath, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Michael Woodford, Columbia University

SPEAKERS:

Robert Aumann, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Rava Azeredo da Silveira, ENS Paris & University of Basel

Ido Erev, Technion - Institute of Technology

Itzhak Gilboa, Tel Aviv University & HEC Paris

Tom Griffiths, Princeton University

Eric Maskin, Harvard University

Ariel Rubinstein, Tel Aviv University & New York University

Ran Spiegler, Tel Aviv University & UCL

Jakub Steiner, University of Zurich

Luminita Stevens, University of Maryland

Tomasz Strzalecki, Harvard University

Michael Woodford, Columbia University

Noga Zaslavsky, MIT

ABSTRACT: While economic analysis typically assumes that people reliably choose the available action that is best suited to their current circumstances, experimental psychology has instead emphasized the imprecision of both perceptions and recollections of the objective features of one's environment. This summer school explores whether the kind of cognitive imprecision that is well-documented in sensory domains may also limit the accuracy of economic decisions, and help to account for experimentally documented anomalies for normative models of decision making.

First kidney exchange between Cyprus and Israel

 The Cyprus Mail has the story

First exchange kidney transplant between Cyprus and Israel, By Jonathan Shkurko, March 1, 2023

"The first ever crossover organ transplant involving Cyprus and Israel took place on Wednesday after two kidneys were exchanged at the old Larnaca airport in the morning.

"The effort follows an exchange agreement signed between the two countries.

"The agreement stipulates that organs belonging to donors in Cyprus that are incompatible with the recipients, will be exchanged with compatible organs arriving from Israel.

"The kidney received from Israel was transported to the new transplant clinic at Nicosia general, whereas the one donated by Cyprus was flown to Tel Aviv.

...

"During the organs’ exchange at Larnaca airport, the director of Israel Transplant Organisation Tamar Ashkenazi said she was very happy to see the results of the transnational agreement.

“I hope we will continue with more organs exchanges in the future, as we are already doing with Austria, Czech Republic and United Arab Emirates,” Ashkenazi said. 

*********

Earlier:

Thursday, December 19, 2019

International kidney exchange between Israel and Czech Republic

Monday, October 4, 2021

More on the UAE-Israel kidney exchange

Itai Ashlagi's kidney exchange software has played a role in all these exchanges.

Support for an independent judiciary in Israel

 Democratic institution are under threat in many parts of the world, involving elections, insurrections, and the courts.  Israel is no exception these days.  Yesterday's Jerusalem Post featured several stories about expressions of concern from friends of Israel, including an open letter from economists:

Biden calls for Israeli judicial reform consensus in first comment. US Secretary of State Blinken made a similar comment during his visit to Israel a few weeks ago. By TOVAH LAZAROFF,  FEBRUARY 12, 2023 

Seven Israeli Nobel laureates warn against judicial overhaul. In their letter, the Nobel Prize winners said that scientific excellence can only thrive in democratic nations with full freedom. By TOVAH LAZAROFF Published: FEBRUARY 12, 2023 

56 US economists sign letter opposing Israeli judicial reform By JERUSALEM POST STAFF FEBRUARY 12, 2023

Here's the open letter in full, organized by Professor Lucian Bebchuk at Harvard:

Statement By Leading U.S. Economists Regarding Proposed Israeli Reforms

February 8, 2023​ 

"The governing coalition in Israel is considering an array of legislative acts that would weaken the independence of the judiciary and its power to constrain governmental actions. Numerous Israeli economists, in an open letter that some of us joined, expressed concerns that such a reform would adversely affect the Israeli economy by weakening the rule of law and thereby moving Israel in the direction of Hungary and Poland. Although we significantly vary in our views on public policy and on the challenges facing Israeli society, we all share these concerns. A strong and independent judiciary is a critical part of a system of checks and balances. Undermining it would be detrimental not only to democracy but also to economic prosperity and growth.

"The 56 signatories to this statement are all economists who are current or former professors at leading U.S. universities and who also are:

(A) Recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (11);

(B) Winners of the John Bates Clark, Fischer Black, and/or BBVA Foundation prizes (10); 

(C) Current or former Presidents of the American Economic Association, American Finance Association, and/or the American Law and Economics Association (16);

(D) Individuals who formerly served as U.S. Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, the World Bank Chief Economist, or the International Monetary Fund Chief Economist (5); and/or 

(E) Elected members of the National Academy of Sciences and/or the American Academy of  Arts and Sciences (50).

Signatories

Each signatory joined solely in their individual capacity, and the universities/organizations with which they are associated are noted for identification purposes. The superscripts next to each individual’s name indicate as stated below the list.

Daron Acemoglu (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) B, E

Alan Auerbach (University of California, Berkeley) E

David Autor (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) E

Lucian Bebchuk (Harvard University) C, E

Marianne Bertrand (University of Chicago) E

Jagdish Bhagwati (Columbia University) E

Nicholas Bloom (Stanford University) E

Samuel Bowles (Santa Fe Institute) E

Timothy Bresnahan (Stanford University) B, E

Jeremy Bulow (Stanford University) E

John Campbell (Harvard University) C, E

Janet Currie (Princeton University) C, E 

David Cutler (Harvard University) E

Stefano DellaVigna (University of California, Berkeley) E

Peter Diamond (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) A, C, E

Barry Eichengreen (University of California, Berkeley) E

Drew Fudenberg (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) E

Mark Gertler (New York University) B, E

Claudia Goldin (Harvard University) B, C, E

Roger Gordon (University of California, San Diego) E

Gene Grossman (Princeton University) E

Oliver Hart (Harvard University) A, C, E

R. Glenn Hubbard (Columbia University) D

Matthew Jackson (Stanford University) B, E

Paul Joskow (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) E

Kenneth Judd (Stanford University) E

Daniel Kahneman (Princeton University) A, E

Lewis Kornhauser (New York University) C

Laurence Kotlikoff (Boston University) E

Anne Krueger (Johns Hopkins University) C, D, E

David Laibson (Harvard University) E

W. Bentley MacLeod (Columbia University) C

Ulrike Malmendier (University of California, Berkeley) B, C, E

Charles Manski (Northwestern University) E

Eric Maskin (Harvard University) A, E

Marc Melitz (Harvard University) E

Paul Milgrom (Stanford University) A, B, E

Joel Mokyr (Northwestern University) E

Maurice Obstfeld (University of California, Berkeley) D, E

Edmund Phelps (Columbia University) A, C, E

Andrew Postlewaite (University of Pennsylvania) E

Matthew Rabin (Harvard University) B, E

Kenneth Rogoff (Harvard University) D, E

Paul Romer (New York University) A, D, E

Alvin Roth (Stanford University) A, C, E

Daniel Rubinfeld (University of California, Berkeley) C, E

José Scheinkman (Columbia University) E

Ilya Segal (Stanford University) E

Robert Solow (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) A, B, E

A. Michael Spence (Stanford University) A, B, E

Richard Thaler (University of Chicago) A, C, E

Michael Whinston (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) E

Michelle White (University of California, San Diego) C

Michael Woodford (Columbia University) E

Richard Zeckhauser (Harvard University) E

Luigi Zingales (University of Chicago) C

 "Any inquiries or communications may be sent to the Statement’s coordinator Professor Lucian Bebchuk at info@Statement-By-Leading-US-Economists.net."

More on the UAE-Israel kidney exchange

If you're just tuning in, you can follow the story of the kidney exchange between the UAE and Israel here. The pairs who exchanged kidneys were an Israeli Arab husband and wife, a Jewish Israeli mother and daughter, and a mother and daughter who wish to be identified only as Arab residents of the United Arab Emirates.  (I joined their family at their home for a meal when I was in Abu Dhabi, but won't say more about them.)

It isn't a surprise that the donor in each pair couldn't donate to the intended recipient, because in each pair the recipient was a highly sensitized mother ( i.e. for whom it was hard to find a compatible kidney, because she had many antibodies against human proteins). During childbirth, mothers can develop such antibodies to the father's proteins that the children inherited. So the father and the daughters were incompatible donors, since the mother had antibodies against the paternal proteins (human leukocyte antigens) in their kidneys. Together with the fact that the mothers were quite hard to match, and that Israel and the UAE are both small, each with populations of around ten million, they had to look across national borders.

Cross border kidney exchange requires some diplomacy, particularly when the countries involved are getting together for the first time (and don't necessarily have a long history of cooperation). The key medical diplomats were Dr. Tamar Ashkenazi* the director of Israel Transplant and Dr Ali Abdulkareem Al Obaidli, Chairman of the UAE National Transplant Committee.  (Other key collaborators in the complicated logistics were Itai Ashlagi at Stanford and Atul Agnihotri and Mike Rees of the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation.)  

So this was the plan:

And here's a picture of the Abu Dhabi kidney packed for shipping (masked in the picture are Sue and Mike Rees, who have a lot of experience with packing and shipping kidneys, another nurse whose name I don't know, and Dr. Muhammad Badar Zaman the UAE transplant surgeon who transplanted the  kidney that was on the way.

The little box taped to the top of the shipping container allows the kidney to be tracked in transit, via an app that gives you a picture of where it is at it travels:

And here's the swap of the two kidneys in shipping containers in the airport in Abu Dhabi (Tamar Ashkenazi and Dr. Ali are in the center, Atul and Mike are at the two ends...). Dr Ashkenazi was on both legs of the flight above--she flew in with the Israeli kidney and flew out with the UAE kidney.

On my last night in Abu Dhabi I had dinner with a lot of the docs. Across from me in the picture below are the two surgeons most actively involved in this exchange on the UAE side, transplant surgeon Dr. Zaman and the nephrectomy surgeon Dr. Hamid Reza Toussi.  Next to me is the nephrologist Dr. Mohamed Yahya Seiari.

Below is that whole dinner party. If you've been following these posts up til now, you've met all of them except the gentleman second from the left, Dr. Gehad ElGhazali, who is the head of the HLA lab, which is responsible for the data that allows the matching algorithm to predict which kidneys are compatible, and is responsible for the final 'crossmatch' tests that verify compatibility. Like all the other docs I encountered, he has a multi-international background. This reflects the UAE's very international population, which is why it seems a natural global hub for kidney exchange.

I only met the Israel participants in the exchange later, by Zoom: Shani Markowitz is the donor from the Jewish pair, and Walaa Azaiza is the recipient from the Israeli Arab pair.

The Israeli transplant surgeons are Dr Tony Karam at Rambam Hospital and Dr. Eitan Mor at Sheba Medical Center.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

*As it happens, I've twice had the privilege of  being Dr. Ashkenazi's coauthor (concerning deceased organ donation):

1. Stoler, Avraham,  Judd B. Kessler, Tamar Ashkenazi, Alvin E. Roth, Jacob Lavee, “Incentivizing Authorization for Deceased Organ Donation with Organ Allocation Priority: the First Five Years,” American Journal of Transplantation, Volume 16, Issue 9, September 2016,  2639–2645. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajt.13802/full 

2. Stoler, Avraham, Judd B. Kessler, Tamar Ashkenazi, Alvin E. Roth, Jacob Lavee, “Incentivizing Organ Donor Registrations with Organ Allocation Priority,”, Health Economics, April 2016 online http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hec.3328/full ; doi: 10.1002/hec.3328. In print: Volume: 26   Issue: 4   Pages: 500-510   APR 2017

Stanford celebrates Itai Ashlagi and the UAE-Israel kidney exchange

Here's a Stanford story celebrating Itai Ashlagi's role in this summer's UAE-Israel kidney exchange. (His matching software is embedded in the software suite of the Alliance for Paired Kidney Exchange (AKPD) which is a partner with a remarkable Abu Dhabi effort to further kidney exchange.)

Stanford engineers develop algorithm to aid kidney transplant exchanges. A historic and complex kidney exchange between Israel and Abu Dhabi put a spotlight on the Stanford algorithm that made it all possible. BY ANDREW MYERS.  AUGUST 12, 2021

"A historic kidney transplant exchange recently took place in the Middle East, but it might never have transpired without an algorithm developed at Stanford by Itai Ashlagi, a Stanford associate professor of management science and engineering, and his graduate student Sukolsak Sakshuwong. In all, three ailing recipients received life-sustaining transplants while three healthy donors gave kidneys.

...

"“One of the nice things in the software we developed is the user interface. We collect all the relevant patient data, but then we let the user play with the various thresholds that determine successful matches to see what works for them,” Ashlagi said as he explained the team’s game-like approach to matching. The software acts as a platform and allows different organizations to easily collaborate and create more possibilities for exchanges. “Just a few days ago, I was looking for matches and found an unexpected exchange between pairs from Israel and other European countries. Hopefully, this will lead to new collaborations.”

“Itai’s software was used on both sides of that historic exchange between Abu Dhabi and Israel,” said Alvin Roth, Nobel Laureate and Ashlagi’s mentor and frequent collaborator, who was in Abu Dhabi in connection with the exchange.

"Roth says Ashlagi exemplifies the concept of scientist-engineer and is now a driving force in contemporary kidney exchange through both his deep understanding of the immunological issues of matching kidneys to patients and his intimate appreciation of the needs of transplant centers.

“He’s turned those practical theoretical insights into widely deployed digital tools with the power to change lives,” Roth added. “Having the chance to collaborate with him has been among the best experiences of my intellectual career.”

Kidney Exchange between Israel and the UAE (in USA Today, yesterday)

 I spent a week in the UAE this summer, in connection with a three-pair kidney exchange between the UAE and Israel.  (The UAE is a natural hub for kidney exchange, something I'll say more about in subsequent posts.) Because there were some sensitivities about how it would be publicized, I've  refrained from blogging about it until now, but yesterday's front page story in USA Today met with just about everyone's approval, and so over the next few days I'll post some observations. Today I'll start with the USA Today story, which is gated, but can also be found ungated on Yahoo, here:

How three Jewish and Arab families swapped kidneys, saved their mothers and made history by Marco della Cava, USA TODAY, Wed, September 29, 2021 AM

"At a time when the world seems rife with division and discord, what happened on July 28 reminds how mutual survival often depends on shared humanity triumphing over historical differences.

"In this case, with the assistance of organ transplant experts in the United States, Israel and the United Arab Emirates, three pairs of kidney donors and recipients in Israel and the UAE saved each other in a series of choreographed, pay-it-forward surgeries known as a cyclic exchange.

...

"Just consider the logistics involved in the UAE-Israel exchange. A UAE daughter who was not a match for her mother volunteered to give her kidney to a stranger. An Israeli Arab woman was a match for that kidney, so her husband agreed to donate his kidney to save an Israeli Jewish mother – whose daughter in turn gave her kidney to the sick mother in UAE.

"“The reason we are excited about this is simply because the bigger the pool, the more likely you are to find matches,” says Dr. Michael Rees, a surgeon and founder of the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation, a Toledo, Ohio-based nonprofit instrumental in making this politically groundbreaking kidney transplant chain a reality.

...

"Those communications, however, remain politically sensitive. When asked for comment, officials in the UAE focused less on the partnership with Israel and more on a general need for international cooperation.

"We are pleased that our innovative partnership with the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation has allowed us to help our patients,” says Dr. Ali Al Obaidli, chairman of the UAE National Transplant Committee. He added that a collaborative spirit between countries can be used to “close the gap” for those in need of kidneys.

"The UAE donor daughter and recipient mother asked not to be identified by name or religion. Conversations with those involved in the cyclic exchange say kidneys donated outside the UAE generate negative reactions among some Emirati.

...

"This unique transplant chain began when the 60-something mother in the UAE found out in fall 2020 that she had kidney failure and would soon need to start dialysis or find a new kidney.

"Because her family members were not matches, Rees and his Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation team got to work finding a match, which also involved seeing where her daughter’s donor kidney might go.

"The first step was to plug all the relevant medical details into an algorithm ...

"Also crucial to the process was Roth's Israeli colleague Itai Ashlagi, who had developed software that could instantly mine his native country’s kidney database. While Israel had started to develop transplant relationships with Austria and the Czech Republic, he was excited about this new involvement with the UAE.

“Better to exchange kidneys than bombs,” says Roth, adding that using computers to search the world for medical solutions radically increases the chances of patients getting help. “International boundaries are artificial markers. Kidney disease doesn’t care about that.”

**************

Here's the picture on the USA TODAY front page: Tamar Ashkenazi flew from Israel to UAE with an Israeli kidney, and flew back with the UAE kidney...

************

Here's a USA Today 1-minute video collage of pictures and video accompanying the story:

Daughters from the UAE and Israel put differences aside to save lives in kidney exchange. Three pairs of kidney donors and recipients in Israel and the UAE saved each other in a series of pay-it-forward surgeries known as a cyclic exchange. by Harrison Hill, USA TODAY

I'll have more to say soon, and will link back and forth between posts to make the whole story accessible.

Coffee and civilization, at the Museum of Islamic Art in Jerusalem

“Coffee – East and West” is the title of the new exhibition at the Museum of Islamic Art in Jerusalem." Here's the story from Haaretz:

How Coffee Revolutionized Jerusalem Social Life in the 16th Century  by Ronit Vered

"In the mid-16th century, complaints from residents of Jerusalem reached the palace of the sultan in Istanbul: As a result of the new custom of visiting coffeehouses, which was spreading among the city’s Muslim denizens, many of them were not praying five times a day, as prescribed by Islam.

...

"Those first cafés – others were opened around the same time in Gaza, Ramle, Nablus, Damascus and Aleppo – operated all day and all night, a sensational innovation in the pre-electricity age, when people usually went to bed early.

...

"The presence of the clients, some of whom would be seated in the street, attracted peddlers, who offered skewers of roasted meat, another nuisance and source of dirt. Tobacco was another new pleasure that the authorities and clerics tried to fight – again unsuccessfully – and the smoke of water pipes, sometimes mingled with the aroma of opium, became an inseparable part of the new coffeehouse experience. And because all the clients of these new institutions were men, for whom the public space, both religious and secular, was exclusively reserved in the Ottoman Empire – the coffeehouses were also accused of encouraging homosexuality and of generating an atmosphere liable to give rise to sexual harassment.

...

"“The story of this country is singular, because two coffee traditions coexisted here over time: Ottoman-Turkish-Arabian coffee that is cooked; and Western coffee, which is filtered and prepared by a variety of methods and in different utensils,” says Yahel Shefer, the exhibition’s co-curator (with Noa Berger), who spent the past five years studying the subject and collecting rare items associated with the material culture that sprang up side by side with the social etiquette that accompanies coffee consumption.

...

Coffee, she adds, “also gives rise to a unique institution dedicated to it, which becomes the most popular gathering place in the world. In Palestine, coffeehouses were established in the Ottoman-Arab tradition but also in the European-Western tradition, which was brought by the [German] Templers and by Jewish immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe. In the early 20th century, people in Zion Square in Jerusalem would drink Turkish-Arabian coffee in the morning, and in the afternoon hang out in the famous Café Europa.”

...

"The owners of the Jerusalem cafés opened by the mid-16th century were for the most part Muslims, though they were frequented by Jews and Christians as well. Jewish clerics joined their Muslim colleagues in expressing misgivings about the popular new beverage and the social institution that was springing up around it.

“The first Hebrew mention of a coffeehouse appears in Safed in the 1560s,” says Prof. Yaron Ben-Naeh from the department of Jewish history at the Hebrew University. “The Safed café is mentioned as having a dubious reputation, or in the words of the text, it was a place of ‘frivolous company.’ The religious arbiters of Judaism, like their Muslim counterparts, are undecided about whether it is permitted to drink coffee. Isaac Luria, the holy ‘Ari’ [“Lion,” his epithet], the greatest of the kabbalists, rules that drinking coffee is forbidden, but the believers simply ignore it. No one abides by the prohibitions.”

...

"Early evidence for the institutionalization of a local coffee culture is the existence of the coffee-sellers’ guild, which appears in the records of the Muslim court in Jerusalem in 1590."

Surrogacy in Israel: now available to same sex couples (and single fathers)

 Here's the story from the Washington Post:

Israel’s high court opens the way for same-sex couples to have children via surrogacy  By Claire Parker

"A decision by Israel’s supreme court Sunday paved the way for same-sex couples to have children through surrogacy, capping a decade-old legal battle in what activist groups hailed as a major advance for LGBTQ rights in Israel.

"Restrictions on surrogacy for same-sex couples and single fathers in Israel must be lifted within six months, the court ruled, giving authorities time to prepare for the change while making clear that it is a definitive one

...

"Surrogacy was already permitted for heterosexual couples and single women. The law excluded same-sex couples, however, and some who couldn’t have kids with surrogate mothers in Israel turned to surrogates overseas.

...

"Israel is considered a leader in the Middle East on LGBTQ rights: The state recognizes same-sex marriages performed abroad, and LGBTQ-identifying individuals serve openly in the military and the parliament. Same-sex couples cannot be married in Israel, however, and ultra-Orthodox communities and politicians remain hostile to LGBTQ rights"

The Economics of Covid: The 31st Jerusalem Advanced School in Economic Theory (June 28-30)

This year's event doesn't involve travel. (Next year in Jerusalem!)

The 31st Jerusalem Advanced School in Economic Theory: The Economics of COVID-19 (Online event)

Mon, 28/06/2021 to Wed, 30/06/2021

 

General Director: Eric Maskin (Harvard University)

Co-director: Elchanan Ben-Porath (The Hebrew University)

 

List of lecturers and topics:

Glenn Ellison, MIT: Epidemiological models
Ben Golub, Northwestern University: Supply Chains
Michael Kremer, University of Chicago: Vaccines
Eric Maskin, Harvard University: Mechanism Design for Pandemics
Emily Oster, Brown University: Schools

Parag Pathak, MIT: Priority Schemes 

Fur for fashion banned in Israel

 Here's the story from Ynet:

Israel becomes first country to ban sale of fur in fashion trade.  

"Israel announced a ban Wednesday on the sale of fur in the fashion trade, winning applause from the International Anti-Fur Coalition as the "first entire nation" to impose such a ban

"Environmental Protection Ministry said commerce in animal fur, imports and exports, will be banned except for the needs of research, study or certain religious traditions.

"Fur is used for hats called "shtreimels" worn by some ultra-Orthodox Jews.

"On this historic day, Israel has set an ethical precedent and hopefully other nations shall join them and ban the sale of barbaric and cruel blood fashion fur," the Anti-Fur coalition wrote on its Facebook page.

...

"The ministerial decree is to take effect in six months."

********

And from the Jerusalem Post:

Israel bans sale of fur to fashion industry, first country to do so  by Aaron Reich

"“The fur industry causes the deaths of hundreds of millions of animals worldwide, and inflicts indescribable cruelty and suffering,” Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel said in a statement after signing the amendment, which goes into effect in six months. “Using the skin and fur of wildlife for the fashion industry is immoral and is certainly unnecessary. Animal fur coats cannot cover the brutal murder industry that makes them. Signing these regulations will make the Israeli fashion market more environmentally friendly and far kinder to animals.”

Transplantation across ethnic divisions in Israel

 Transplantation sometimes makes for complicated stories.

Kidney from Jew killed in mob violence goes to Arab woman.  By Hadas Gold and Michael Schwartz, CNN

" Randa Aweis, 58, waited nine years for the organ donation that would change her life.

"An Arab Christian, born in the Old City of Jerusalem, she was relying on regular dialysis sessions as her kidneys failed. Then the call came: A donor kidney was available. Aweis had surgery Monday at Jerusalem's famed Hadassah University Hospital Ein Kerem. When she went under the anaesthetic, she did not know who the donor was.

"Only afterwards did she find out that it was Yigal Yehoshua, a Jewish Israeli man who died in the wave of violence between Jews and Arabs in the Israeli town of Lod.

...

"Yehoshua, 56, was critically injured on May 11 after being attacked by a group of young Arab Israeli men in Lod.

...

"Her surgeon, Dr. Abed Khalaeileh -- a Palestinian born in Jerusalem -- said he and his colleagues simply treat everyone as human beings.

HT: Itai Ashlagi

New Israeli anti-prostitution law: the johns are now criminals

With the new year, the Israeli law that makes it a crime to hire prostitutes goes into effect. 

Haaretz has the story:

 Israel's Anti-prostitution Law Could Start a Revolution, but Only if Authorities Aim Higher--Enforcement, rehabilitation, prevention and education are needed for Israel to truly claim its place among the ranks of progressive countries fighting to end prostitution and human trafficking  by Vered Lee

"In honor of the new calendar year, Israel is joining the list of progressive countries fighting to end prostitution – a list that includes Sweden, Canada, France and Ireland. As of Thursday, it began enforcing a law banning the use of prostitutes.

...

"Moreover, the law doesn’t criminalize people trapped in prostitution, thereby sending the message that they are victims in the eyes of the law. This breaks the old mold and could therefore, for the first time, give them power against the clients and pimps in the prostitution industry. It is also a clear statement that prostitution isn’t a choice, but a lack of choice.

"The law forbidding the use of prostitutes was sponsored by the government. It’s a temporary law that will remain in effect for five years, during which its impact will be studied. One of the law’s important provisions is that it requires the state to offer rehabilitation to people trapped in the prostitution industry.

...

"Now that a legal and public spotlight is being shined on prostitutes’ clients, it must be said clearly that the time has come not only to punish them, but also to rehabilitate them. Just recently, nauseating Israeli sex tourism to the United Arab Emirates has hit the headlines. This isn’t a new problem; Israeli sex tourists are also infamous in Thailand.

"But on the day the law to fight the local prostitution industry came into force, Israel also committed to fight the consumption of paid sex by its citizens overseas and to try to prevent the problem from migrating to other countries."

Auction of art from Jerusalem museum postponed at the last moment

The Guardian has the latest:

Auction for Jerusalem museum’s treasures postponed at last minute--Sotheby’s in London had been due to sell more than 200 items from cash-strapped museum  by Oliver Holmes 

The plan was that Sotheby's would sell a set of artifacts today from the Mayer Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem.

Select Works from the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art | Jerusalem--Live Auction: 27 October 2020 • 10:30 AM GMT • London (now postponed)

Unsurprisingly, this sale drew some opposition.

Here's the story from Haaretz:

Now on Display at the Jerusalem Museum for Islamic Art: Selloff--Financially strained, the L.A. Mayer Museum is auctioning off dozens of rare items, despite harsh criticism: 'They’re going for the easy way out'    by Naama Riba

Trading truthfulness for efficiency in the Israeli medical internship market, by Ariel Rosenfeld and Avinatan Hassidim

Too smart for their own good: Trading truthfulness for efficiency in the Israeli medical internship market, by Ariel Rosenfeld and Avinatan Hassidim, Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 15, No. 5, September 2020

Abstract: The two most fundamental notions in mechanism design are truthfulness and efficiency. In many market settings, such as the classic one-sided matching/assignment setting, these two properties partially conflict, creating a trade-off which is rarely examined in the real-world. In this article, we investigate this trade-off through the high-stakes Israeli medical internship market. This market used to employ a standard truthful yet sub-optimal mechanism and it has recently transitioned to an “almost” truthful, more efficient mechanism. Through this in-the-field study, spanning over two years, we study the interns’ behavior using both official data and targeted surveys. We first identify that substantial strategic behaviors are exercised by the participants, virtually eliminating any efficiency gains from the transition. In order to mitigate the above, we performed an intervention in which conclusive evidence was provided showing that, for most of the interns, reporting truthfully was much better than what they actually did. Unfortunately, a re-examination of the market reveals that our intervention had only minor effects. These results combine to question the practical benefits of “almost” truthfulness in real-world market settings and shed new light on the typical truthfulness-efficiency trade-off."

Here's their description of the prior, inefficient random serial dictatorship rule:

"For about two and a half decades, until 2014, each intern was asked to submit her ranking of the hospitals relevant for her graduation class, and the assignment itself was decided by the RSD mechanism (with a few minor house rules aimed at providing special treatment for special intern groups such as PhD students and parents of young children), which has come to be known as the Internship Lottery. Up until a few years ago when the system was finally computerized, interns physically gathered in a large auditorium and ID numbers were drawn out of a hat. The RSDT mechanism has been deployed since 2014 in an attempt to increase efficiency (Bronfman et al., 2015) (see (Roth & Shorrer, 2015) for a review and discussion on the transition choice)."

And here (out of the sequence in the paper) is a quick description of the new, efficient mechanism.

"To mitigate the fact that the probability vectors induced by the RSD mechanism may be far from optimal, the RSDT mechanism was proposed: First, after each intern submits a ranked list of hospitals, a large number of RSD simulations is performed to approximate the true probability vector for each intern. Then, using a fitted utility function over probability vectors (learned through structured surveys), probabilities are automatically traded between the interns though a Linear Program (LP) which optimizes social welfare. The LP guarantees that each intern’s expected utility (given the utility function) is no-worse than what she had before the trade."

**************

Related post:

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Redesigning the Israeli Medical Internship Match

Incentive compatibility is not enough: evidence from the Israeli matching market for psychologists, by Hassidim, Romm and Shorrer

While it has taken some time for this paper to be published, I think it was the first to discover that some applicants in a labor market clearinghouse organized as an applicant proposing deferred acceptance algorithm were systematically misrepresenting their preferences, perhaps out of confusion. (This has since been observed in other markets as well.)  Their data are from the Israeli match for psychology graduate programs, which the authors also designed and organized.

Online early in Management Science:

The Limits of Incentives in Economic Matching Procedures
Avinatan Hassidim, Assaf Romm, Ran I. Shorrer
Published Online:13 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2020.3591

Abstract: Organizations often require agents’ private information to achieve critical goals such as efficiency or revenue maximization, but frequently it is not in the agents’ best interest to reveal this information. Strategy-proof mechanisms give agents incentives to truthfully report their private information. In the context of matching markets, they eliminate agents’ incentives to misrepresent their preferences. We present direct field evidence of preference misrepresentation under the strategy-proof deferred acceptance in a high-stakes matching environment. We show that applicants to graduate programs in psychology in Israel often report that they prefer to avoid receiving funding, even though the mechanism preserves privacy and funding comes with no strings attached and constitutes a positive signal of ability. Surveys indicate that other kinds of preference misrepresentation are also prevalent. Preference misrepresentation in the field is associated with weaker applicants. Our findings have important implications for practitioners designing matching procedures and for researchers who study them.

Kidney Exchange in Israel (supported by Itai Ashlagi)

Dr. Tamar Ashkenazi, the head of the Israel National Transplant Center, writes in Maariv:

בשורה חשובה לחולים בארץ: הקמת המאגר הארצי להשתלות מוצלבות
רופאים משתילי כליות ונפרולוגים הגדירו את הכללים למציאת התאמות כמו נוגדנים, זמן המתנה להשתלה ועוד. כללים אלו הוגדרו בתוכנת ההצלבות של המרכז להשתלות
ד"ר תמר אשכנזי
Google translate: Important news for patients in Israel: The establishment of the national crossover transplant reservoir
Kidney transplant doctors and nephrologists have defined the rules for finding matches like antibodies, waiting time for transplant and more. These rules were defined in the Transplant Center's cross-over software.  by Dr. Tamar Ashkena

"The National Kidney-Exchange Transplant Database was established this year as part of the National Transplant Center's activities. One of the developers of the exchange program, Prof. Itai Ashlagi an Israeli who teaches at Stanford University in the USA, regularly assists the program. Kidney transplant and nephrologists have defined the rules for finding matches such as antibodies, waiting time for transplantation and more. Since April 2019, a number of exchanges have been found, and the record of course was a chain of six transplants jointly with the Czech Republic last month. Collaboration with other countries increases the possibility of finding accommodations, and this is important news for patients in the country. We call on all patients whose family members have not been found suitable to donate a kidney, which will join the national and international pool." 

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Itai mentions that Sukolsak Sakshuwong, a PhD student at Stanford from Thailand, has been instrumental in developing the software.

International kidney exchange between Israel and Czech Republic

The news embargo is over for last week's kidney exchange chain between Israel and the Czech Republic. (On the Israeli side, the necessary software was supplied by Itai Ashlagi, here at Stanford.)

Itai writes:
"Some background: in August 2019 there was an agreement between Israel and Czech republic to check the possibility of kidney exchanges. This was initiated by Prof. Eitan Mor from Israel  and Dr. Proniak from the Czech Republic and the whole operation was conducted by the national Israeli center for transplantation led by Dr. Tamar Askenazi and their counterpart in Czech republic."

The Israeli database contains a list of all pairs, and uses kidney exchange software donated to Israel by Itai Ashlagi and Sukolsak Sakshuwong.   Czech software was used in Prague to identify the chain.

Here's the story from News1 in Israel:

6 transplants thanks to the exchange of kidney donations between Israel and the Czech Republic

"At 5 a.m., two kidneys from two donors were removed from Beilinson Hospital. One kidney was packed in ice cooler and transported by ambulance to Ben Gurion Airport.

"About an hour after taking off from Israel, an operation to remove a Czech donor kidney was started at the Prague Hospital. At the same time, Bilinson's second kidney was transplanted, and surgery was performed to remove a kidney at Hadassah Hospital – which was transported by ambulance to Bilinson's transplant.

"At 12:30 the kidney cooler from Israel landed at the Prague airport. A vehicle was waiting by the plane and moved to the mirroring spot. At this point, Dr. Jiri Froniac, director of the Prague Transplant Program and Dr. Ashkenazi from Israel, met and exchanged documents while the coolers were [scanned].

"At the same time, the kidney from Hadassah Hospital was transferred to Beilinson for a transplant. An hour later, the Israeli plane took off from Prague back to Israel with a cooler containing the kidney from the Czech donor. The kidney came to the operating room in Hadassah and before the evening was transplanted in a patient.
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Diagram of the exchange between IKEM in the Czech Republic and Hadassah and Beilinson Hospitals in Israel

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Here's the story in the Jerusalem Post (I don't have a link yet, this is a picture):

And see this related older story about Itai Ashlagi's software:

New software to help increase kidney matches for transplants

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And here is the story in the Czech news, forwarded by Pavel Chromy.

Čeští lékaři poprvé provedli párovou výměnu ledvin s Izraelem
[Google translate: Czech doctors first performed paired kidney replacement with Israel]
"In the first half of December, doctors from the Prague Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (IKEM) and two Israeli hospitals performed their first paired kidney exchange between the two countries. Three beneficiaries from the Czech Republic and three from Israel received the new authority. This is the first time a pair exchange has taken place with a non-European country, said IKEM director Michal Stiborek at a press conference."

Surrogacy among religious Jews in Israel

Surrogacy law is not entirely simple in Israel (e.g. the intended parents must be a heterosexual married couple), but it appears that there isn't a religious barrier.  Here's a story in the Jerudalem Post of a religious woman who was a commercial surrogate for a religious couple:

BREAKING THE STIGMA OF SURROGACY... among the religious
BY GADI DEUTSCH

"How did this become more popular among religious women?
“It was after the Carmel Forest fire disaster. One of the people who died was 16-year-old Elad Riban, who’d been an only child. His mother wanted to have another child to help her overcome her trauma, and a married friend of hers agreed to serve as a surrogate, for no fee.

“So they approached Rabbi Shlomo Amar, who said that through a ruling that had been made by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, they’d found a way to allow it. Once this was allowed for one baby, that set a precedent for others. In other words, not only was there no concern of the baby having mamzer status [an illigitemate child] according to Jewish law, but it was officially allowed. The Puah Institute has also officially allowed married women to act as surrogates. Another advantage for surrogates being married is that they can receive support from their spouses throughout the pregnancy and birth.”
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Here's a related earlier post:

Sunday, March 9, 2014  Surrogacy law in Israel

Game theory post docs at the Technion

Ido Erev sends the following announcement

Post-Doc Positions
The Game Theory Group at the Technion is inviting applications for fully funded postdoctoral positions in Game Theory (broadly defined).

As a postdoc at our group, you will work with a varied team comprised of both leading researchers and young, highly motivated colleagues, all of whom are passionate about topics at the intersection of computer science, economics, operations research, and game theory. 

Requirements:  (1) A PhD degree obtained between October 1, 2015 and September 30, 2020. (2) Evidence of successful research accomplishments (discipline dependent; e.g., in CS, such evidence would usually be publications at top-tier conferences).

If you fit this profile and are passionate about an academic research career path, we would love to hear from you. Women are particularly encouraged to apply.

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis until positions are filled. The exact starting date is flexible/negotiable. Positions are for 1 year and are renewable for up to 3 years. There are no teaching duties (in some cases, compensation for performing additional teaching duties may be arranged). Further information is available online at: https://gametheory.net.technion.ac.il 

Applications should be addressed to GameTheory@technion.ac.il and should include:
1. a)    CV
2. b)    One representing research paper (possibly published)
3. c)    A short research statement (no more than 200 words)
4. d)    3 recommendation letters (please ask for these to be sent directly to GameTheory@technion.ac.il)

Typically post-doctoral scholarships range from $25,000 to $40,000 per year and carry no teaching duties. Note that scholarship income is not taxed in Israel and this may apply to non-residents through tax treaties. Also, the cost of living in Haifa is comparatively low. For example, the monthly rental of a one/two bedroom apartment in Haifa costs around $500-$800. For general information about doing a postdoc at the Technion, visit the Technion International School.
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My two cents: Haifa is a very agreeable city, and Ido Erev is one of the most exciting scientists I know...

An Israeli gay couple recount their American surrogacy experience

Twins, no less, after a journey through U.S. surrogacy by a gay Israeli couple, from Haaretz:

Two for the Price of One: An Israeli Gay Couple's American Journey to Fatherhood By Hilo Glazer

"From the moment surrogacy for Israeli gay men swung away from Asia and landed in the American kingdom of capitalism, having a baby became a complex spreadsheet in which every row carries a price tag.
...
"We continued shopping in the most experienced agency in the gay fathers’ realm in Israel, which was founded by a marketing man. He mentioned two options: an American route and a Canadian route. The Canadian path is at least 100,000 shekels cheaper because there’s no need to pay the surrogate mother. How so? In Canada, surrogacy is, by law, completely altruistic, the marketing man explained, and the women are good Christians who want “to grant people the right to raise a family.” He added, with a thin smile, that these surrogate mothers receive “enlarged reimbursement of expenses,” and hinted that this was a way to get around the Canadian ban on paid surrogacy.
...
"The first step is to find an egg donor. In this field, America really is the land of opportunity – with a price range to match. We paid the low rate ($8,000) because we made do with the database of candidates that’s attached to the clinic and for which there’s “no charge” to access. It’s a pretty limited database, with about 15 candidates at any given moment.

"But hey, this is America, so there’s no upgrade that money can’t buy. An additional payment of $8,500 to $20,000 provides access to premium databases. There’s one consisting of donors who are models (they call it “donors who look like you,” and you can select the desirable physical qualities), while there’s another of donors who are Ivy League graduates. Unfortunately, there’s no overlap between the databases. An egg from a Jewish donor will cost more – around $20,000 (half to the agency, half to the donor). All told, if you go with the select databases, the cost of the egg donation can reach $35,000.
...
"The next stage, then, is to find the surrogate. The clinic put us in touch with five agencies for surrogates, each of which controls a different region of the country.

Because demand for surrogate mothers exceeds supply, hooking up with an agency doesn’t ensure an available woman when the contract is signed. The average waiting time is between four months and a year and a half. We were ready to pay in order not to lose momentum, and we went for the fastest option. The supply of surrogates available in Oregon, where the clinic was situated, had run out, so we had to expand into new territory...
...
"After two weeks, we were informed that a suitable candidate had been found...24, married and the mother of an 18-month-old girl, a part-time preschool teacher living in Oklahoma City. (Motherhood is a condition for surrogacy so that there are no known complications preventing the woman from giving birth.) Oklahoma is considered part of the Bible Belt, but Tiffany, for one, wasn’t put off by the fact that we were a gay couple.
...
"Spreading out the surrogate’s salary over nine months is liable to cause a conflict of interest with her. The classic dilemma is whether to have amniocentesis (generally performed at the start of the second trimester). It’s the most reliable indicator of the embryo’s health but also increases the risk of a miscarriage – a scenario we would obviously not want, but one more fraught with problems for the woman. She, after all, would have endured a rigorous selection process, taken medications, undergone invasive medical procedures, and in the case of a miscarriage, would be rewarded for only a few weeks of work.
...
"American agencies now customarily offer clients a “guarantee to baby” option: In return for a fixed price, the clinic undertakes “to provide” a baby, no matter how many attempts this entails. The deal is also valid for unsuccessful embryo transfer and in case of a miscarriage. Guided by fear of failure and of the need to make a double payment, we – and pretty much all the other couples who face a similar dilemma – opted for the “all inclusive” rate.
...
"The bonus of the visit to Portland was a meeting with the egg donor ...
Into the room came a delicate young woman of 21...accompanied by her fiancé ... She’s a nursing student, he’s starting med school, and both aspire to do volunteer work in plague-ridden regions of Africa.
...
[The surrogate] Tiffany’s life story, which we heard about during her hospitalization, raised a host of ethical questions that had been pushed aside once we’d opted for First World surrogacy over one in India.
... Was her economic plight fundamentally different from the distress of an imagined Indian surrogate mother? Wasn’t the medical risk she took the same? Could we be certain that she had volunteered for the process and not been pushed into it by a relative? Wasn’t her basic salary – about $30,000 – too small compared with the payments received by the doctors and the mediators?  "
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Here's a subsequent story from Haaretz (not related to the particular couple above):

Jewish Agency offers loans to staff seeking surrogacy abroad
For the first time in history, a state entity is offering its employees support for the extremely expensive procedure, which is denied to gay men in Israel by law