Scientific honors and gender gaps

 Changing from an old equilibrium to a new one can involve some actions that may not persist once a new equilibrium is reached.  Here's a paper on the awarding of scientific honors.

Gender Gaps at the Academies by David Card, Stefano DellaVigna, Patricia Funk & Nagore Iriberri

NBER WORKING PAPER 30510  DOI 10.3386/w30510  September 2022

"Historically, a large majority of the newly elected members of the National Academy of Science (NAS) and the American Academy of Arts and Science (AAAS) were men. Within the past two decades, however, that situation has changed, and in the last 3 years women made up about 40 percent of the new members in both academies. We build lists of active scholars from publications in the top journals in three fields – Psychology, Mathematics and Economics – and develop a series of models to compare changes in the probability of selection of women as members of the NAS and AAAS from the 1960s to today, controlling for publications and citations. In the early years of our sample, women were less likely to be selected as members than men with similar records. By the 1990s, the selection process at both academies was approximately gender-neutral, conditional on publications and citations. In the past 20 years, however, a positive preference for female members has emerged and strengthened in all three fields. Currently, women are 3-15 times more likely to be selected as members of the AAAS and NAS than men with similar publication and citation records."

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That paper is a followup to their previous paper on Econometric Society Fellows, which has just come out in the current issue of Econometrica:

ECONOMETRICA: SEP 2022, VOLUME 90, ISSUE 5

Gender Differences in Peer Recognition by Economists

https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA18027
p. 1937-1971

David Card, Stefano DellaVigna, Patricia Funk, Nagore Iriberri

We study the selection of Fellows of the Econometric Society, using a new data set of publications and citations for over 40,000 actively publishing economists since the early 1900s. Conditional on achievement, we document a large negative gap in the probability that women were selected as Fellows in the 1933–1979 period. This gap became positive (though not statistically significant) from 1980 to 2010, and in the past decade has become large and highly significant, with over a 100% increase in the probability of selection for female authors relative to males with similar publications and citations. The positive boost affects highly qualified female candidates (in the top 10% of authors) with no effect for the bottom 90%. Using nomination data for the past 30 years, we find a key proximate role for the Society's Nominating Committee in this shift. Since 2012, the Committee has had an explicit mandate to nominate highly qualified women, and its nominees enjoy above‐average election success (controlling for achievement). Looking beyond gender, we document similar shifts in the premium for geographic diversity: in the mid‐2000s, both the Fellows and the Nominating Committee became significantly more likely to nominate and elect candidates from outside the United States. Finally, we examine gender gaps in several other major awards for U.S. economists. We show that the gaps in the probability of selection of new fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences closely parallel those of the Econometric Society, with historically negative penalties for women turning to positive premiums in recent years.

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Update: here's the published version of the NBER paper, in PNAS, JANUARY 24, 2023, VOL. 120, NO. 4:

Gender gaps at the academies

David Card https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6914-6698 card@econ.berkeley.edu, Stefano DellaVigna, Patricia Funk, and Nagore Iriberri

This contribution is part of the special series of Inaugural Articles by members of the National Academy of Sciences elected in 2021. January 19, 2023 120 (4) e2212421120

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2212421120

Elizabeth "Betsy" E. Bailey (1939-2022)

 Betsey Bailey, an economist of many parts, has passed away.

I knew of her both as an academic dean at CMU and as a proponent of airline deregulation, in theory and practice.  The theory had to do with the idea that even markets with big players who had lots of market share might be perfectly competitive (and hence not need lots of regulation) if they were "contestable," i.e. if new entrants could enter the market at low cost if they saw profitable opportunities.  The idea was that the airline market would keep prices low to ward off new entrants, or entry by competitors into profitable routes.  Her stint on the Civil Aviation Board led to much reduced regulation of commercial airlines, after which airlines adopted the 'hub and spoke' patterns we see today. (When they were regulated, airline routes looked more like railroads, e.g. some had northern routes, some southern...)

Here's the Washington Post obituary:

Elizabeth Bailey, pathbreaker for women in economics, dies at 83. She was the first woman to receive a PhD in economics from Princeton and helped deregulate airlines as the first woman on the Civil Aeronautics Board  By Emily Langer

"Dr. Bailey, 83, who died Aug. 19 at her home in Reston, Va., was widely credited with opening opportunities for women in her field.

"In 1972, she became the first woman to receive a PhD in economics from Princeton University. Five years later, President Jimmy Carter appointed her the first female member of the Civil Aeronautics Board, where she helped provide the intellectual framework for the deregulation of the airline industry.

...

"Later, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Dr. Bailey became the first woman to serve as dean of a Top 10 graduate business school."

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See 

Morrison, Steven A., Clifford Winston, Elizabeth E. Bailey, and Alfred E. Kahn. "Enhancing the performance of the deregulated air transportation system." Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. Microeconomics 1989 (1989): 61-123.

Bailey, Elizabeth E., David R. Graham, and Daniel P. Kaplan. Deregulating the airlines. Vol. 10. MIT press, 1985.

Bailey, Elizabeth E., and William J. Baumol. "Deregulation and the theory of contestable markets." Yale J. on Reg. 1 (1983): 111.

Coordinating the timing of the market for new Economics Ph.D.s: guidance from the AEA

 Here's an email broadcast by the American Economic Association, aimed to promote market thickness by avoiding unraveling and dealing with congestion:

AEA Guidance on Timeline for 2022-23 Economics Job Cycle

 July 1, 2022

To: Members of the American Economic Association
From: Peter L. Rousseau, Secretary-Treasurer
Subject: AEA Guidance on Timeline for 2022-23 Economics Job Cycle

The AEA Executive Committee, in conjunction with its Committee on the Job Market, recognizes that it is to the benefit of the profession if the job market for economists is thick, with many employers and job candidates participating in the same stages at the same time.  Moreover, the AEA's goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion are fostered by having a timeline that remains widely known and accepted, ensuring that candidates can correctly anticipate when each stage will occur. With these goals in mind, and in light of inquiries from both students and departments about how to proceed, the AEA asks that departments and other employers consider the following timeline for initial interviews and “flyouts” in the upcoming job cycle (2022-23).  

Interview invitations
The AEA suggests that employers wait to extend interview invitations until the day after job market signals are transmitted to employers.

Rationale: the AEA created the signaling mechanism to reduce the problem of asymmetric information and allow job candidates to credibly signal their interest to two employers. The AEA asks that employers wait to extend interview invitations until those signals have been transmitted, and to use that information to finalize their set of candidates to interview. This helps the job market in several ways: it reduces the problem of imperfect information, it helps ensure a thick market at each stage, and it promotes the AEA’s goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Job candidates from historically under-represented groups may lack informal networks and thus may especially rely on the signals to convey their interest. Waiting to review the signals before issuing invitations promotes a fairer, more equitable process.

We also ask that all employers indicate on EconTrack when they have extended interview invitations; this allows candidates to learn about the status of searches without visiting websites posting crowd-sourced information and potentially inappropriate other content.

Interviews
The AEA recommends that employers conduct initial interviews starting on Monday, January 2, 2023, and strongly recommends that all interviews take place virtually (e.g. by Zoom). We suggest that interviews not take place during the AEA meeting itself (January 6-8, 2023).

Rationale: In the past, interviews were conducted in person at the AEA/ASSA meetings. This promoted thickness of the market, because most candidates and employers were present at the in-person meetings, but had the disadvantage of precluding both job candidates and interviewers from fully participating in AEA/ASSA sessions. 

Interviews should now be conducted virtually to prevent risk of exposure to COVID, and to promote equity among the candidates. Informal feedback to the AEA committee on the job market indicated that the benefits of virtual first-round interviews (e.g. low monetary cost, zero cost in travel time, convenience) outweighed the limitations (e.g. less rich interaction).

We recommend that employers wait until January 2 to interview candidates because job candidates may have teaching or TA responsibilities in December. Moreover, having a clear start date for interviews will help candidates to have accurate expectations of the timing of the stages of the market. An unraveling of the market works against the AEA’s goal of having a thick market at each stage and also works against candidates having uniform expectations of the timing of each stage of the market.

We ask that interviews NOT take place during the AEA/ASSA meetings (January 6-8, 2023) in order to allow job candidates and interviewers to participate in the conference.

Flyouts and offers
Flyouts and offers have historically happened at times appropriate for the employer, and the AEA sees no reason to suggest otherwise.  We ask that all employers indicate on EconTrack when they have extended flyout invitations and closed their searches. Unlike with interviews, the AEA does not take a position on whether flyouts should be virtual or in-person.

Job market institutions and mechanisms
Please keep in mind the various job market institutions and mechanisms created by the AEA to improve the job market:

·       The JOE Network includes a database of job openings for economists.

o   Employers may sign up here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/employer.

o   Job candidates may search the database here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/listings.

o   The JOE Network has an electronic clearinghouse for job candidates to submit job applications. Job candidates may register here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/candidate.

·       The AEA Committee on the Job Market releases data and guidance on the job market here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/communications.

·       EconTrack: a board on which employers can indicate when they have extended interview and flyout invitations, and closed their search: https://www.aeaweb.org/econtrack.

Thank you for helping to ensure a transparent and equitable job market for new Ph.D. economists.  

Scott Cunningham's Mixtape Podcast Interview with Alvin Roth

 Here's Scott Cunningham's Mixtape Podcast Interview with Alvin Roth... "We discuss Gale and Shapley, Roth and Sotomayor, game theory and more"

You can listen to our conversation at the link above.  He drew me out about some things I hadn't thought of in a while, such as my varied relationships with Gale, Shapley and Bob Wilson, and how my ideas about matching markets developed over the course of my career (which started in Operations Research and then morphed into Economics...)

He also reveals the manner in which he was the perfect reader of my 1990 book Two-Sided Matching with Marilda Sotomayor. 

His site is multi-media, if you scroll down you'll find a video (the one below in on YouTube), and if you keep scrolling down you'll find an essay he wrote called "Paying it Forward..." which recounts more about what our book meant to him and some of our subsequent interactions over the years. And below that is his Transcript of [our] podcast interview, for those who prefer to read rather than listen or watch.

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I've had occasion to blog about Scott:

Friday, February 16, 2018

Sex work, Craigslist, and the law; podcast with Scott Cunningham

Here's a link to an interview with Scott Cunningham, whose work on sex work I've blogged about before. There's a surprising amount of discussion about causal inference and differences in differences. (I always suspected that econometrics was sexy, but this is the first time I’ve heard a podcast about that.)

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

The accidental experiment with legal prostitution in Rhode Island

A scholarly paper and an easy to read-or-listen-to NPR report recount the period in which indoor prostitution was legal in Rhode Island.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The Craigslist market for erotic/adult services

Price gouging laws are unpopular with economists

 Chicago Booth's Initiative on Global Markets recently polled their panel of academic economists in the U.S. on whether a new law banning price gouging would be useful. Almost no one thought that would be a good idea:

Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of CERGE-EI: Supporting Excellence in Economic Research and Education in Post-Communist Societies

In 1990, when I was on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh (where I happily taught from 1982-1998), my colleague Jan Svenjar was instrumental in founding  a graduate program in Economics at Charles University, which soon after became  CERGE-EI, which is now about to celebrate it's 30th anniversary.  It is an appropriate time once again to be thinking about post-communist Europe.

Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of CERGE-EI: Supporting Excellence in Economic Research and Education in Post-Communist Societies

Tuesday, April 26, 2022 ● 4:00 p.m. Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, New York City

CERGE-EI has reached a pivotal moment of change in its history. The 30th Anniversary Celebration of CERGE-EI, hosted by the CERGE-EI U.S. Foundation in conjunction with the Consulate General of the Czech Republic in New York, will be both a reflection of CERGE-EI’s impact over the last thirty years and an opportunity to lay out our vision for the future.

The war in Ukraine and its impact on the surrounding region have established that the Cold War whose ending we celebrated more than 30 years ago has revived and is heating up. Now more than ever, initiatives to raise the standards of economics education and leadership have a critical role to play in supporting national and regional stability.

For the 30th Anniversary, we are honored to be supported by a Host Committee of Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences Laureates.

Professor
Francis Fukuyama

Professor
Deirdre McCloskey

Professor
Sir Angus Deaton

Professor
Paul Krugman

Professor
Branko Milanović

Professor
Jeffrey Sachs

Professor
Jan Švejnar

2022 ESA World Meetings

 2022 Economic Science Association (ESA*) World Meetings  at MIT,  June 13-16

The 2022 World Economic Science Association Conference will be held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management.

The Main ESA Conference will take place from Monday evening, June 13 (welcome reception) through Thursday, June 16, 2022. 

The Eighth Biennial Meeting of the Social Dilemmas Working Group will take place on Friday and Saturday, June 17 and 18, 2022.

Keynote speakers:

Lorenz Goette National University of Singapore and  University of Bonn 

Brit Grosskopf University of Exeter

Amanda Pallais Harvard University

Deadline for abstract submissions: March 14, 2022

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The Economic Science Association isn't the only ESA having a meeting in 2022. But if you are looking for one of these others you aren't yet in the right place:

2022 Annual Meeting - Ecological Society of America

2022 Joint Annual Meeting | Entomological Society of America

2022 Congress - European Surgical Association

European Symposium on Algorithms: ESA

Apply for 2022 | esaparis - European Studies Association

ESA - 2022 Schedule - European Space Agency

Congratulations to 51 new Econometric Society Fellows of 2021

 This year there are 51 new Fellows of the Econometric Society:

Congratulations to our 2021 Fellows  

Jaap Abbring, Tilburg University

Chunrong Ai, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

Ufuk Akcigit, University of Chicago

Simon Board, University of California, Los Angeles

Antonio Cabrales, Universidad Carlos III, Madrid

Arnaud Costinot, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Peter Cramton, University of Cologne and University of Maryland (Emeritus)

Stefano Dellavigna, University of California, Berkeley

Prosper Dovonon, Concordia University, Montreal

Christian Dustmann, University College London

Graham Elliot, University of California, San Diego

Marcella Eslava, Universidad de los Andes

Armin Falk, University of Bonn

Oded Galor, Brown University

Yuriy Gorodnichenko, University of California, Berkeley

Veronica Guerrieri, University of Chicago

Luigi Guiso, Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance

Bard Harstad, University of Oslo

Erik Hurst, University of Chicago

Patrick Kline, University of California, Berkeley

Fuhito Kojima, University of Tokyo

Botond Koszegi, Central European University

Rim Lahmandi-Ayed, University of Carthage

John Leahy, University of Michigan

Sydney Ludvigson, New York University

Ulrike Malmendier, University of California, Berkeley

Ramon Marimon, European University Institute

Alexandre Mas, Princeton University

Atif Mian, Princeton University

Magne Mogstad, University of Chicago

Benjamin Moll, London School of Economics

Sendhil Mullainathan, University of Chicago

Victor Murinde, SOAS University of London

Emi Nakamura, University of California, Berkeley

Volker Nocke, University of Mannheim

Nathan Nunn, Harvard University

Rohini Pande, Yale University

Bruce Preston, University of Melbourne

James Robinson, University of Chicago

Christina Romer, University of California, Berkeley

Antoinette Schoar, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Matthew Shum, California Institute of Technology

Rohini Somanathan, Delhi School of Economics and University of Gothenberg

Stefanie Stantcheva, Harvard University

Wing Suen, University of Hong Kong

Balazs Szentes, London School of Economics

Silvana Tenreyro, London School of Economics

Aleh Tsyvinski, Yale University

Nicolas Vieille, HEC, Paris

Ebonya Washington, Yale University

Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, Paris School of Economics

 The Society is grateful for the work of its 2021 Fellows Nominating Committee consisting of Dirk Bergemann (Chair), Xiaohong Chen, Itzhak Gilboa, Kate Ho, Dilip Mookherjee, Monika Piazzesi, and Hélène Rey. 

Publication Date: Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Keeping the market for new economists thick: AEA guidelines on timing of interviews

 Below are some guidelines suggested by the American Economic Association for the conduct of this year's job market for new Ph.D.s

AEA Guidance on Timeline for 2021-22 Economics Job Cycle

"The AEA Executive Committee, in conjunction with its ad hoc Committee on the Job Market, recognizes that it is to the benefit of the profession if the job market for economists is thick, with many employers and job candidates participating in the same stages at the same time.  Moreover, the AEA's goals of fairness, inclusion, and diversity are fostered by having a timeline that remains widely accepted, even as public health conditions necessitate a virtual ASSA meeting again this year. With these goals in mind, and in light of inquiries from both students and departments about how to proceed, the Association asks that departments and other employers consider the following timeline for initial interviews and “flyouts” in the upcoming job cycle.

Interview invitations
The AEA suggests that employers wait to extend interview invitations until at least Thursday, December 2, 2021.

Rationale: the AEA will deliver signals from job candidates to employers on December 1. We suggest that employers review those signals and incorporate them into their decision-making before extending interview invitations. Job candidates from under-represented groups may lack informal networks and thus, may especially rely on the signals to convey their interest. Waiting to review the signals before issuing invitations promotes a fairer, more equitable process.

We also ask that all employers indicate on EconTrack when they have extended interview invitations; this allows candidates to learn about the status of searches without visiting websites posting crowd-sourced information and potentially inappropriate other content.

Interviews
The AEA suggests that employers conduct initial interviews starting on Monday, January 3, 2022, and that all interviews take place virtually; i.e. either by phone or online (e.g. by Zoom). We suggest that interviews not take place during the AEA meeting itself (January 7-9, 2022).

Rationale: In the past, interviews were conducted in person at the AEA/ASSA meetings. This promoted thickness of the market, because most candidates and employers were present at the in-person meetings, but had the disadvantage of precluding both job candidates and interviewers from fully participating in AEA/ASSA sessions. Given that the 2022 AEA/ASSA meetings will be entirely virtual, we suggest that interviews NOT take place on the meeting dates to allow job candidates and interviewers to participate in the conference.

We recommend that employers wait until January 3 to interview candidates because job candidates may have teaching or TA responsibilities in December, and to ensure that candidates have accurate expectations of the timing of the stages of the market. An unraveling of the market works against the Association’s goal of having a thick market at each stage and also against candidates having uniform expectations of the market’s timing. All interviews should be conducted by phone or online to prevent risk of exposure to COVID, and to promote equity among the candidates.

Flyouts and offers
Flyouts and offers generally happen at times appropriate for the employer, and the AEA sees no reason to suggest otherwise.  We ask that all employers indicate on EconTrack when they have extended flyout invitations and closed their searches.

Job market institutions and mechanisms
Please keep in mind the various job market institutions and mechanisms created by the AEA to improve the job market:

• The JOE Network includes a database of job openings for economists.

  • Employers may sign up here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/employer.

  • Job candidates may search the database here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/listings.

  • The JOE Network has an electronic clearinghouse for job candidates to submit job applications. Job candidates may register here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/candidate.

• The AEA ad hoc Committee on the Job Market releases data and guidance on the job market here: https://www.aeaweb.org/joe/communications.

• EconTrack: a board on which employers can indicate when they have extended interview and flyout invitations, and closed their search: https://www.aeaweb.org/econtrack.

• EconSpark: a moderated forum in which one can discuss topics of interest to the profession, including the job market: https://www.aeaweb.org/forum/categories.

Thank you for your attention to this initiative."

David Cooper to lead Econ at Iowa

 Iowa celebrates David Cooper as new head of Economics. (Iowa was a leading department in experimental economics, in the early days of experiments in economics).

Experimental economist David J. Cooper is new head of Tippie Department of Economics

"David J. Cooper, a leading researcher and widely published author in experimental economics, is the new departmental executive officer for the Department of Economics at the Tippie College of Business.

"Cooper, 54, comes to Iowa after 14 years on the faculty of the Florida State University College of Social Sciences and Public Policy. He has been the director of Florida State’s experimental social sciences cluster since 2011.

Amy Kristof-Brown, dean of the Tippie College of Business, says Cooper’s scholarly record as an experimental economist and his administrative experience running Florida State’s experimental social sciences cluster stood out.

...

"Cooper says that Tippie’s Department of Economics was one of the top 25 in the nation when he was in graduate school, and he said he is eager to lead a department that once produced such legendary economists as Frank Knight, Edward Chamberlin, and Howard Bowen, who would go on to become president of the University of Iowa.

“My goal is to build a cohesive group of researchers and give the department the recognition it once had,” he says."

The Art of Experimental Economics: Twenty Top Papers Reviewed , edited by Gary Charness and Mark Pingle

 Here's a forthcoming book that provides a unique and entertaining review of twenty influential papers in experimental economics. Katie Coffman and I wrote the review of the classic 2007 paper on gender and competition by Niederle and Vesterlund.

The Art of Experimental Economics: Twenty Top Papers Reviewed  Edited By Gary Charness, Mark Pingle  Forthcoming by Routledge

Item will ship after August 27, 2021  ISBN 9780367894306

Chapter 1: Introducing 20 Top Papers and their Reviewers  Gary Charness and Mark Pingle

Chapter 2: An Experimental Study of Competitive Market Behavior (by Vernon L. Smith)  Reviewed by Charles A. Holt

Chapter 3: The Strategy Method as an Instrument for the Exploration of Limited Rationality in Oligopoly Game Behavior (by Reinhard Selten)  Reviewed by Claudia Keser and Hartmut Kliemt

Chapter 4: An Experimental Analysis of Ultimatum Bargaining (by Werner Güth, Rolf Schmittberger and Bernd Schwarze)  Reviewed by Brit Grosskopf and Rosemarie Nagel

Chapter 5: The Winner’s Curse and Public Information in Common Value Auctions (by John H. Kagel and Dan Levin)  Reviewed by Gary Charness

Chapter 6: Group Size Effects in Public Goods Provision: The Voluntary Contributions Mechanism (by R. Mark Isaac and James M. Walker)  Reviewed by James Andreoni

Chapter 7:  Rational Expectations and the Aggregation of Diverse Information in Laboratory Security Markets (by Charles R. Plott and Shyam Sunder)    Reviewed by R. Mark Isaac

Chapter 8: Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem (by Daniel Kahneman, Jack L. Knetsch, Richard H. Thaler)   Reviewed by John A. List

Chapter 9: Bargaining and Market Behavior in Jerusalem, Ljubljana, Pittsburgh and Tokyo: An Experimental Study (by Alvin E. Roth, Vesna Prasnikar, Masahiro Okuno-Fujiwara and Shmuel Zamir) Reviewed by Armin Falk

Chapter 10: Unraveling in Guessing Games: An Experimental Study (by Rosemarie Nagel)  Reviewed by John H. Kagel and Antonio Penta

Chapter 11: Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History (by Joyce Berg, John Dickhaut, and Kevin McCabe) Reviewed by Vernon L. Smith

Chapter 12: Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments (by Ernst Fehr and Simon Gachter)  Reviewed by Yan Chen

Chapter 13: A Fine is a Price (by Uri Gneezy and Aldo Rustichini)  Reviewed by Alex Imas

Chapter 14: Giving according to GARP: An Experimental Test of the Consistency of Preferences for Altruism (by James Andreoni and John Miller)  Reviewed by Catherine Eckel

Chapter 15: Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects (by Charles Holt and Susan Laury)  Reviewed by Kevin McCabe

Chapter 16: Does market experience eliminate market anomalies? (by John A. List) Reviewed by Matthias Sutter

Chapter 17: Promises and Partnership (by Gary Charness and Martin Dufwenberg)  Reviewed by Urs Fischbacher and Franziska Föllmi-Heusi

Chapter 18: The Hidden Costs of Control (by Armin Falk and Michael Kosfeld)  Reviewed by Laura Razzolini and Rachel Croson

Chapter 19: Do Women Shy Away from Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much? (by Muriel Niederle and Lise Vesterlund)  Reviewed by Katherine B. Coffman and Alvin E. Roth 

Chapter 20: Group Identity and Social Preferences (by Yan Chen and Sherry X. Li)  Reviewed by Marie Claire Villeval 

Chapter 21: Lies in Disguise—An Experimental Study on Cheating (by Urs Fischbacher and Franziska Föllmi-Heusi)  Reviewed by Uri Gneezy and Marta Serra-Garcia

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Here's my Foreword to the book:

 Twenty carefully chosen papers in experimental economics, reviewed and put in context by veteran experimenters, provide an excellent, close-up introduction to the richness and diversity of the field, and where it is coming from. These twenty papers appeared over a period of half a century, from 1962 to 2013, during which economic experiments went from being quite rare to taking their place among the standard tools of economics.

When John Kagel and I edited the Handbook of Experimental Economics, volumes 1 and 2 (1995 and 2016), we encouraged the chapter authors not to try to tell readers how to do good experiments, but to show them. And so it is with these papers: there are lots of ways to do good experiments, and here is a collection of twenty that have been influential. The reviews make clear that a successful, influential experiment is part of a scientific conversation that began well before the experiment was designed and conducted, and continued well after it was published and replicated. These conversations aren’t only among experimenters, nor are they only among economists: experiments add to scientific conversations of all sorts, answering some questions and raising others, often questions that couldn’t even be posed with equal precision in naturally occurring environments.   

Reader, beware. After reading this volume, you will want to read more, and, your curiosity aroused, may find yourself on the slippery slope of designing and conducting your own experiments.

Alvin E. Roth, Stanford University, December 2020.

Bibliography:

Kagel, J.H. and A.E. Roth (editors) Handbook of Experimental Economics, Princeton University Press, 1995.

Kagel, J.H. and A.E. Roth (editors) Handbook of Experimental Economics, Volume 2, Princeton University Press, 2016.

Hugo Sonnenschein (1940-2021)

 A chain of emails originating from U. Chicago brings the news that Hugo Sonnenschein has died.

Along with his many accomplishments as an economic theorist and then as a university administrator, he was a mentor to many, both formally and informally.  

Among the famous economists whose dissertations he supervised (taken from Wikipedia) are  John Roberts, Salvador Barbera, Dilip Abreu, Faruk Gul, Matt Jackson, Vijay Krishna, and Phil Reny.

Here's the list of Hugo's students from the Mathematics Genealogy Project: Abreu, Dilip; Barbera, Salvador; Cho, In-Koo; Dudey, Marc; Fang, Ryan; Fiaccadori, Marco; Gul, Faruk; Krishna, Vijay; Mailath, George; Mardones, Felipe; McLennan, Andrew; Nava, Francesco; Novshek, William; Pearce, David; Reny, Philip; Resende, Jose; Roberts, Donald; Santamaria, Martin; Simon, Leo; Sontheimer, Kevin; Spiegel, Matthew; Vincent, Daniel

The U. Chicago obit is at the link above. Here's Hugo's Wikipedia page that also focuses on his presidency at the University of Chicago. 

Here's Hugo's page at the History of Economic Thought project, which focuses on his contributions to general equilibrium theory and social choice.

Here's his cv.

Before becoming president of U. Chicago, Hugo was Princeton's provost. Some of the changes he instituted at Chicago were controversial among those who feared that they would make Chicago more like Princeton. Here's the Chicago Sun Times on that:

Hugh Sonnenschein, controversial former University of Chicago president, dead at 80.  He drew criticism from students and scholars including Saul Bellow for a university push to expand enrollment and cut the number of required courses to let students take more electives.

 

I first encountered Hugo in his capacity as Editor of Econometrica from 1977-1984.  He was the editor who brought game theory into Econometrica, and so he played a big role in making Economics the principle home of game theory since then.

Hugo Sonnenschein in 2017

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Update: here's a longer, less hurried obit from U. Chicago

Hugo Sonnenschein, 11th president of the University of Chicago, 1940-2021

and here is one from the Barcelona School of Economics:

In memoriam: Hugo Sonnenschein (1940-2021)

Data for the people: Emily Oster in the NY Times

The NY Times writes about Emily Oster, who has pioneered a new way for an economist to be a public intellectual, by bringing to a general audience her skills at assembling and interpreting data on a wide variety of subjects, including parenting (is it ok to drink a glass of wine while pregnant?) and the Covid pandemic (how to decide when schools should reopen?)

She Fought to Reopen Schools, Becoming a Hero and a Villain. The economist Emily Oster offers loads of data-driven advice about children and Covid-19. Many parents live by her words. Others say she’s dangerous. By Dana Goldstein

"This steady stream of counterintuitive advice has made Dr. Oster a lodestar for a certain set of parents, generally college-educated, liberal and affluent. Many had first latched onto her data-driven child-rearing books. Her popularity grew during the pandemic, as she collected case counts of Covid-19 in schools and advanced her own strongly held views on the importance of returning to in-person learning.

"Some parents said, half-seriously, “Emily Oster is my C.D.C.”

"But others — teachers, epidemiologists and labor activists — criticized her, pointing out that she was not an infectious disease expert, nor did she have any deep personal or professional experience with public education. "

Economists support Andreu Mas-Colell

 In El Pais (plus Google translate):

33 premios Nobel de Economía y otros 20 destacados economistas escriben en defensa de Andreu Mas-Colell. Los expertos internacionales muestran con un artículo conjunto su solidaridad con el profesor y exconsejero catalán investigado por el Tribunal de Cuentas

[33 Nobel Laureates in Economics and 20 other leading economists write in defense of Andreu Mas-Colell.  With a joint article, international experts show their solidarity with the professor and former Catalan councilor investigated by the Court of Auditors]

The letter ends with:

"We hope the situation clears up promptly. We also hope that, in the absence of specific charges against him, the Court of Auditors will avoid unwanted and unfair consequences for Professor Mas-Colell."

"The letter is signed by Philippe Aghion, George Akerlof *, Manuel Arellano, Orazio Attanasio, Robert Aumann *, Abhijit Banerjee *, Richard Blundell, Partha Dasgupta, Angus Deaton *, Eddie Dekel, Mathias Dewatripont, Peter Diamond *, Esther Duflo *, Eugene Fama *, Ernst Fehr, Drew Fudenberg, Jordi Galí, Pinelopi Goldberg, Jean-Michel Grandmont, Rachel Griffith, Lars Hansen *, Oliver Hart *, James Heckman *, Elhanan Helpman, Bengt Holmstrom *, Dale Jorgenson, Daniel Kahneman *, Mervyn King, Michael Kremer *, Finn Kydland *, Eric Maskin *, Daniel McFadden *, Robert Merton *, Paul Milgrom *, Stephen Morris, Roger Myerson *, Edmund Phelps *, Christopher Pissarides *, Paul Romer *, Alvin Roth *, Myron Scholes *, Amartya Sen *, Robert Shiller *, Christopher Sims *, Robert Solow *, Hugo Sonnenschein, Michael Spence *, Joseph Stiglitz *, Guido Tabellini, Richard Thaler *, Jean Tirole *, Robert Wilson * and Fabrizio Zilibotti.

"Names with an asterisk are Nobel laureates in economics."

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Some background here:

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Crisis in Catalonia, and Andreu Mas-Colell

Amartya Sen celebrated in the Harvard Gazette

 Amartya Sen’s nine-decade journey from colonial India to Nobel Prize and beyond

"Many economists focus on explaining and predicting what is happening in the world. But Sen, considered the key figure at the convergence of economics and philosophy, turned his attention instead to what the reality should be and why we fall short.

“I think he’s the greatest living figure in normative economics, which asks not ‘What do we see?’ but ‘What should we aspire to?’ and ‘How do we even work out what we should aspire to?’” said Eric S. Maskin ’72, Ph.D. ’76, Adams University Professor and professor of economics and mathematics.

"Over his 65-year career, Sen’s research and ideas have touched many areas of the field. He’s credited as one of the founding fathers of modern social-choice theory with his landmark 1970 book, “Collective Choice and Social Welfare.” The book took up the late Harvard economist Kenneth Arrow’s ideas from the early 1950s about how to combine different individuals’ well-being into a measure of social well-being, intensifying interest in and expanding upon Arrow’s work.

...

GAZETTE: In 1998, you were awarded the economics Nobel for your many theoretical, empirical, and ethical contributions to the field. Yet it doesn’t seem to have been the career capstone for you that it often is for other laureates. You remain as busy as ever writing, working, traveling, teaching. Why?

SEN: People have given up hope that I might retire. But I like working, I must say. I’ve been very lucky. I’ve never done, when I think about it, work that I was not interested in. That is a very good reason to go on.

"I’m 87. Something I enjoy most is teaching. It may not be a natural age for teaching, I guess, but I absolutely love it. And since my students also seem not unhappy with my teaching, I think it’s a very good idea to continue doing it."

The pandemic and the job market for economists

 It's been a tough year on the academic job market. Here's hoping it recovers quickly.

Committee chair John Cawley submitted the following Report of the Ad Hoc Committee  on the Job Market  AEA Papers and Proceedings 2021, 111: 801–802 https://doi.org/10.1257/pandp.111.801

" To share information about how COVID-19 is affecting the job market for PhD economists, we have regularly released memos providing information on the demand and supply of new PhD economists. These memos can be found on our committee’s webpage, but below is a summary of the most recent information.

a. Regarding labor demand: the overall number of job openings on JOE in 2020 was down 26.5 percent from 2019. The number of full-time academic jobs in the United States was down 52.8 percent, and the number of full-time academic jobs outside the United States (and listed on JOE) was down 20.3 percent. The number of fulltime nonacademic jobs listed on JOE was down 17.7 percent from 2019.

b. Regarding labor supply: the number of new JOE job candidate accounts created by students was down 19.1 percent from 2019, and the number of people sending AEA signals was down 14.9 percent."

Economics at the extremes (of gender and salary): UC Berkeley report

 This report includes two figures in which the discipline of Economics is near one of the extremes.  The regression models on gender and salaries are interesting too.

UC BERKELEY FACULTY SALARY EQUITY STUDY, ANNUAL UPDATE, 2020  OFFICE OF THE VICE PROVOST FOR THE FACULTY, DECEMBER 2020

Economics and Engineering (and market design): some history and prehistory, at Stanford and elsewhere

The  December 2020 issue of History of Political Economy is devoted to Economics and Engineering.

Here's an account of Stanford and Bob Wilson (among others), written before the most recent Nobel prize to Wilson and Milgrom.

A Century of Economics and Engineering at Stanford by Beatrice Cherrier and Aurélien Saïdi

History of Political Economy (2020) 52 (S1): 85–111.  https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-8717936

"This article documents the disciplinary exchanges between economists and engineers at Stanford throughout the twentieth century. We outline the role of key scholars such as Kenneth Arrow and Robert Wilson, as well as engineers turned administrators like Frederick Terman. We show that engineers drew upon economic theories of decision and allocation to improve practical industrial management decisions. Reciprocally, economists found in engineering the tools that they needed to rethink production and growth theory (including linear programming, optimal control theory, an epistemology of “application” that emphasized awareness to institutional details, trials and errors and experiments). By the 2000s, they had turned into economic engineers designing markets and other allocation mechanisms. These cross-disciplinary exchanges were mediated by Stanford’s own institutional culture, notably its use of joint appointments, the development of multidisciplinary “programs” for students, the ability to attract a variety of visitors every year, the entrepreneurial and contract-oriented vision of its administrators, and the close ties with the industrial milieu that came to be called the Silicon Valley.

..

"This article should not be read as a history of economics, engineering, or management science at Stanford and their idiosyncrasies.4  None of the research programs or institutional arrangements we describe were unique to Stanford. Rather, we document how some of the engineering and economics theories, tools, and epistemologies developed elsewhere were recombined in a specific institutional setting and entrepreneurial culture, and thus came to infuse the vision that some Stanford economists developed and spread in the last decades."

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The pdf to the full article appears to be ungated, and will be especially rewarding to old Stanford hands, who will recognize a lot of names from Operations Research as well as from Econ.

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And here's the introduction to the whole December special issue, by its editors:

Introduction: From “Economics as Engineering” to “Economics and Engineering”  by Pedro Garcia Duarte and Yann Giraud

History of Political Economy (2020) 52 (S1): 10–27.  https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-8717898

"Economists such as Alvin Roth and Esther Duflo have recently argued that economics in the late twentieth century has evolved from (social) science to engineering. On the other hand, historians such as Mary Morgan and Michel Armatte have argued that the transformation of economics into an engineering science has been a century-long development. Turning away from the “economics as engineering” analogy, our introduction suggests an alternative approach to account for the presumed transformation of economics into an engineering science. We encourage the development of a history of “economics and engineering,” which depicts how these two types of knowledge–and the communities who produce them–have interacted in various institutional and national contexts. Drawing on the contributions to this 2020 annual supplement of HOPE, we show how these narratives may help change the historiography of twentieth-century economics."

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As it happens, I had the privilege of discussing some of these papers  in Atlanta in  2019 at the ASSA meetings, in a session sponsored by  the History of Economics Society, and chaired by Pedro Garcia Duarte.

Another paper from that session that appears in this issue of HOPE is 

Engineering the “Statistical Control of Business”: Malcolm Rorty, Telephone Engineering, and American Economics, 1900–1930  by Thomas A. Stapleford

History of Political Economy (2020) 52 (S1): 59–84.  https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-8717924

"Malcolm Rorty is best known to historians of economics as the primary organizer and founder of the National Bureau of Economic Research. This article situates Rorty’s interest in economics against the backdrop of his early career in telephone engineering at American Telephone & Telegraph. I argue that distinct structural features of telephone engineering in general, and AT&T in particular, created overlaps between the practices of engineering and economics, and also opened space for Rorty to craft a broader vision for the “statistical control of business” through quantitatively informed management."