Should realtors be required to multiple-list homes for sale?

 The WSJ has the story:

An Industry Dispute Threatens to Shake Up How Homes Are Listed for Sale. Some real-estate brokerages are pushing to repeal a National Association of Realtors rule governing how listings are marketed. By Nicole Friedman, Nov. 3, 2024

"The National Association of Realtors’ landmark settlement is changing the way homes are bought and sold. Now, another industry dispute threatens to shake up how homes are listed for sale. 

A rule implemented in 2020 requires most real-estate agents to add listings into local databases known as multiple-listing services within one business day of publicly advertising the listing. 

Advocates say the rule, known as the clear cooperation policy, makes the housing market more transparent by putting available homes in one place. The goal of the rule was to reduce the number of home listings that are shared privately with a select group of buyers or agents, known as pocket listings.

But opponents say the rule limits sellers’ options for how they can market their homes and puts brokerages at risk of lawsuits. The Justice Department’s antitrust division is investigating the policy, and a lawsuit against NAR regarding the rule is scheduled to go to trial in late 2025.

...

"The NAR rule currently allows listings to be kept off the MLS if they are only marketed within one brokerage, known as an “office exclusive.” That exception can benefit big brokerages, which have more potential buyers for those in-office listings. 

...

"In some markets, most Compass listings start out as office exclusives, Reffkin said in an August earnings call. 

“Those homeowners, they want to be able to test the market” before listing their homes more widely, he said. “The reason why private exclusives at Compass are so popular is because they do not have days on market [or] price drop history.”"

Interviews, flyouts and offers in the job market for new PhD economists, 2024-25

 We may still be in a period of disequilibrium in the conduct of the market for new economists, as Zoom interviews have replaced in-person interviews at the annual January ASSA meetings.  In an attempt at maintaining market thickness, the AEA has reaffirmed its guidelines, as discussed in the email below that went out to AEA members yesterday

AEA Guidance on the 2024-25 Economics Job Market Cycle

Date: August 5, 2024 To: Members of the American Economic Association From: Peter L. Rousseau, Secretary-Treasurer 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. The AEA has a role to establish professional norms, which includes ensuring fair treatment of job candidates, including that they have enough time to consider job offers. With these goals in mind, and in light of inquiries from both job candidates and employers 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 (2024-25). Timing of interview invitations The AEA suggests that employers wait to extend interview invitations until the day after job market signals are transmitted to employers (planned for December 4). 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 professional 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. Timing of interviews Initial interviews may take place any time after the AEA signals are sent (planned for December 4). The AEA recommends that all initial interviews take place virtually (e.g., by Zoom). We suggest that interviews not take place during the ASSA meeting itself (January 3-5, 2025). Rationale: In the past, interviews were conducted in-person at the ASSA meetings. This promoted thickness of the market, because most candidates and employers were present at the meetings but had the disadvantage of precluding both job candidates and interviewers from fully participating in sessions. Initial job interviews went online during COVID, and feedback indicated that the benefits of virtual first-round interviews (e.g., low monetary cost, zero cost in travel time, scheduling flexibility, convenience) outweighed the limitations (e.g., less rich interaction). We ask that interviews NOT take place during the ASSA meetings (January 3-5, 2025) in order to allow job candidates and interviewers to participate in the conference. Timing of flyouts Flyouts 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. Unlike with interviews, the AEA does not take a position on whether flyouts should be virtual or in-person. Timing of offers and “exploding” offers In order to ensure that the job market remains sufficiently synchronized and thick, and that candidates have a chance to compare offers, the AEA recommends that employers leave job offers open (i.e. do not require candidates to accept or decline) until at least January 31. The AEA also strongly recommends that employers give candidates at least two weeks to consider their job offer. We recognize that offers made late in the job market season (e.g., March or later) may be of shorter duration. In some circumstances, employers are under heavy pressure to give less time to candidates for various reasons. If that is absolutely necessary, we recommend that employers give candidates a minimum of one week to consider the offer, and that candidates be given advance notice of this (e.g., at the flyout stage) whenever possible. Rationale: Recently, there is concern about a rise in “exploding offers” – i.e., offers for which candidates are given too few days to sufficiently consider the offer and their alternatives. This can prevent candidates from learning about their options or comparing offers, and at the extreme can be coercive. Giving candidates two weeks (or, late in the job market season, at least one week) to consider an offer is a reasonable standard. We also ask that all employers indicate on EconTrack when they have completed or closed their search. 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 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.

Transition from medical school to residency: defending the parts that work well (namely the NRMP Resident Match)

This post is about a recently published paper concerning the design of the market for new doctors in the U.S.  But it will require some background for most readers of this blog.   The short summary is that the market is experiencing problems related to congestion, and one of the proposals to address these problems was deeply flawed, and would have reduced market thickness and caused substantial direct harm to participants if implemented, and created instabilities that would likely have caused indirect harms to the match process in subsequent years. But this needed to be explained in the medical community, since that proposal was being  very actively advocated.

For those of you already steeped in the background, you can go straight to the paper, here.

Itai Ashlagi, Ephy Love, Jason I. Reminick, Alvin E. Roth; Early vs Single Match in the Transition to Residency: Analysis Using NRMP Data From 2014 to 2021. J Grad Med Educ 1 April 2023; 15 (2): 219–227. doi: https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-22-00177.1

If the title doesn't remind you of the vigorous advocacy for an early match for select positions, here is some of the relevant back story.

The market for new doctors--i.e. the transition from medical school to residency--is experiencing growing pains as the number of applications and interviews has grown, which imposes costs on both applicants and residency programs.  

Below is a schematic of that process, which begins with applicants submitting applications electronically, which makes it easy to submit many.  This is followed by residency programs inviting some of their applicants to interview. The movement to Zoom interviews has made it easier to have many interviews also (although interviews were multiplying even before they moved to Zoom).  

After interviews, programs and applicants participate in the famous centralized clearinghouse called The Match, run by the NRMP. Programs and applicants each submit rank order lists (ROLs) ranking those with whom they interviewed, and a deferred acceptance algorithm (the Roth-Peranson algorithm) produces a stable matching, which is publicly announced on Match Day. (Unmatched people and positions are invited into a now computer-mediated scramble, called SOAP, and these matches too are announced on Match  Day.)

The Match had its origins as a way to control the "unraveling" of the market into inefficient bilateral contracts, in which employment contracts were made long before employment would commence, via exploding offers that left most applicants with very little ability to compare options.  This kind of market failure afflicted not only the market for new physicians (residents), but also the market for later specialization (as fellows). Consequently, over the years, many specialties have turned to matching for their fellowship positions as well.

  The boxes in brown in the schematic are those that constitute "The Match:" the formulation and submission of the ROLs, and the processing of these into a stable matching of programs to residents.  Congestion is bedeviling the parts in blue.

The boxes colored brown are 'The Match' in which participants formulate and submit rank order lists (ROLs), after which a deferred acceptance algorithm produces a stable matching of applicants to programs, which is accepted by programs and applicants on Match Day. The boxes in blue, the applications and interviews that precede the Match, are presently suffering from some congestion.  Some specialties have been experimenting with signals (loosely modeled on those in the market for new Economics PhDs, but implemented differently by different medical specialties).

The proposal in question was to divide the match into two matches, run sequentially, with the first match only allowing half of the available positions to be filled.  The particular proposal was to do this first for the OB-GYN specialty, thus separating that from the other specialties in an early match, with only half of the OB-GYN positions available early.

This proposal came out of a study funded by the American Medical Association, and it was claimed, without any evidence being offered, that it would solve the current problems facing the transition to residency.  Our paper was written to provide some evidence of the likely effects, by simulating the proposed process using the preferences (ROLs) submitted in previous years.  

The results show that the proposal would largely harm OB-GYN applicants by giving them less preferred positions than they could get in a traditional single match, and that it would create instabilities that would encourage strategic behavior that would likely undermine the successful operation of the match in subsequent years.

Itai Ashlagi, Ephy Love, Jason I. Reminick, Alvin E. Roth; Early vs Single Match in the Transition to Residency: Analysis Using NRMP Data From 2014 to 2021. J Grad Med Educ 1 April 2023; 15 (2): 219–227. doi: https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-22-00177.1

Abstract:

"Background--An Early Result Acceptance Program (ERAP) has been proposed for obstetrics and gynecology (OB/GYN) to address challenges in the transition to residency. However, there are no available data-driven analyses on the effects of ERAP on the residency transition.

"Objective--We used National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) data to simulate the outcomes of ERAP and compare those to what occurred in the Match historically.

"Methods--We simulated ERAP outcomes in OB/GYN, using the de-identified applicant and program rank order lists from 2014 to 2021, and compared them to the actual NRMP Match outcomes. We report outcomes and sensitivity analyses and consider likely behavioral adaptations.

"Results--Fourteen percent of applicants receive a less preferred match under ERAP, while only 8% of applicants receive a more preferred match. Less preferred matches disproportionately affect DOs and international medical graduates (IMGs) compared to US MD seniors. Forty-one percent of programs fill with more preferred sets of applicants, while 24% fill with less preferred sets of applicants. Twelve percent of applicants and 52% of programs are in mutually dissatisfied applicant-program pairs (a pair in which both prefer each other to the match each received). Seventy percent of applicants who receive less preferred matches are part of a mutually dissatisfied pair. In 75% of programs with more preferred outcomes, at least one assigned applicant is part of a mutually dissatisfied pair.

"Conclusions--In this simulation, ERAP fills most OB/GYN positions, but many applicants and programs receive less preferred matches, and disparities increase for DOs and IMGs. ERAP creates mutually dissatisfied applicant-program pairs and problems for mixed-specialty couples, which provides incentives for gamesmanship."

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

I'm hopeful this paper will effectively contribute to the ongoing discussion of how, and how not, to modify the design of the whole process of transition to residency with an aim to fixing the parts that need fixing, without damaging the parts that work well, i.e. while doing no harm. 

(Signaling will likely continue to play a role in this.)

Super (bowl) markets

 There's also a football game, but here are some other, related markets (gambling, advertising, deal making...).

Gambling:

WSJ: Watching the Super Bowl? Bettor Beware. It’s easier than ever for the average fan to bet on sports, even mid-game. But when it comes to winning, the odds are stacked. by Danny Funt

"Thanks to the profusion of online betting, sportsbooks are encouraging customers to bet during games—a category that is “growing exponentially,” Mr. Scott said. Chris Grove, partner emeritus at Eilers & Krejcik, said in the near future, in-game betting should account for the “overwhelming majority” of U.S. sportsbook revenue.

"Roughly half of bets on NFL games this season were placed after the opening kickoff. Customers can wager on lines that move with every play, as well as on short-term “prop” bets like, “Will this possession end in a touchdown?” 

...

"An even bigger source of growth for sportsbooks has been parlays, in which bettors string together multiple bets for the chance at a larger payout, but lose if any of the components fails to transpire. Bettors can now place same-game parlays, bundling wagers on, say, the winning team, the total points scored and a quarterback’s passing yards. (Naturally, sportsbooks offer in-game same-game parlays, too.)

"FanDuel, which controls about half of the national online betting market, according to Eilers & Krejcik, leads the industry due in part to its success capitalizing on parlays. Last October in Illinois, for example, seven out of every 10 bets placed at FanDuel was a parlay, according to data published by the state’s gaming board. FanDuel made about $29.60 for every $100 bet on parlays, compared with $4.80 for every $100 in non-parlay bets."

------------

Record 50 Million Americans to Wager $16B on Super Bowl LVII Press Release 

"A record 50.4 million American adults (20%) are expected to bet on Super Bowl LVII, a 61 percent increase from the record set in 2022, according to a new American Gaming Association (AGA) survey. Bettors plan to wager an estimated $16 billion on this year’s championship game, more than double last year’s estimates.

"With the expansion of legal sports betting, traditional Super Bowl wagers are expected to pass casual wagers for the first time ever:

"30 million American adults plan to place a traditional sports wager online, at a retail sportsbook or with a bookie, up 66 percent from 2022.

"28 million plan to bet casually with friends or as part of a pool or squares contest, up 50 percent from 2022."

********

Advertising:

The 2023 Super Bowl Ads Will Feature Booze, Betting and Jesus. Alcohol is an open field after Anheuser-Busch InBev gave up category exclusivity, while cryptocurrency is set to be a no-show. By Megan Graham

"The Super Bowl still regularly draws an audience of around 100 million people, making it TV’s biggest event of the year and advertising’s biggest night.

"Fox this week said it has sold out of advertising for its Super Bowl broadcast, with some 30-second slots selling for more than $7 million"

----------------

The Backstory to the Jesus Ad Coming to the Super Bowl. The political underpinnings of this campaign are hiding beneath the surface. BY MOLLY OLMSTEAD

"The campaign is being run by something called The Signatry, a Kansas-based Christian foundation that exists, essentially, to connect donors (and their financial advisors) with causes in order to “inspire and facilitate revolutionary, biblical generosity.” According to Ministry Watch, an evangelical watchdog organization that scrutinizes the finances of Christian charities, in 2018, the foundation reported more than $1 billion in contributions. "

*******

Dealmaking by DEALBOOK NEWSLETTER:

"For most of America, the Super Bowl starts on Sunday evening. But for the deal makers who use the event as a backdrop for doing business, the real game starts days before kickoff.

"It’s not uncommon to attend exclusive dinners and parties during the week, and then jet out of town before the opening kickoff. “Once the game starts, it’s just a game,” said George Foster, a professor at Stanford Business School who directs the school’s sports management initiative. “It’s much more effective to get extended time fairly focused on the business relationship on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.”

...

Sex work (same link as Dealmaking):

"In December, Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, like many government officials preparing to host the Super Bowl before him, announced a statewide campaign to raise awareness of human trafficking, including sex trafficking, ahead of the big game. Though the claim that increased sex trafficking and sex work occurs during major sporting events like the Super Bowl has been debunked over and over and over and over and over again, anti-human trafficking campaigns often target these events.

"Campaigns by cities have been criticized by advocates for sex workers, who say such efforts often rely on law enforcement “raids.” More patrolling can lead to more arrests of sex workers who are not being trafficked, they say, as well as the possibility that victims of trafficking will be arrested.

"It’s also unclear whether campaigns to raise awareness about sex trafficking are effective at addressing it. “If we want to protect people who are being trafficked, we need to protect sex workers because they are the most vulnerable for that happening to them next,” Kristen DiAngelo, executive director of the Sex Workers Outreach Project in Sacramento, told The Washington Post ahead of last year’s Super Bowl."

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.  

History job market conference interviews are history

Inside Higher Ed has the story on the history job market (which they conflate with the AEA's recent decision to try to eliminate interviews in hotel rooms):

Killing the Conference Interview
American Historical Association ends annual meeting interviews and American Economic Association ends single hotel room interviews.
By Colleen Flaherty

"It's official: the American Historical Association will stop supporting first-round job interviews at its annual meeting.

"The group floated the idea this spring, citing a decline in registered departmental searches -- from 270 for the 2005 conference to 20 this year -- and a desire to take the meeting in new directions.

"After hearing overwhelming positive feedback from members, the AHA Council voted to end the 70-year-old tradition."

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

I'm not intimately familiar with the History job market, but for economists, I think the tradition of interviewing at the January meetings has had a good effect on the job market, helping to coordinate timings, reduce costs, and provide a thick early part of the market.  I hope that we won't be starting on the road to moving interviews elsewhere and (particularly) at earlier and more diffuse times.

Kidney exchange needs to be conducted at scale, in the AER by Agarwal, Ashlagi, Azevedo, Featherstone and Karaduman

Market Failure in Kidney Exchange

• Nikhil Agarwal
• Itai Ashlagi
• Eduardo Azevedo
• Clayton R. Featherstone
• Ömer Karaduman


AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW (FORTHCOMING)


Abstract
We show that kidney exchange markets suffer from market failures whose remedy could increase transplants by 30%–63%. First, we document that the market is fragmented and inefficient: most transplants are arranged by hospitals instead of national platforms. Second, we propose a model to show two sources of inefficiency: hospitals only partly internalize their patients' benefits from exchange, and current platforms suboptimally reward hospitals for submitting patients and donors. Third, we calibrate a production function and show that individual hospitals operate below efficient scale. Eliminating this inefficiency requires either a mandate or a combination of new mechanisms and reimbursement reforms.
Forthcoming Article Downloads
• Preview (AEA members only) (966.12 KB)

Acquiring the first thousand customers in a two-sided market

HBS Working Knowledge has a nice piece about a case study by Professor Thales Teixeira,

How Uber, Airbnb, and Etsy Attracted Their First 1,000 Customers

On Airbnb:
"founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia thought like customers themselves, trying to figure out where they would go if Airbnb didn’t exist. It didn’t take them long to figure out the answer: Craigslist. The entrepreneurs figured they could do a better job of making apartments appealing than the online classified site, but first they had to siphon away its customers. To do that, Chesky and Gebbia created software to hack Craigslist to extract the contact info of property owners, then sent them a pitch to list on Airbnb as well.

The strategy worked. With nothing to lose, property owners doubled their chances of finding a potential renter, and Airbnb had a ready supply of homes with which it could attract customers."

Efficiency of thin and thick markets, by Li Gan and Qi Li

Here's the published version of a paper by Li Gan and Qi Li on why it's good to be in a thick market...

Journal of Econometrics

Volume 192, Issue 1, May 2016, Pages 40–54

Efficiency of thin and thick markets ^☆

• Li Gan^a, b, , 
• Qi Li^c, d, , 

doi:10.1016/j.jeconom.2015.10.012 

---

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a matching model to study the efficiency of thin and thick markets. Our model shows that the probabilities of matches in a thin market are significantly lower than those in a thick market. When applying our results to a job search model, it implies that, if the ratio of job candidates to job openings remains (roughly) a constant, the probability that a person can find a job is higher in a thick market than in a thin market. We apply our matching model to the U.S. academic market for new PhD economists. Consistent with the prediction of our model, a field of specialization with more job openings and more candidates has a higher probability of matching.

1. Introduction

In this paper, we are interested in the following question: Compare two markets, one of which has five candidates and five openings in five firms (each firm has one opening), and the other of which has fifty candidates and fifty openings. Which market has a lower average unemployment rate or a higher probability of successful match? The market with a lower unemployment rate is said to be more efficient than the one with a higher unemployment rate.

AEA announcements of a market design sort: conference organization and part-time teaching

The AEA announcement email of 2/13/12 contains the following bits of market design aimed at managing congestion in a thick market, and creating thickness in a thin one:


Econ-Harmony helps prospective AEA Annual Meetings individual paper submitters find others with similar interests who might join them to form a complete session submission, and provides an opportunity to volunteer as a session chair. Thirty-one percent of submitted complete sessions and 16% of submitted individual papers made it onto the 2012 Program; 39% of submitted complete sessions and 17 % of submitted individual papers made it onto the 2011 Program. Econ-Harmony is at http://www.aeaweb.org/econ-harmony/. 


Retired Faculty Available for part-time or temporary teaching. JOE now lists retired economists interested in teaching on either a part-time or temporary basis at http://www.aeaweb.org/joe/available_faculty/. Individuals can add or delete their name any time. Listings are deleted on November 30; the service is closed during December and January, re-opening February 12.

Is the market for professors of English becoming less thick?

That's the question raised by a recent article on the job market organized by the Modern Language Association: Realities of the Endless Search

 "The MLA meeting (until recently in late December and now in early January) has for decades been the primary place where search committees in English and foreign languages interviewed a large number of candidates and then selected a small group for campus visits. So the fall was the time for the initial vetting of the large pool to determine who was worthy of an MLA interview. Now, the schedule is much less firm. Susan Miller, English chair at Santa Fe College, a Florida community college, said that she has had searches in which money wasn’t available on the regular schedule, but then materialized late in the year. So the college advertised a job last March, "a really awkward time for a fall opening." But she said that the department didn’t want to lose its shot at the position, so it went ahead as soon as it could -- and in fact rushed the process, feeling that until someone had signed a contract, the position might disappear."

The Receivables Exchange and the NYSE

I've been following The Receivables Exchange in several prior posts, and now the NYSE is interested too: today's WSJ reports NYSE Euronext Bulks Up In Market for Receivables.

"NYSE Euronext plans to boost its role in helping companies secure short-term funding, hiring a longtime GE Capital executive as part of an initiative that includes buying a stake in an electronic market for corporate receivables.

"The parent of the Big Board aims to use its investment in the New Orleans-based Receivables Exchange as another venue for public companies to borrow money, complementing the long-term funding provided via stock-market listings at a time when businesses face financing difficulties.

"NYSE has taken a minority stake in the four-year-old venture and hired Paul DeDomenico, previously chief executive of GE Capital's working-capital-solutions group, to lead the exchange group's corporate-receivables programs.

"The moves, which come amid a fierce political debate over bank lending to small-and-midsize businesses, could provide an advantage to the NYSE in its battle with competitors over share listings, by allowing the Big Board operator to offer a broader suite of services to companies that choose to list with it. And the moves provide an entry point to a market in receivables estimated by the companies at $17 trillion in size domestically.
...
"The Receivables Exchange formed in 2007 as a platform for companies to auction their accounts receivable to buyers like hedge funds and commercial banks. The eBay-like system lets sellers of receivables generate short-term cash quickly, while buyers can book a profit when debts are paid back.
...
"Upheaval in the corporate lending market has provided an opening for the company, where trading volumes of accounts receivable in its U.S. market for small-and-midsize businesses leapt nearly six-fold from 2009 to 2010.

"This year the value of receivables bought and sold on the platform is on pace to top $1 billion in value, according to Nic Perkin, the Receivables Exchange's president and co-founder.

European job market for economists: the RES meetings are coming up

The ASSA meetings in Atlanta were held the first weekend of January, and while that was the main venue for preliminary interviews by North American employers, others also participated, from all over the world.

There are also some European meetings with job market components.

The XXXIV Simposio de la Asociación Española de Economía (SAEe), was held in Valencia, Spain, on 10-12 December 2009. Here is their jobmarket page.

The Royal Economic Society (RES) PhD Presentation Meeting & Job Market, City University, London, is coming up, January 16th and 17th 2010.

Both of these marketplaces draw many fewer employers and applicants than the ASSA meetings.

Competition among stock exchanges

The NY Times has a story about how New Rivals Pose Threat to New York Stock Exchange.

"While the exchange has been under assault since the beginning of the decade, its decline has accelerated in recent years as aggressive competitors have emerged. Today, 36 percent of daily trades in stocks that are listed on the New York Stock Exchange are actually executed on the exchange, down from about 75 percent nearly four years ago. The rest of are conducted elsewhere, on new electronic exchanges or through dark pools. "

..."Unlike the Big Board, the new electronic exchanges are virtually unknown outside financial circles. Direct Edge, the largest, is in Jersey City. Another, the BATS Exchange, is based in Lenexa, Kan. Both are only about five years old. But each now accounts for about a 10th of daily United States stock trading. "

I'm reminded of Estelle Cantillon's paper with Pai-Ling Yin on a battle between London and Frankfurt exchanges: Competition between Exchange: Lessons from the Battle of the Bund

Kidney Exchange and Nurse Coordinators

Lots of people play critical roles in making kidney exchange a reality, and a recent article emphasizes the enormous role played by nurse coordinators: Nurses: Kidney Exchange Registries Increase Compatability, Hope:

"Nurses Make It Happen: The foundation for these exchange programs is collaboration among transplant centers and the cornerstone is the nurse coordinator at each facility. These nurses are in frequent contact and are negotiating solutions as problems occur. They coordinate schedules and shipping arrangements to get the kidneys where they are needed in the shortest possible time. “We often ship the kidney to the recipient because it can be hard for donors to travel,” Charlton says. “There are times the donor is in California and the recipient is on the East Coast. The coordination among transplant centers is a massive undertaking.”Morgievich and Charlton agree the nurses who coordinate the exchanges are the driving force that makes the whole complex machine run. Larger transplant centers are the major players because they have the expertise and resources to be innovative about approaches to exchanges. Operating room schedules have to be coordinated, and detailed logistical communication schedules are set up across miles and time zones, so that as the living donor kidneys are removed and prepared for transport across the hall or across the continent, the recipient is ready. Although the surgical procedure is similar in every case, surgeons share details about the anatomy of the organ with the receiving surgical team. "

"Morgievich notes that if anyone entered “kidney exchange” into an Internet search engine five years ago, they would have had negligible results. A Google search today produced 1.2 million results in less than a second.“This is a whole new ball game, and we’ve had to create new ways to look at sharing best practices. We’ve even had to create a language for the way it works,” she says. “When we have paired donor and recipients combined with an altruistic donor, we usually have a donor at the end of the chain. We sometimes hold that donor over or find an appropriate recipient from the wait list. That last donor in the chain is called a ‘bridge donor’ because sometimes they wait until we can organize another series of exchanges. They are the bridge to the new chain.” "

Here's the google search for kidney exchange, and here are my previous blog posts with kidney exchange as a tag.

Hotbeds of innovation: food in Portland

Why are Silicon Valley and Cambridge MA hotbeds of innovation? A nice NY Times story about the culinary scene in Portland Maine, by Julia Moskin, might give some insights: In Portland’s Restaurants, a Down East Banquet .
"Portland’s many chefs and bakers, its turnip farmers and cookbook sellers and assorted mad food geniuses are gearing up for another lively winter.
“I wouldn’t call it a competition, I’d call it a collective,” Josh Potocki, the chef and owner of 158 Pickett St. Café in South Portland, said of the city’s food scene. “We are all trying to raise the level of food in Portland to insanely high.” ...
"Chefs here feed off one another’s work in a way that’s impossible in larger cities (Portland’s population is about 65,000, and it has a compact urban center), constantly eating in and commenting on one another’s restaurants. “I’ve made enemies, for sure,” said Joe Ricchio, a bartender who makes Vietnamese pho on his days off, has a weakness for flaming scorpion bowls, and writes a blog titled Portland Food Coma.
In 2007, Mr. Ricchio started a festively debauched event now known as Deathmatch, a kind of extended “Iron Chef” dinner, with each invited chef contributing a course. “Each one takes five years off your life,” Mr. Ricchio said."...
"Most of Portland’s young chefs ...have worked in — and walked out of — one another’s kitchens. ...Many have cycled through the twin temples of Sam Hayward’s Fore Street or Hugo’s on Middle Street, where Rob Evans is the chef. These are the kitchens that first defined Portland as a destination for rigorously local and regularly delicious food. "...

“Ninety percent of the best restaurants are chef-owned, small, single-operator places,” said Samantha Hoyt Lindgren, an owner of Rabelais, an all-food bookstore on Middle Street ...“That makes a huge difference in the quality of the food and the relationships with purveyors,” she said."..."And for chefs to become owners, the price of entry — key money, kitchen renovation, etc. — is relatively low. "

For related earlier posts, see Market for hand crafted food and Market for hand crafted food, continued