A bride- price auction: “the most expensive bride in South Sudan”

 The Guardian has the story of a bride-price auction for a child bride in South Sudan:

A teenage bride wed for a record price: the ‘marriage competition’ that divided a nation   Underage marriage is illegal in South Sudan yet so commonplace it rarely attracts attention. But the case of Athiak Dau Riak, who her mother says is only 14, has gone viral, polarising her family and the country.  by Florence Miettaux 

"For months, Marial Garang Jil and Chol Marol Deng, two South Sudanese men in their 40s who come from two different Dinka clans in Jonglei state but now live abroad, had been vying to marry Athiak Dau Riak, a girl her mother says is 14.

...

"After the ceremonial part of the wedding in June, when she was given as a wife to Chol Marol Deng, for a payment of 123 cattle, 120m South Sudanese pounds (about $44,000 or £33,000) in cash and a plot of land, she was dubbed “the most expensive bride in South Sudan” in TikTok videos that gained thousands of likes.

...

"South Sudan’s 2008 Child Act prohibits early and forced marriage, but according to Unicef, child marriage is “still a common practice” and “recent figures indicate that 52% of girls [in South Sudan] are married before they turn 18, with some girls being married off as young as 12 years old”.

"An Edinburgh University-led report on the “brideprice” system in South Sudan says “customary courts often accept menstruation as the criteria for eligibility to marry” and early marriage is “a common practice … likely motivated by families’ ambitions to gain brideprices for their daughters as soon as possible”.

"Globally, 12 million girls are married in childhood every year, according to another Unicef report. Across sub-Saharan Africa, more than a third of young women were married before the age of 18."

Preference signaling in the Political Science job market

 There is now signaling in the Political Science job market:  They allow job candidates to send up to three signals: here's the APSA's page with frequently asked questions about signaling.

Aside from the procedures APSA members should use, their site offers some general comments about signaling. Some excerpts:

What is the history of signaling as applied to specialized labor markets like that for political science PhDs?

 The American Economics Association (AEA) Ad Hoc Committee on the Job Market, including Roth, applied his research to the economics PhDs job market over 15 years ago. Since the 1970s, the job market for economists has been organized around the AEA and related associations’ annual meeting (called the Allied Social Sciences Associations, or the “ASSA”) in January and since 2006, economists have utilized signaling for job interviews that take place at the ASSA. For those who don’t secure a position there, a job “scramble” that is more public takes place later in the spring. These events act as clearinghouses to clear congestion resulting from candidates applying for almost all positions due to their need to secure a position, and also prevents “unraveling,” where employers make offers earlier and earlier each year to get the best possible candidate they can.[1] The AEA Ad Hoc Committee on the Job Market offers detailed advice on signaling for (economics) PhDs going on the job market here.

Why would the political science job market benefit from signaling?

The number of political science job postings per PhD on the job market has decreased considerably since 2011, when there were two job openings for each candidate as it recovered from the Great Recession.[1] After the COVID pandemic, the higher education job market seems to be showing signs that it is recovering more slowly, and political science is no exception to this trend. The behavior of the higher education job markets runs counter to the general labor market trend in the US where jobs are currently outnumbering jobseekers.[2]  Currently there are almost two candidates per job opening on APSA eJobs.[3] The political science job market is also congested in 2023. In the last few years, candidates have reported applying for upwards of 25-50, more than 51, or more than 100 positions in a job market cycle, making the possibilities for matches endless.[4]

After the job market at APSA’s Annual Meeting in September, the job market for political science PhDs is decentralized and thin, lacking a centralizing timeframe, location, or deadline, with the only way for candidates to let employers know they are interested is to contact the hiring committee or send in an application for the position. Jobs are being posted earlier each year to secure the best candidates by utilizing the APSA Annual Meeting as a job market clearinghouse. For the remainder of the academic year, those participating in the job market lack any kind of intentionally designed mechanism to structure their path to a job placement before the next academic year..[5] For all these reasons: a surplus of jobseekers, market congestion (applying to all jobs), market unraveling (earlier and earlier offers), the political science job market would benefit from being approached with the market design tools that have been shown to alleviate these inefficiencies.

Citations

How will signaling benefit candidates and employers at APSA Annual Meeting/ Interview Services?

 Due to job market congestion, the job market centralized around the APSA Annual Meeting/ Interview Services would benefit from a mechanism for candidates and employers to be able to decipher meaningful interest more easily from candidates for positions, and to allow institutions to view candidates more equally across characteristics outside of institutional prestige, rank, or publication records. Due to the large number of candidates relative to jobs, we believe signaling can increase the number of matches facilitated, decrease the number of applications both written and submitted by candidates and reviewed by hiring committees, and decrease the stress of all participants in the market. We have created a pilot program to beta test how signaling will work for employers and candidates utilizing Interview Services at the Annual Meeting.

Child labor in soccer

Many laws seek to protect children from being exploited in the labor market, and there is widespread repugnance when it appears that such exploitation is taking place. (Think of the issues associated with children sewing soccer balls in Pakistan...)

But minors can also be professional athletes, and that turns out to be an issue in the Euro 2024 competitions, because star Spanish player Lamine Yamal is only 16 years old. (He was scouted at 6...)

Here's the story

Why Spain are Risking 30,000 Euro Fine by Playing Lamine Yamal at Euro 2024, by Robin Mumford 

"Yamal has started in each of Spain's group games so far, against Croatia and Italy, but a German law put Spain at risk of a €30,000 fine for his involvement in the game against Italy. That's because the German Youth Protection Act prohibits under-18s from working beyond a certain time - usually 8pm.

"Spain's first group game kicked off at 6pm local time, but their game against Italy started at 9pm. While there is an exceptional rule within the German law that authorises athletes to work until 11pm, the match finished very close to that time anyway, and post-match showers and interviews are also considered within the realms of labour, which means Spain may very well have met the conditions to be hit with a fine."

HT: Peter Biro

##########

The Centre for Sport and Human Rights has a White Paper called

CHILD LABOUR IN SPORT. Protecting the Rights of Child Athletes

Getting a Federal judicial clerkship, and then clerking

 If all has gone according to plan, law students who will graduate next June have just matched with a federal clerkship, if they are going to have one.  That plan, meant to bring some order to what has at times been recruiting that unraveled into the first year of law school, is the

FEDERAL LAW CLERK HIRING PLAN, Updated April 1, 2024

"Participation in the Federal Law Clerk Hiring Plan pertains to the hiring of law school students with two full years of grades in accordance with the timeline set forth below. Students who attend law school part-time or who seek a dual degree may have a later law school graduation date but meet the requirement of having two full years of grades. The dates set forth below do not apply to law school graduates; judges can accept applications, interview, and hire graduates on their own schedule.

"Graduating Class of 2025  For students who entered law school in 2022:

"Judges will not accept formal or informal clerkship applications, or seek or accept formal or informal recommendations, before 12:00 pm EDT on June 10, 2024. Judges also will not directly or indirectly contact applicants, or schedule or conduct formal or informal interviews, or make formal or informal offers, before 12:00 pm EDT on June 11, 2024.

"A judge who makes a clerkship offer will keep it open for at least 24 hours, during which time the applicant will be free to interview with other judges."

########

The plan goes on to schedule clerkship applications and offers for subsequent years in the same way: everyone should wait for the end of students' second year, and then things will move fast (but fast as in 24 hours as opposed to instantly).

If history is any guide, some judges will cheat, but maybe there won't be too much cheating too soon.

But what happens during the clerkship? Will judges who were bad apples during recruiting turn into supportive mentors?

There's a growing movement among former clerks to recognize that not every clerkship is a cakewalk, and to offer support for clerks who face varying degrees of abuse.

The blog Above the Law takes note of this with a recent post:

Judicial Clerkships Are Not An Unadulterated Good. Clerkships are not all unicorns and fairy dust.  bBy ALIZA SHATZMAN

She notes " A judge who will not afford you time to consider the offer — before you commit several years down the road for a particularly consequential year or two of your life — is probably not someone you want to work for."

And she is the founder of The Legal Accountability Project, which proposes to provide a platform for sharing information about clerkships:

"The Legal Accountability Project’s mission is to ensure that law clerks have positive clerkship experiences, while extending support and resources to those who do not. " 

The Path to a Match for Interventional Cardiology Fellowships

The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions has started a fellowship match, and here's an article describing the familiar marketplace failure that led to that decision, involving unraveling of application, interview and appointment dates, with the resulting congestion and exploding offers, and the process of reaching sufficient consensus to move to a centralized match ( to be run by the NRMP).

The Path to a Match for Interventional Cardiology Fellowship: A Major SCAI Initiative  by Douglas E. Drachman MD, FSCAI (Chair) a, Tayo Addo MD b, Robert J. Applegate MD, MSCAI c, Robert C. Bartel MSc, CAE d, Anna E. Bortnick MD, PhD, MSc, FSCAI e, Francesca M. Dea d, Tarek Helmy MD, MSCAI f, Timothy D. Henry MD, MSCAI g, Adnan Khalif MD, FSCAI h, Ajay J. Kirtane MD, SM, FSCAI i, Michael Levy MD, MPH, FSCAI j, Michael J. Lim MD, MSCAI k, Ehtisham Mahmud MD, MSCAI l, Nino Mihatov MD, FSCAI m, Sahil A. Parikh MD, FSCAI i, Laura Porter CMP d, Abhiram Prasad MD n, Sunil V. Rao MD, FSCAI o, Louai Razzouk MD, MPH, FSCAI o, Samit Shah MD, PhD, FSCAI p, Adhir Shroff MD, MPH, FSCAI q, Jacqueline E. Tamis-Holland MD, FSCAI r, Poonam Velagapudi MD, FSCAI s, Fredrick G. Welt MD, FSCAI t, J. Dawn Abbott MD, FSCAI (Co-Chair), Journal of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions, in press.

"Abstract: The field of interventional cardiology (IC) has evolved dramatically over the past 40 years. Training and certification in IC have kept pace, with the development of accredited IC fellowship training programs, training statements, and subspecialty board certification. The application process, however, remained fragmented with lack of a universal process or time frame. In recent years, growing competition among training programs for the strongest candidates resulted in time-limited offers and high-pressure situations that disadvantaged candidates. A grassroots effort was recently undertaken by a Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions task force, to create equity in the system by establishing a national Match for IC fellowship. This manuscript explores the rationale, process, and implications of this endeavor."

"over the past several years program directors and candidates found that the process has devolved, with wide variation in application timelines and on-the-spot offers, which disadvantage candidates and programs looking to interview a range of applicants.

"The pressures and unfair features of the existing system were further fueled by the transition to virtual interviews related to the COVID-19 pandemic. With logistics of travel no longer a consideration, programs could commence interviews nearly immediately after the applications became available. This led to more candidates being interviewed in rapid succession, and a system evolved in which programs quickly assessed candidates, offered positions, and applied pressure for candidates to accept offers or be passed over for other candidates.

"In response to the shortcomings of the current system, members of Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) were inspired to lead a grassroots educational campaign to organize IC program directors and the broader interventional community to commit to a regulated “Match” process under the established National Resident Match Program (NRMP). This manuscript provides an account of how this process unfolded and how a Match for IC fellowship was ultimately created.

...

"From the applicant’s perspective, the lack of a structured timeline for the application process required candidates to make career decisions early in the first year of cardiovascular disease training and to compose their application materials 2 years in advance of starting IC training. With ERAS open to application submission in the fall of the second year for the December release to programs, fellows had limited time on clinical rotations to determine their interest and aptitude for IC. Additionally, letters of recommendation, written at this early stage, risked not being fully reflective of each candidate’s capacity to improve and develop the technical skills and clinical knowledge important for success in the field. There were other disadvantages to candidates in the existing system. Fellows at programs with an IC fellowship had an advantage of securing an internal spot but were often pressured to limit their exploration of the opportunities at other programs, potentially disadvantaging them in the long term.

"Another problem with the existing system was that the pressure to recruit candidates on a tight timeline limited the opportunity to interview applicants from a wide variety and diversity of programs, potentially reducing the ability to recruit underrepresented candidates from varied programs. Despite an overall increase in the diversity of physicians entering the workforce,11 there has been little change in the applicant pool for IC over the years, with fewer than 5% of applicants self-reporting as Black race or Hispanic ethnicity and only 10% identifying as women.12

"Competition among the programs, each vying for the seemingly strongest candidates, degenerated into a system that favored quick decision-making on the part of programs to offer positions as early as possible. The influence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 negatively impacted an already high-pressure application process, compounding its many weaknesses.13 Fellowship interviews were hosted virtually rather than in person, which enabled candidates to interview at a greater number of programs without the need to travel. In addition, the virtual format accelerated the tempo of an application process that was already felt to be too fast, resulting in an increase in so-called “exploding offers”—offers that required the accepted candidate to respond within a very short timeframe or risk losing the offer. This practice placed significant pressure on candidates to make quick decisions, often forcing them to determine whether to accept the offer from 1 institution before having the opportunity to participate in interviews with—let alone see and evaluate—other programs or fully understand the ramifications of accepting an offer on their personal lives. At the same time, the accelerated timetable left many programs scrambling to identify applicants, as the number of available candidates diminished rapidly due to applicants accepting time-sensitive, exploding offers.

...

"As with other national efforts of this magnitude, the path to develop consensus in favor of a Match was not without challenges. There were several program directors around the country who strongly opposed the institution of a Match. These were well-regarded academicians and clinician educators who expressed very sincere concerns about the impact on fellows in their programs. The members of the SCAI Match Task Force addressed as many concerns as possible, providing the information necessary for each program director to make the best decision for their institution. A minority of program directors remained opposed to the initiative or did not engage with Task Force members despite multiple attempts to be contacted.

"The Match campaign proved highly effective, and by November 2022, the 75% threshold of programs and positions to implement the Match was met

...

"As the sponsor of the Match, SCAI considered the pros and cons of the “All In Policy,” where registered programs must attempt to fill all ACGME positions at the program through the Match.15,16 SCAI opted out of the “All In Policy” to allow programs to have flexibility for unique situations that require commitment to a candidate outside of the Match. 

...

"As a result of the successful implementation of the Match in IC, the first Match cycle for incoming IC fellows will open in the summer of 2024. Individuals eligible to apply include cardiovascular disease fellows in their third or final year of training and graduates who have completed fellowship and are in clinical practice. This class will start IC training in July 2025"

Talent wars in private equity: continued unraveling

 The WSJ has the latest:

Hectic Private-Equity Recruitment Process Leaves Firms Looking for Alternatives. July talent-grab leaves some firms frustrated with process for hiring entry-level workers. by Chris Cumming, Aug. 30, 2023

"Private-equity firms are recruiting workers with less and less Wall Street experience every year, hoping to beat out their competitors to hire the most impressive recent college graduates. 

...

"Over about 48 hours every year, hundreds of first-year investment bankers file through private-equity offices for a battery of interviews and tests, hoping to land an offer in one of the world’s most highly paid industries.

...

"This year’s recruitment process kicked off July 21—the earliest date ever—for positions starting in 2025. Firms hired candidates who have mostly just graduated from college and are beginning two-year bank-analyst programs, making offers that kick in after their programs end.

HT: Isaac Sorkin

AEA Guidance on the 2023-24 Economics Job Market Cycle

In an effort to forestall/halt/slow unravelling in the market for new Ph.D. economists, the American Economic Association has released some guidelines regarding interviews and offers.

 AEA Guidance on the 2023-24 Economics Job Market Cycle

July 27, 2023

To: Members of the American Economic Association and Economics Department Chairs
From: Peter L. Rousseau, Secretary-Treasurer
Subject: AEA Guidance on the 2023-24 Economics Job Market Cycle

AEA Guidance on the 2023-24 Economics Job Market 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.  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 (2023-24). 

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 (roughly December 1).

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.

Timing of interviews
Initial interviews may take place any time after the AEA signals are sent (roughly December 1). The AEA recommends that all initial interviews take place virtually (e.g. by Zoom). We suggest that interviews not take place during the AEA meeting itself (January 5-7, 2024).

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 meetings, but had the disadvantage of precluding both job candidates and interviewers from fully participating in AEA/ASSA 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 AEA/ASSA meetings (January 5-7, 2024) 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.

We encourage all employers to review and abide by Best Practices for Economists to Build a More Diverse, Inclusive, and Productive Profession, and in particular those for conducting a fair recruiting process.

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

Is an End to Child Marriage within Reach? Not yet... Unicef report, and Lancet summary

 Unicef has issued the following report focused on the continued prevalence of child marriage, particularly in the poorest communities:

Is an End to Child Marriage within Reach? Latest trends and future prospects. May 2023

"The practice of child marriage has continued to decline globally. Today, one in five young women aged 20 to 24 years were married as children versus nearly one in four 10 years ago. Yet progress has been uneven around the world, and in many places the gains have not been equitable, leaving the most vulnerable girls behind.

"This year marks the halfway point to the deadline for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and when it comes to ending child marriage, a number of challenges loom large. Despite global advances, reductions are not fast enough to meet the target of eliminating the practice by 2030. In fact, at the current rate, it will take another 300 years until child marriage is eliminated."

***********

And here's an article in the Lancet:

Child marriage could be history by 2030, or last 300 more years, by Claudia Cappa, Colleen Murray and Nankali Maksud 

"UNICEF's analysis reveals only slight declines in child marriage in west and central Africa, which is the region with the highest prevalence of child marriage.1 There has been no change in Latin American and the Caribbean, which, if the current trajectory continues, would have the second highest prevalence of child marriage worldwide by 2030.1 After steady progress between 1997 and 2012, the Middle East, north Africa, eastern Europe, and central Asia regions have all seen stagnation in reducing child marriage in the past decade.

...

"Countries in sub-Saharan Africa with the highest projected population growth have the highest levels of child marriage, meaning the number of marriages is expected to increase there.

...

"declining child marriage prevalence is concentrated among girls from wealthier households. Girls from the richest quintile are less likely to become child brides and are the first to benefit from progress in averting child marriage, resulting in a widening gap in child marriage prevalence between rich and poor.1 In south Asia, wealthier households had three times more averted cases of child marriages than poor households in the past 25 years.1 If the rate of success in the richest quintile of south Asian families had been achieved globally, only 9% of girls would be married in childhood, far less than the current 19% worldwide prevalence of child marriage.1 Further progress in reducing child marriage largely depends on reaching girls who are otherwise left behind, including girls from the poorest households living without the resources and opportunities of their wealthier peers."

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.)

AEA committee on the job market considers early and exploding offers

 John Cawley chairs the AEA committee on the job market, and recently tweeted the request for information below.  Feel free to communicate with him on twitter or directly, as I'll be glad to rely on him to compile and forward all the responses. (I'm one of the few economists not on most social media...but I really will try to read all responses:) (Click to enlarge...)

Advice on dealing with exploding offers in the Economics job market

 The market for new Economics Ph.D.s is in flux, with interviews this year being conducted remotely by Zoom rather than in person at the annual January conference. (Zoom interviews were a Covid innovation that seems likely to stay--mostly because remote interviews seemed to work well.)  But issues of timing can be delicate, and there's some concern that, now that initial interviews aren't being synchonized with the annual meetings, we're seeing more early interviews, flyouts (subsequent in-person, on campus interviews) and offers than in previous years, including more offers that require replies very quickly--exploding offers.  Exploding offers cause difficulties to those who receive them, and they contribute to market-wide difficulties, as they can cause the market to move earlier from year to year, i.e. to unravel into very early offers at diffuse times, so that the market loses thickness.

So...I wasn't too surprised to get an email this week from a colleague who has a student on the market who presently has two exploding offers, each with a one-week deadline.  My colleague writes that his student  presently has flyouts scheduled with other schools through February, and so won't even have visited them by the time his exploding offers expire. "He would much prefer an offer from several of them to these 2 current offers--but I have no idea what is the likelihood of getting offers from them."

He asks me "Does any entity such as the ASSA, Stanford, etc. have a policy that I can mention to these schools? "  And he asks for my advice.  I don't have great advice, but here's my slightly redacted reply:

"The AEA doesn’t have a good policy on this, but the AFA does: see my blog post here

Tuesday, August 2, 2022 American Finance Association guidelines to prevent unravelling of the job market  (it says) “the AFA promotes the following professional norm: If a job candidate receives and accepts a coercive exploding offer (i.e., one that expires before February 20), the AFA does not consider such an acceptance to be binding.”

 "That said, talking to the schools that have issued coercive exploding offers is a good idea, and it may or may not help.  I think there are three main reasons they might make exploding offers.

• 1.       Pure evil: they think your student might get a better offer if they wait, and want to capture him before that.
• 2.       Fear that their other candidates will disappear: they may have a second choice candidate who already has an exploding offer, in which case they may be able to tell you when that offer explodes.  But maybe their fear is less focused than that, in which case you might get them to extend the offer on the understanding that they can make it explode later.
• 3.       Boilerplate: they may have just copy-pasted from some template that had a short fuse offer. In this case there’s a good chance they’ll relax the drop dead date.

 "I’ve encountered other reasons as well. In the 2008 financial crisis some of our students got exploding offers, and when I called one school to inquire, was told that their dean wouldn’t allow them to schedule any more flyouts until/unless they’d been rejected by our student.

 "There are labor markets that suffer a great deal from exploding offers (e.g. private equity right now, among others).  But it’s still not the norm in economics, so I think you have a good chance of getting some more time by asking for it."

Unraveling of the private equity labor market, continued (and continuing)

 Here's some news and history on the

Private Equity On-Cycle Recruiting Timeline

by Matt Ting (Peak Frameworks)

"The sheer absurdity of the private equity recruiting process is perhaps best illustrated by the recruiting timeline.

"In recent years, private equity recruiting has kicked off within months of people graduating. Private equity firms commonly interview and hire people that have fewer than 6 months of work experience. And the thing is, private equity firms are hiring people who won’t actually start their jobs for another 2 years.

"Over a decade ago, recruiting occurred only 1 year in advance. This gave analysts much more time to do actual deals, technically prepare, and thoughtfully decide if they wanted to recruit for private equity.

"Every single year, the recruiting timeline inches forward by a month or so. There was a brief stretch for the 2012 – 2016 associate classes where the start time held relatively constant at around 1.5 years in advance.

"Over the past five years, the recruiting timeline has consistently moved up a month or two at a time. Every single year, many firms get caught off-guard or unprepared because of how accelerated things have become. It’s at the point where it seems like there’s no further it can move forward.

"The only time over the last 15 years that recruiting has moved backwards in time was during the Great Recession (recruiting during July 2009). And even then, recruiting only moved back by a couple of months."

HT: Mike Ostrovsky

"It Is Time for Interventional Cardiology Fellowship to Join the National Resident Matching Program," say its leaders

 The current appointment process for interventional cardiology fellows is early and congested, and programs feel obliged to make exploding offers, often to internal candidates, without much opportunity for external candidates and programs to become acquainted. In short, they are facing the problems with decentralized hiring that have led many medical specialties to use a centralized match to organize the labor market for residencies and fellowships.  Here's a proposal that this fellowship program should join the Match in order to have a more orderly, better informed process.

Vallabhajosyula, Saraschandra, Sabeeda Kadavath, Alexander G. Truesdell, Michael N. Young, Wayne B. Batchelor, Frederick G. Welt, Ajay J. Kirtane, Anna E. Bortnick, and ACC Interventional Section Leadership Council. "It Is Time for Interventional Cardiology Fellowship to Join the National Resident Matching Program." Cardiovascular Interventions 15, no. 17 (2022): 1762-1767.

"In this perspective article, which is a summation of the deliberations of the American College of Cardiology Interventional Section Leadership Council, we describe the current process of interventional cardiology fellowship candidate selection and opportunities for improvement by joining the Match.

...

"Current Application Process

...

"the date for program review of applications starts on December 1st (1½ years before the start of the interventional cardiology training program to which applicants are applying), although programs are free to offer spots earlier. At the time applications are submitted, cardiovascular medicine fellows in traditional 3-year programs have variable exposure to the cardiac catheterization laboratory. In our experience, for many applicants, the timing of the application process precludes an adequate diagnostic catheterization laboratory experience in order to inform decision-making. ... program leadership is heavily reliant on candidate performance in the interview and on subjective evaluation through letters of recommendation from faculty mentors who have typically had a single year of exposure to applicants.

Wilderness Medicine starts a fellowship Match

 "Wilderness medicine" sounds like the sort of medicine you hope you never need as a patient.  But there is a medical fellowship program that draws on a cross-disciplinary group of docs, and their decentralized labor market has run into the usual difficulties. Here's a report on a new centralized clearinghouse, run in-house and partly manually, following a simulated run.

Davis, Christopher A., Stephanie Lareau, Taylor Haston, Arun Ganti, and Susanne J. Spano. "Implementation of a Specialty Society‒Sponsored Wilderness Medicine Fellowship Match." Wilderness & Environmental Medicine (2022, in press).

"Previously, wilderness medicine (WM) fellowships offered spots to applicants using an offer date. Due in part to increases in the number of WM fellowships and applicants, in 2021, the WM program directors (PDs) agreed to conduct the first WM fellowship match through the Wilderness Medical Society graduate medical education committee. This article outlines the process used and demonstrates its feasibility.

...

"Wilderness Medicine (WM) fellowships previously filled positions using an offer-date set by fellowship directors each fall.1 Applicant(s) were called in the order of preference by each director until all available positions were filled. Once called, applicants would have 30 min to accept or decline the offer. Limitations included the potential for verbal, nonbinding offers to influence candidates’ and directors’ actions on the offer day, as well as pressure on candidates to accept initial offers owing to the lack of knowledge regarding potential forthcoming offers. These concerns cast uncertainty on whether participants were placed in a disadvantageous position by the offer-date system.

...

"Formal fellowship matching services are not exclusively managed by the NRMP; other businesses, the military, and professional societies host matching services. The San Francisco match currently provides fellowship matching services to 22 subspecialties.6 The military does not use a computer-generated match list; the selection committee arranges negotiated pairings between programs and applicants, with the ability to place an applicant in a program they did not rank.7 The American Urological Association, in conjunction with the Society of Academic Urologists, has overseen the urology residency match program for >35 y, which includes fellowship matches.

...

"After completion of the simulated trial/test match, all PDs and WMS GME committee members agreed to participate in the proposed inaugural WM match via email or telephone verification. The deadline of October 25, 2021 was set for the submission of all rank lists to the WMS staff member by all participating applicants and programs. Individual emails were sent to both the programs and applicants to encourage timely completion of the process. On October 28, 2021, at 0900 PST/1200 EST, initial emails were sent simultaneously to each applicant and each PD to inform them of either a successful match or eligibility for the secondary match.

...

"A total of 13 programs and 15 applicants completed the match process. After the first round, 11 of 15 applicants had matched, and 2 programs and 4 candidates had the opportunity to complete the secondary match. During the secondary match period, the unfilled programs2 withdrew, obviating the need for the secondary match.

...

"Many PDs noted in 2021 that they had a significant increase in the number of applicants in 2020 and cited this as motivation for moving away from the previous telephone-based offer system and pursuing a match for the subsequent year."

Unraveling of the market for new law professors

 Kim Krawiec, a law professor who is among the most penetrating analysts of controversial markets and market practices, emails me about unraveling in the market for new law professors:

"prior to Covid, the AALS (American Association of Law Schools) ran a hiring process with a central meeting in Washington DC and nearly every law professor was hired through this process. During Covid, this of course stopped and has now been dropped (I think) permanently, so now schools are sort of making up their own schedules. Some schools are starting early and making exploding offers before other schools have even begun the process. The idea of exploding offers is not new — it happened before. Though some (mostly higher ranked schools) considered it bad form, other schools argued that they had to do it or would wind up hiring no one year after year as favored candidates accepted other jobs near the end of the season. But the physical meeting and control over the timing by the AALS at least posed a basic schedule. That now appears to be gone and people (both candidates and hiring committees) are up in arms. ... My guess (completely speculating) is that the interests of higher ranked and lower ranked schools are not aligned on this and that makes it harder to find a new equilibrium, but I don’t know."

*******

Law already 'enjoys' a number of unraveled markets, for law clerks, for associates (and summer associates) in law firms, and for articles in law reviews.  So I have to admit the prospects for preventing wholesale unraveling of the law professor market looks bleak, unless law schools can start to think outside of the box, perhaps e.g. by preparing to give offers to students who have already accepted exploding offers, if necessary to start in the following academic year...  

Maybe in that way the academic law community can start to come to some agreement on some  time, midway between early and late, in which offers should be made and during which they should be left open.

Further unraveling of law firm offers to (first year) law students, and offers to new (first week) bankers from private equity

Eric Budish writes with a pointer to a Business Insider story on the current unraveling of the market for new lawyers and big law firms.

Inside the 'Wild West' of law-school recruiting that has Big Law reeling in talent earlier and more aggressively than ever

"this year, some legal-industry professionals say the competition has gotten out of control.

"Latham & Watkins, which hires about 300 students a year for its 10-week summer program, has told law schools that it has made 2023 summer-job offers to so many students ahead of the traditional period for on-campus interviews, or OCI, that it expects to conduct fewer OCI interviews this year, three people familiar with the firm's strategy said.

"Other elite firms — including Weil, Skadden, and Davis Polk — have also been making large numbers of early offers. At Simpson Thacher, a partner said, "We probably did half our interviewing before the formal OCI process."

"Working at a law firm after a student's second year, or 2L, has long been a rite of passage for students bound for Big Law. "Summer associates" are paid about $4,000 a week at top firms and get the chance to do legal research, eat nice meals on the company's dime, and meet the people they'll likely be working with after graduation — because upwards of 90% of them get an offer to return full time.

...

"Some law students are now entering recruiting talks in the spring of their 1L year. School administrators say it's often the students who get the ball rolling by submitting résumés via a firm's website after meeting a partner at a school meet and greet.

...

"Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania still ban pre-OCI recruiting, their websites said. Other schools require pre-OCI offers to stay open until OCI, so a student can compare firms. But not all firms respect the rules, and students sometimes are afraid to invoke them, said David Diamond, an assistant dean at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law.

"We've seen situations where a student receives an offer, and the offer deadline follows our policy, but the offer is accompanied by a diversity scholarship, and the diversity scholarship expires before or during" OCI, Diamond said.

...

"Some people trace the boom in early recruiting to a 2019 decision by the NALP to scrap rules that limited firms from courting first-semester law students. The rules were replaced by nonbinding guidelines."

**********

And even more frenzied are the job offers that new bankers (in their first week(s) on the job) are getting from private equity firms:

Wall Street just kicked off an annual Hunger Games-style recruiting ritual for junior talent that has young bankers interviewing till 2 a.m. for jobs that don’t start until 2024. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:668V-4FD1-DXY7-W4MT-00000-00&context=1516831 

"As Insider reported on Tuesday, the frenzied process appears to have kicked off on Monday evening when recruiters for a handful of firms sent out blast emails to select junior bankers suggesting meetings ASAP — before the window of opportunity closes.

"The emails forced these young bankers — many of whom have just started their first Wall Street jobs at places like Goldman Sachs and Citi — to figure out ways to quietly leave their desks to interview for jobs that won't start until the fall of 2024. 

...

"In recent years, the PE recruiting process has moved earlier and earlier, from October to September, but never to late August, as it has done now. It's forcing firms to figure out how to interview candidates with no real job experience. "