Market Design at 25, May 14-15 in Washington DC

The NBER is holding a conference in May, in Washington.

"The conference, which has been organized by Irene Lo, Michael Ostrovsky, and Parag Pathak, is timed to roughly commemorate the 25th anniversary of the first FCC spectrum auction, in 1994, the redesign of the National Resident Match Program (begun in 1995, completed in 1998), and the launch of the sulphur dioxide allowance-trading program under Title IV of the Clean Air Act Amendments (amended in 1990, initiated in 1995).  The conference goal is to assess the key contributions of market design in a number of specific fields and policy areas, and to identify key open questions that are priorities for future research."

Market Design @ 25

Authors Please upload your paper and slides here.

Irene Y. Lo, Michael Ostrovsky, and Parag A. Pathak, Organizers

May 14-15, 2020

JW Marriott Hotel, 1331 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC

Conference Code of Conduct

Thursday, May 14
8:00 am	Continental Breakfast
8:30 am	Spectrum Auctions
	- Opening speaker: Jessica Rosenworcel, FCC Commissioner
	- Overview: Paul Milgrom, Stanford University
	- Viewpoint: Evan Kwerel, FCC
9:55 am	Break
10:10 am	Matching and Broadening the Definition of Markets
	- Overview: Alvin Roth, Stanford University and NBER
	- Viewpoint 1: Edward Glaeser, Harvard University and NBER
	- Viewpoint 2: Susan Athey, Stanford University and NBER
11:20 am	Break
11:35 am	Market Design for the Environment
	- Overview: Michael Greenstone, University of Chicago and NBER
	- Viewpoint 1: Richard Schmalensee, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER
	- Viewpoint 2: Nathan Keohane, Environmental Defense Fund
12:45 pm	Lunch
2:15 pm	Market Design in Healthcare
	- Overview: Amy Finkelstein, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER
	- Viewpoint 1: Marc Miller, LJAF / Former MedPac
	- Viewpoint 2: Kate Ho, Princeton University and NBER
3:25 pm	Market Design in Transportation
	- Overview: Michael Ostrovsky, Stanford University and NBER
	- Viewpoint 1: David Shmoys, Cornell University
	- Viewpoint 2: TBA
4:35 pm	Break
4:50 pm	Market Design in Developing Countries
	- Overview: Kevin Lleyton-Brown, University of British Columbia
	- Viewpoint 1: Tavneet Suri, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER
	- Viewpoint 2: Jishnu Das, Georgetown University
6:00 pm	Adjourn
6:30 pm	Conference Dinner
Friday, May 15
7:45 am	Continental Breakfast
8:15 am	Market Design for Education
	- Overview: Parag Pathak, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER
	- Viewpoint 1: Derek Neal, University of Chicago and NBER
	- Viewpoint 2: Neerav Kingsland, City Fund
9:25 am	Break
9:40 am	Market Design for Organ Transplantation
	- Overview: Tayfun Sonmez, Boston College
	- Viewpoint 1: Nikhil Agarwal, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER
	- Viewpoint 2: Jennifer Erickson, formerly White House OSTP
10:50 am	Break
11:05 am	Market Design for Public Housing
	- Overview: Nathan Hendren, Harvard University and NBER
	- Viewpoint 1: Winnie van Dijk, University of Chicago and NBER
	- Viewpoint 2: Marge Turner, Urban Institute
12:15 pm	Lunch
1:15 pm	Electricity Market Design
	- Overview: Mar Reguant, Northwestern University and NBER
	- Viewpoint 1: Bob Wilson, Stanford University
	- Viewpoint 2: Shmuel Oren, University of California at Berkeley
2:25 pm	Market Design in Online Markets
	- Overview: Preston McAfee, formerly Caltech and Microsoft
	- Viewpoint 1: Hal Varian, Google
	- Viewpoint 2: Irene Lo, Stanford University
3:35 pm	Break
3:50 pm	Market Design in Financial Markets
	- Overview: Darrell Duffie, Stanford University and NBER
	- Viewpoint 1: Eric Budish, University of Chicago and NBER
	- Viewpoint 2: Gary Gensler, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
5:00 pm	Adjourn

Presenting results anecdatally (and other stories about presenting data to policy makers)

I've recently been involved in several efforts to present data to policy makers who, rightly or wrongly, react more strongly to well-told stories than to comparisons of data distributions.

The reason that scientists of all sorts are distrustful of stories--i.e. anecdotes--is that anecdotes can be outliers, unrepresentative of the underlying data. (Think of political ads that feature particularly memorable crimes committed by paroled prisoners, or immigrants, etc.)

But while comparing data distributions may be more persuasive to scientists, anecdotes, responsibly presented, remain useful for communicating with non-scientists.  And so I've found myself arguing to colleagues that we should present data "anectdataly,"  by illustrating our statistical results with anecdotes that represent well the underlying statistical data.

So...we're in neologism territory here, inventing appropriate new words.

andecdatum. (plural: anecdata)

1. noun.  an anecdatum is a single story that represents the underlying data distribution, e.g. by illustrating its mean or mode. (Compare to "anecdote".)

anecdata

1. plural of anecdatum
2. a collection of stories that together illustrate key features of a statistical distribution (or comparisons of distributions) that may not be well illustrated by a single anecdatum.

anecdatal   

1. adjective: stories illustrating statistical evidence collected as part of systematic scientific evaluation: (as in "the statistical presentation was supplemented with anecdatal evidence.")

anecdataly (also anecdatally)

1. adverb. (as in "the executive summary was presented anecdataly and with summary statistics, with the details of the data presented in the body of the report.")

Unraveling of appellate court clerkships (only more so)

Steve Leider writes:

"I know you keep an eye on the unraveling of judicial hiring.  Listening to a podcast about the supreme court they gave an example of even more extreme advance hiring.  At about 51:30 minutes into this podcast (recorded at Michigan, ...) they talk about an Appeal's Court judge (Judge Katzmann, 2nd Circuit) currently hiring for the 2024 term.

https://strict-scrutiny.simplecast.com/episodes/standing-cheese 

 As one of the hosts noted - "A law student could get married, give birth, and have a baby - and the baby would be in pre-K before the clerkship even starts."

Caught between a block and a high place: legal cannabis firms struggling to compete with the still thriving black market

Blocked from using federal bankruptcy protections, cannabis businesses that are legal under state laws but illegal under federal laws are facing financial difficulties.
Bloomberg has the story:

Pot Firms’ Grim Reality: Cash Crunch, No U.S. Bankruptcy Access

"It was only a year ago that exuberance enveloped the marijuana industry. Legalization was spreading and the growth potential seemed boundless.

"But that bubble has burst as the reality of a difficult regulatory landscape sunk in. Since March, stocks are down by about two-thirds. Capital markets have largely frozen for all but the strongest companies. And now a cash crunch is leaving some on the verge of going bust. Only, thanks to the illegal status of cannabis under U.S. federal laws, firms there are blocked from seeking protection in bankruptcy court."
*******
And this from the LA Times:
Two years in, California’s legal marijuana industry is stuck. Should voters step in?
 PATRICK MCGREEVY DEC. 24, 2019
" Two years after California began licensing pot shops, the industry remains so outmatched by the black market that a state panel recently joined some legalization supporters in calling for significant change
...
"In its annual draft report, the Cannabis Advisory Committee warned Gov. Gavin Newsom and California legislators that high taxes, overly burdensome regulations and local control issues posed debilitating obstacles to the legal marijuana market.
...
“as much as 80% of the cannabis market in California remains illicit.”
...
"The 22-member advisory panel — made up of industry leaders, civil rights activists, local officials, law enforcement and health experts — noted that California is expected to generate $3.1 billion in licensed pot sales in 2019, making it the largest market for legal cannabis in the world. But nearly three times as much — $8.7 billion — is expected to be spent on unlicensed sales."

*********
And in Canada (from the NYT):
From Canada’s Legal High, a Business Letdown
Investors poured money into Canada’s marijuana market, but one year after legalization, the euphoria has evaporated.

"...provincial governments in Ontario and Quebec, whose residents account for about two-thirds of Canada’s population, have opened or licensed legal pot shops at a glacial pace — despite a clear demand. Potential customers are still underserved with just 24 legal marijuana shops for Ontario’s 17.5 million residents. So many are still buying on the black market.

"And freed from taxation, the black market is generally cheaper across the country.
...
"Despite the crushing business disappointments, there has been a bright spot: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s experiment in legalizing cannabis has not turned Canada into a stoner nation, as was widely feared.

"Marijuana-impaired motorists are not menacing the nation’s highways, and workers are not getting high on the job. There has not even been much change in marijuana use, except for a small rise among people over 65, according to Statistics Canada, the government census agency.
**********

And, from the Washington Post, internationally:
America’s marijuana growers are the best in the world, but federal laws are keeping them out of global markets
Federal prohibitions are getting in the way of efforts to grow the U.S. marijuana business into a global industry. That’s allowed Canadian cannabis growers to dominate the export market.
Markian Hawryluk, Dec. 27, 2019

"Because marijuana is legal in many states but still illegal federally, marijuana growers are unable to ship their products to other countries or even other American states that have legalized the drug. So while U.S. cannabis firms have driven product innovation and mastered large-scale grow operations, they restlessly wait for the export curtain to lift.
...
"With 11 states plus Washington, D.C., approving recreational use and 33 states legalizing medical marijuana, industry insiders believe marijuana may be legalized nationally in the near future, greatly expanding their market.

"In November, the House Judiciary Committee passed a bill with more than 50 co-sponsors that would effectively make marijuana legal in the U.S. Though unlikely to pass Congress immediately, it is seen as a sign of hope for the future."

Long kidney exchange in Ahmedabad, India

Vivek Kute writes with the news:
IKDRC completes India’s longest cross-transplant chain

"Institute of Kidney Diseases and Research Center, Institute of Transplantation Sciences (IKDRC-ITS) Ahmedabad, India is pleased to share the news of an exciting milestone for the patients with end stage renal disease with incompatible living kidney donors. Our transplant team has completed longest Kidney Exchange transplant chain in India as well as Asia involving 10 donor-recipients pairs over 5 days in January 2020. Two kidney transplant surgeries were performed each on 4, 6 and 7 January, 3 transplants on 8 January and last kidney transplant was completed on 22 January 2020.
...
". The success of this program can be attributed to the selflessness of the more than 500 family members who have stepped forward to be living organ donors. Dr Vivek Kute Professor of Nephrology maintains the single center registry of incompatible pairs. Dr Vivek Kute  and his team is greatful to Prof. Michael Rees and Prof. Alvin Roth for providing the Alliance for Paired Donations software for computer allocation at free of cost. Transplant team members are Dr Vineet Mishra, Dr Pranjal Modi, Dr Himanshu Patel, Dr Jamal Rizvi, Dr Vivek Kute, Dr Bina Butala and others."

Residency explorer (for new doctors)

Amidst all the concerns about the ballooning number of applications and interviews involved in preparing for the NRMP resident match, here's a site (still in test mode) from the AAMC, intended to help applicants explore residency programs before applying:

Residency Explorer

"Residency Explorer helps medical students and applicants to U.S. residency programs research programs in their specialty of interest and compare themselves to previous matched applicants at those programs.

...
"Residency Explorer delivers insights and information based on:
Residency applicant data from AAMC (ERAS)
Matched applicant data from NRMP
USMLE data from the USMLE Program
COMLEX-USA data from the NBOME
Residency program directory information from ACGME
Program characteristics from the National GME Census Survey, jointly administered by the AAMC and AMA, to which 95% of residency programs self-report information about their programs.
Purpose
The purpose of the Residency Explorer is to help residency applicants understand how they compare the applicants who previously matched at programs as well as explore program characteristics across many areas of interest."

More on social studies of markets--from José Ossandón

José Ossandón writes, in response to my earlier post about social studies of markets:

" I was very glad to find the post in your blog that mentions an special issue we edited in the journal Economy & Society (January 6^th http://marketdesigner.blogspot.com/2020/01/social-studies-of-markets-marketplaces.html ). I was less happy though when I read that you found the whole thing too abstract and hard to follow.

Of course, the type of research-problem that motivate us are very different. While your object is the design of markets, we are trying to find out how to study market designers. But, I would hope you and your colleagues can also understand what we do. With this in mind, I wrote a summary, that ended in the five points below, trying to be as clear as possible. Hope these – certainly very sketchy - notes will make what concern us more understandable.

1. Policy makers around the world increasingly rely on markets as solutions for the most various collective issues. We denominate markets that are also policy instruments ‘markets for collective concerns’. The increasing reliance on markets for collective concerns opens relevant questions for researchers in different social scientific disciplines.

2. Historians of economic ideas, for instance, have pointed out that there has been a crucial transformation in the concept of market in economics. Few decades ago, markets were understood in opposition to organization and design. There was, on the one hand, the market as a form of spontaneous coordination, and, on the other, planned designed formal organization. Today, instead, markets are seen as object of design. This is not only a conceptual change. To use Ian Hacking’s categories, there has been a transition from description to intervention. Today, economists see the market as an object of engineering.

3. To sociologists of work, it could be argued that what we see is the consolidation of a new profession. The historical intersection that generated the niche for the market designer is, perhaps paradoxically, not the success but the failure of markets. When markets originally created as policy instruments did not work as well as those who developed them expected to work (for example, school choice and competition didn’t simply increase quality of learning), decision makers didn’t go back to non-market instruments. Instead, they turned to experts in market repair. Market designers’ claim of professional jurisdiction, to use Andrew Abbott’s term, is that, to work properly markets require them.

4. For economic sociologists, these developments trigger new problems. Traditionally, economic sociologists assume that one of their roles is to produce sociological definitions of the concept of market (i.e. if markets are a type of social formation: what are the basic elements that delimit markets as a particular social form?). Studying the market of market designers, however, requires a different stance. When studying market designers, the concept of markets is not something sociologists can define in advance, it becomes an empirical variable. Market designers are practitioners that mobilize different and varying conception of markets, and those who study them have to follow these modifications case to case.

5. Finally, for scholars in science and technology studies, it becomes relevant to know more about the practice of market designers. Today, crucial matters of collective concern (for instance, a fairer and better school system, a solution for electronic waste, or how to build a more sustainable energy grid), depends, at least partially, on the work of experts on market design. As market designers are tasked with crucial collective responsibilities, it becomes very important to understand better issues like how these technical scientists conceive their vocation, the type of ethic of their work, and how they understand responsibility and collaboration.

Hope this helps and thanks a lot for keeping an interest in our work,

Best regards

José"

He also pointed me towards his paper

 Ossandón, José (2019) : Notes on market design and economic sociology,economic sociology_the european electronic newsletter, ISSN 1871-3351, Max Planck Institutefor the Study of Societies (MPIfG), Cologne, Vol. 20, Iss. 2, pp. 31-39,

which considers parallels between the social studies of markets and the growth of market design in economics.

Early admissions for medical residencies? An anguished response to the increasing numbers of applications and interviews.

Here's a proposal to introduce something like the early admissions programs that have become common in college admissions (where they cause new problems while partially addressing the issue of too many applications...)

Improving the Residency Application and Selection Process
An Optional Early Result Acceptance Program
Maya M. Hammoud, MD, MBA1; John Andrews, MD2; Susan E. Skochelak, MD, MPH2
JAMA. Published online January 23, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.21212

"from 2011 to 2019, applications per applicant increased from 15.2 to 34.8 for family medicine, from 30.5 to 61.3 for obstetrics and gynecology, and from 21.6 to 51.9 for psychiatry.1 Similarly, the number of applications received by each program also has increased across all specialties, some by more than 200%. For example, from 2011 to 2019, the mean number of applications received by family medicine programs increased from 76 to 251 and received by psychiatry programs increased from 115 to 446.1

"A cycle involving increased numbers of applications and increased reliance on standardized testing has resulted in behavioral changes in both applicants and residency programs. Currently, senior medical students spend large amounts of time and money during the last year of medical school applying to an increasing number of programs and meeting the demands of the residency application process.
...
"Meanwhile, to process the high volume of applications received, programs are likely relying more on quantitative metrics, such as United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1 scores, for screening.
...
"A new approach to help decrease the number of applications by giving students the option of an early application and expeditious result match program may be helpful. One possible approach might be an early result acceptance program (ERAP), in which students would be permitted to apply to a maximum of 5 programs, and programs would be limited to filling half of all their available spots."

Patricia Kravey on non-directed organ donation

From my recent email, a nuanced yet inspiring story from non-directed donor Patricia Kravey.

"I’ve been meaning to write you for five years so it’s time I finally got around to it, but I’ll try to keep it short.

I’d been thinking about being an altruistic for many years without people being able to understand why. When my husband heard your interview on Freakonomics he finally got it and shared the podcast with me.

Your chapter on Kidney Chains has changed my life and the five people who received kidneys in the chain I was a part of. Without the power of knowledge from your book I would not have understood why my hospital was resistant to creating a national chain that went outside their hospital system. From your chapter I called the National Kidney Registry and UNOS to ask how they formed chains, how many people could receive kidneys in their chains and the barriers hospitals encounter in joining their programs. On the phone I was thrilled to speak to Ruthanne Leishman, she was in your book, she was famous!

After learning the cost for hospital to join NKR even though they have lengthy donor chains; I told my hospital, where I was also an employee, that I would only be donating through them if they participated in a chain through UNOS. Despite my request to wait the hospital ran their program and matched me internally. So I had this heavy weight of decision to give to the highly sensitized person my hospital matched me with or to pursue a donor chain. After sleepless nights I came up with what I thought was the perfect solution. I would agree to give to the recipient within the hospital and their mismatched donor would be the person officially enrolled in the UNOS program.

The surgery to my anonymous recipient went smoothly. I cried when the doctors told me he was doing well.

Months later I bumped into my transplant coordinator in the hallway at the hospital and she excitedly told me a news story was being released tonight. The mismatched donor of the person I had given to had completed her surgery and the kidney chain and continued on in the mad rush of 24 hours across the country. The news story was going to be about the hospital’s first national donor chain and the person who started it.

Since my donation wasn’t within the exciting 24 hours my hospital had decided I wasn’t part of the chain. I wasn’t included in the news story or even formally told about it. The story showed my recipient who I hadn’t decided if I was going to meet yet. My colleagues saw the story that night and could tell it was my story that didn’t include me.

Your book helped me understand why the hospital and the media would do that as well.

I did meet my recipient in person later. He was a lovely man. Charming, appreciative and so full of energy. He visited me at my office at the hospital several times and he sent a gift for my baby shower. I felt very lucky and grateful to have met him.

Four years after the transplant he died. Skin cancer got him. His wife told me the doctors had led him to believe that the kidney he’d received from me could be passed on. Of course it couldn’t be since it could contain cancer cells.

I have mixed feelings about being an altruist donor. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t the story or the fulfilling experience I had hoped it would be. But it was better and it benefited more people because of you. I hope people tell you everyday that your work has changed lives.

Thank you.

Best regards,

Patricia Kravey (Harvey)

https://komonews.com/news/healthworks/seattle-kidney-chain-changes-8-lives-its-the-gift-of-life

https://blog.swedish.org/swedish-blog/how-donating-a-kidney-gave-me-joy-and-someone-else-his-life-back

(in rereading my interview in Swedish Medical Center's blog, I’m embarrassed that I didn’t cite you!)"

100 years since Prohibition

An op-ed in the NY Times points out that Prohibition didn't start suddenly when the 18th Amendment went into effect in January 1920--it was a popular movement that had started with ordinary legislation.

Why Americans Supported Prohibition 100 Years Ago
Temperance crusaders weren’t crackpots. They were fighting the business of making money off addiction.  By Mark Lawrence Schrad

"The United States had already been “dry” for the previous half-year thanks to the Wartime Prohibition Act. And even before that, 32 of the 48 states had already enacted their own statewide prohibitions.

“With little that differed from normal wartime prohibition drinking habits, New York City entered at 12:01 o’clock this morning into the long dry spell,” this newspaper solemnly noted.

...

"Temperance was the longest-running, most widely supported social movement in both American and global history. Its foe wasn’t the drink in the bottle or the drunk who drank it, but the drink traffic: powerful business interests — protected by a government reliant on liquor taxes — getting men addicted to booze, and then profiting handsomely by bleeding them and their families dry.

...

"For a better understanding of temperance and prohibition, forget Bible-thumping “thou shalt nots.” Think instead about a major industry making outlandish profits by getting people hooked on an addictive substance that could kill them. Maybe that industry uses some of those profits to buy corrupt political cover by currying favor with government and oversight bodies. Let’s call this substance “opioids,” and the industry, “Big Pharma.”

"This is the same type of predatory capitalism that the temperance-cum-prohibition movement fought 100 years ago. Should big businesses be able to use addiction to reap tremendous profits from the poor? If your answer is no, and you were around 100 years ago, you likely would have joined the vast majority of Americans calling for the prohibition of liquor traffic."

The black market for haggis

If you celebrated Burns night last night, in honor of the Scottish poet who was born on January 25 1759, you may have eaten haggis.  And if it was the real thing, and you live in the U.S., then you were on the receiving end of smuggled goods.

The NY Times has the story:

Building the Perfect Meal With Sheep Lungs and a Suitcase
A federal agency bans the sale of sheep lungs, a key ingredient for Haggis. Lovers of the distinctive Scottish dish have found ways around that.

"On Saturday, Scots across the world will dine on haggis to celebrate the birthday of Robert Burns, the 18th-century Scottish poet. But for haggis purists in the United States, celebrating Burns Night can be a challenge. Since the 1970s, the Department of Agriculture’s food-safety division has banned the sale of sheep lungs, which give traditional haggis its distinctive crumbly texture.

"Many of the millions of Americans with Scottish ancestry have happily settled for an increasingly wide array of lung-less haggis (or, repulsed by the thought of eating sheep innards, avoided the dish entirely). For decades, however, a small but impassioned contingent has resorted to illicit methods to bring authentic haggis onto American soil, motivated by a commitment to tradition and a fondness for the taste and texture of boiled lung.

“If people want something, they’re going to get it,” said Patrick Angus Carr, the chairman of the New York branch of the Saint Andrew’s Society, a Scottish heritage group. “How much cocaine and fentanyl is smuggled into the country every day?”

National Kidney Donor Advocate Conference, in April, in NY: Update--Postponed!

Here's a heads up on the

1st Annual National Kidney Donor Advocate Conference on Friday, April 24 in New York City.

Here's a list of speakers.

• Prof. Alvin Roth
  

  Paired kidney exchange and a program to expand the living donor pool
• Dr. Michael Rees:
  

  Paired kidney exchange & the program designed to expand the living donor pool.
• Garet Hil:
  

  Protecting and supporting living donors – stories from the front lines
• Dr. David Serur:
  

  Review of the current medical status of kidney disease and treatments, and discussion of

  common complications for living donors
• Marian Charlton & Janet Hiller:
  

  A day in the life of a living donor coordinator and a kidney patient coordinator
• Dr. Joshua Mezrich:
  

  A surgeon’s perspective on living kidney donation
• Stephen Dubner:
  

  Podcasts and progress – consumption is in the ear of the beholder
• Harvey Mysel:
  

  Save a life, it might be your own
• Prof. Abigail Marsh:
  

  "Are donors different?”: insights into physiology and psychology of living donors
• Jim Gleason:
• Kidney Donors and Cookie Monsters: Two peas in a pod
• 
  

Sam Trejo on non-directed kidney donation (in the LA Times)

It's always good to hear from former students.

Sam Trejo writes:

"Hi Dr. Roth,

I'm PhD student in the GSE who took your Behavioral class a couple years back; you probably don't remember me, I didn't talk very much. Anyways, I donated my kidney last month to start a chain and wrote about it here. Just wanted to let you know of a concrete way that your market design work is making an impact!

Best,

Sam"

The op-ed he linked to in the LA Times is called:

I donated my kidney to a stranger — and more of us should

By SAM TREJO, JAN. 19, 2020 

Conference on Mechanism design for vulnerable populations in April at Pitt--call for papers: Update--Postponed!

Here's the call for papers:

Call for papers: 2020 NSF/CEME Decentralization Conference
Mechanism Design for Vulnerable Populations
April 17-19, 2020

Center for Analytical Approaches to Social Innovation (CAASI)

Graduate School of Public and International A airs
University of Pittsburgh

Submission Deadline: Friday, January 31th, 2020

The goal of this conference is to apply and extend mechanism design to the practical needs of institutions that serve vulnerable populations. These populations pose conceptual and technical challenges for the designer due to the high stakes decision making environments, complex constraints on agents' action space, and the cumulative effects of disadvantaged participation in previous mechanisms. We welcome both theoretical and empirical approaches.


The field of mechanism design has played a significant role in designing public sector allocative mechanisms, making important contributions to the FCC spectrum auctions, the creation of electricity markets, school matching algorithms, and more. Recently, scholars have begun to apply the tools of mechanism design towards institutions that serve vulnerable populations such as the construction of social safety nets. This endeavour will be challenging. Whether it is families facing housing insecurity, returning veterans, or the previously incarcerated, the daily struggles of these individuals are often unobserved by the designer, making it difficult to form accurate assumptions about agent types, action spaces, or perceptions of the mechanism. For vulnerable populations, small behavioral deviations or changes in allocations can result in dramatic differences, e.g. a missed car payment resulting in a job loss. In addition, marginalization is often the cumulative outcome of a sequence of mechanisms: the housing market affecting a child's school choice, which constrains his options in the job market, which in turn affects his outcome in the criminal justice system.


For the conference, we seek theoretical and empirical papers that try to bridge the gap between mechanism design theory and the needs of vulnerable population. Topics could include (but are not limited to):
* General theoretical papers on behavioral mechanism design and robust mechanism design
* Social work: service referral, adoption / foster care, transition to workforce, substance abuse treatments, mentoring programs
* Basic needs: low-income housing, housing integration by income and identity, food banks
* Education (school matching), transportation (route selection, transport markets) and criminal justice
* Public goods, participatory democracy and budgeting mechanisms

Submissions will be accepted until Friday, January 31th, 2020. Full papers are preferred, but extended abstracts will also be considered. Please email all submissions to jinyong.jeong@pitt.edu with the subject line Decentralization Submission. We will announce the conference program by Friday, February 14, 2020. All participants should confirm their attendance by Friday February 21, 2020.


Organizers:
Sera Linardi (University of Pittsburgh)
Jinyong Jeong (University of Pittsburgh)

Scott E. Page (University of Michigan)

Program Committee:
Rediet Abebe (Harvard University)
Yan Chen (University of Michigan)
Selman Erol (Carnegie Mellon University)
Osea Giuntella (University of Pittsburgh)
Daniel Jones (University of Pittsburgh)
John Ledyard (California Institute of Technology)
Irene Lo (Stanford University)
Adam Kapor (Princeton University)
Luca Rigotti (University of Pittsburgh)
Utku Unver (Boston College)
Richard Van Weelden (University of Pittsburgh)
M. Bumin Yenmez (Boston College)