Unraveling: a brief review (and reply)

The peer review process, for all its flaws, normally eliminates the need to write the kind of wide-ranging reply that I have forthcoming in the Journal of Labor Economics.  Here's the abstract and introduction: the link to the full paper is below.

Abstract: In this reply I describe the unraveling of transaction dates in several markets, including the labor market for new lawyers hired by large law firms. This and other markets illustrate that unraveling can occur in markets with competitive prices, that it can result in substantial inefficiencies, and that marketplace institutions play a role in restoring efficiency. All of these contradict the conclusions of Priest (2010).

And here are the opening paragraphs of the paper:

"Priest’s (2010) paper, “Timing ‘Disturbances’ in Labor Market Contracting: Roth’s Findings and the Effects of Labor Market Monopsony” seeks to rebut what he describes as “The work of Alvin E. Roth and colleagues writing in what might be described as the Roth tradition” about “a curious set of phenomena in some labor and product markets.”

"Briefly, the “tradition” Priest addresses has studied the timing of transactions, and observed that some markets go through episodes in which they unravel in time, with transactions becoming earlier and more diffuse in time from year to year, and with offers often coming to have very short durations (“exploding” offers). This has often led to changes in marketplace institutions, including rules and regulations to introduce a uniform time for market transactions, and restore thickness. Frequently this involves facilitating a marketplace at a later as well as a more uniform time. (For overviews, see Roth and Xing 1994, and Niederle and Roth 2009.)"


Roth, Alvin E, "Marketplace institutions related to the timing of transactions, and reply to Priest (2010)" Journal of Labor Economics, forthcoming (maybe April 2012).

Another year of the judicial clerkship market: maybe the last one under the current system?

Another year, more bad behavior by judges hiring clerks: Judges Compete for Law Clerks on a Lawless Terrain. (Banning cell phones in courthouses is clearly cruel and unusual punishment for law students on the clerkship job market...)

"Based on rules that were intended to curtail shenanigans, judges hiring for the 2012 season were supposed to begin interviewing third-year law students no earlier than Thursday, Sept. 15 at 10 a.m. But somehow, at the federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan, most of the interviews — and job offers— had already concluded by 9:45 a.m.

"Indeed, hoping to leapfrog their peers, most judges actually began interviewing hours (if not days or months) earlier. Many made so-called exploding offers, forcing candidates to accept or decline a job offer on the spot (and it’s a “Godfather”-style offer: one they can’t really refuse). Some judges extended offers by phone, which is even more nerve-racking for students because cellphones are not allowed at many courthouses. At the Manhattan courthouse, anxious young applicants in stiff new shoes were darting in and out of the building all day, checking and rechecking their phones with the security guard, just so they could listen to their voice mail between interviews.


"They had, after all, heard the warning tale of an unlucky student from the year before, who didn’t answer the phone because he was on a flight to another interview. The story ends with two voice mails: the first offering a job, and the second revoking it."
*********

Here's a version of that latter story that emerged from interviews we summarized in our 2007 paper:
“I received the offer via voicemail while I was in flight to my second interview. The judge actually left three messages.
First, to make the offer.
Second, to tell me that I should respond soon.
Third, to rescind the offer.
It was a 35 minute flight.”

• Avery, Christopher, Christine Jolls, Richard A. Posner, and Alvin E. Roth, "The Market for Federal Judicial Law Clerks" University of Chicago Law Review, 68, 3, Summer, 2001, 793-902.(online at SSRN)
• Avery, Christopher, Jolls, Christine, Posner, Richard A. and Roth, Alvin E., "The New Market for Federal Judicial Law Clerks" . University of Chicago Law Review, 74, Spring 2007, 447-486.

Will this be the last year that judges, law students, and law schools nominally adhere to the regime of post Labor Day dates?

Unraveling in soccer: Real Madrid signs 7-year old

Real Madrid signs 7-year-old

"Real Madrid has signed a 7-year-old soccer prodigy from Argentina who goes by the name Leo...

"Leonel Angel Coira signed with the Spanish club and will begin training Sept. 6, Madrid spokesman Juan Tapiador told The Associated Press on Monday.
...
"Madrid reportedly made the push to sign Coira because Spanish league rival Atletico Madrid was also pursuing the youngster."

HT: Larry DeBrock
*******************************

Unraveling of presidential primary dates, continued

Labor markets aren't the only things that unravel: the competition to be influential in selecting presidential candidates continues to do so: Iowa Republicans Eye Jan. 3 for Caucuses

"DES MOINES – Iowa Republicans are tentatively eyeing Jan. 3 as the date for the state’s caucuses, the first stop in the party’s battle to select a nominee to challenge President Obama.

The date is the consensus of party officials, who are frantically working to keep the first votes of the 2012 campaign from creeping into December. But the date is not locked down and could change depending on when the New Hampshire primary is held.

“I think for the long-term stability of maintaining our role as the first-in-the-nation caucus state, it’s important for us to start this process in 2012,” Matt Strawn, chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa, told reporters here Friday. “Actually for the voters, for the candidates and for the entire process, we all would be best served by starting this in January.”

"The Republican primary calendar has fallen into disorder. A plan to start the balloting in February has fallen apart, with Florida and other states rushing to move up the dates of their primary contests. The biggest remaining question is when the New Hampshire secretary of state, William M. Gardner, intends to schedule the contest there.

"He has not ruled out a December primary, given the leapfrogging by other states. If that were to take place – a possibility that most party officials still believe is unlikely – the Iowa caucuses could also be adjusted."
***********

I'll be talking about unraveling and exploding offers in class on Friday, so expect a lot of unraveling posts this week (if I were cleverer, I would have posted them last week...)

Leading indicator on economics job market, October 2011

John Siegfried writes:
"Here are data identifying the number of new jobs listed in the September and October JOE for recent years.

2007   1,171

2008   1,066

2009      924

2010   1,010

2011   1,025

The news could be better, but the  November and December JOEs are yet to come.

And it could certainly be worse. Consider the case of the academic market for historians: No More Plan B

"In 2009–10 the number of jobs posted with the AHA fell 29.4 per cent, from 806 to 569, while 989 PhDs were conferred. This is hardly the first time these two numbers have been far apart. In 1972, the first year for which accurate statistics exist, almost 1,200 new PhDs competed for just over 600 new teaching jobs. Except for two short periods in the late 1980s and the 2000s, the number of openings in history departments has consistently fallen short, sometimes by a very wide margin, of the number of doctorates awarded. As public contributions to higher education shrink, state budgets contract, and a lagging economy takes its toll on endowments and family incomes, there is little reason to expect the demand for tenure-track faculty to expand."

Wait-lists in college admissions

Inside Higher Ed reports:
 "at the annual meeting of the National Association for College Admission Counseling -- colleges' wait-list practices have become an issue of concern for many high school counselors. One session focused on the issue, and NACAC's Assembly voted for a formal study.

"The main concern among counselors was the lack of transparency surrounding how institutions manage their lists and why they operate them as they do. While most of the admissions process is governed by fairly clear rules laid out by the association, there are few rules governing the time between May 1 and August 1. Counselors said they have noticed a trend of more students are getting put on wait lists every year, and many said they hear horror stories about students being blind-sided with quick deadlines or inadequate aid offers months after they gave up hope of getting into their preferred institutions.
...
"Wait lists -- where institutions do not immediately deny a student admission but defer the decision until other students have either accepted or declined admission -- have become more prominent in recent years, admissions officials said. According to NACAC’s annual admissions trends survey, 39 percent of colleges responding to the survey reported using wait lists in 2009. Of those, 47 percent reported increases from the year before, and 51 percent reported increases in the number of students admitted off wait lists.
...
"The association's Statement of Principles of Good Practice lays out few rules regarding what institutions are allowed to do when forming a wait list or offering students acceptance off one. There are no rules or best practices governing the size of wait lists or how long students should be given to make a decision. Weede said the outcome of Talmage's proposal could be new recommendations.

"Talmage said he was motivated to bring forward the resolution after an incident involving one of the students he counseled. The student was placed on the wait list at his first-choice institution and told in May that the university would no longer accept anyone from the wait list. He accepted an offer from another institution only to get a call from his first choice at 9:30 a.m. one day in June, telling him he had until noon to make a decision.
...
""My sense is that the wait list is one of the least-studied -- and perhaps least-analyzed -- parts of the college-admissions process," Trout said in the opening remarks to his session Friday.
...
"Sometimes the stories involve institutions pumping up their yield numbers by placing a large number of students on wait lists and then only selecting students they know will enroll. Other times they revolve around need-blind institutions no longer ignoring need once they start pulling from the wait list.

"Still others involve students like Talmage's who are given very little time to make a decision, or students who are admitted off several wait lists in succession, losing enrollment deposits at each successive institution.
...
"For his session Friday, Trout asked four institutions -- the University of Notre Dame, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Grinnell College, and Texas Christian University -- to supply data about and discuss how they use wait lists.

"The number of students offered spots on wait lists ranged from 500 to almost 3,600, and the number offered admission ranged from 140 to 0.

"Institutions that use wait lists said they help control for disruptions in the student market that could hurt an institution's bottom line. “It’s a process of managing uncertainty in an uncertain field,” said Seth Allen, dean of admission and financial aid at Pomona College.

"Butler University provides a good example. The institution saw applications increase 41 percent this year -- likely due to the performance of its men's basketball team in the NCAA tournament, where it reached the finals for two consecutive years -- along with an increase in student quality, Weede said. The institution saw a significantly lower yield than it had in previous years, and ended up offering admission to 650 members of its 720-person wait-list.

"Other times only a small number of students are actually offered admission off a wait list. In 2011, the University of Notre Dame placed 1,905 students on its wait list -- 1,632 of whom chose to remain on the list – and only accepted seven students off the list. None of the 3,600 students offered a spot on the wait list at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2010 received offers of admission.

Euroeconomistjobs.com, a site for jobs for economists in Europe

Euroeconomistjobs.com caught my eye with this ad:

Specialist: Industrial Economics, Organizational and Market Design

UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain

Leuven, Belgium

The successful candidate will carry out research in the field of Industrial economics, organizational and market design. He will be expected to develop high quality theoretical and/or applied research in industrial organization, incentive theory, organizational or market design, the economics of information and technology and game theory with applications. The research topics we are interested in include but are not limited to economics of networks, internet, communication medias, innovation and patents, two-sided markets, matching, the theory of the firm, not-for-profit organizations, and auctions.
The successful candidate will have teaching assignments in general economics and in the above-mentioned field within the various degree programmes organised by the Faculty. He will have to supervise master theses and PhD dissertations.
Tasks: The applicant will

• be responsible for teaching courses at all the study levels (i.e. undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate), as well as in programmes of continuing education;
• supervise the final diploma work (i.e. master thesis) of undergraduate students, as well as PhD theses;
• be involved in (and/or supervise, promote) research programmes;
• contribute to the international visibility of the University through teaching and research excellence;
• contribute to activities of the University with a societal impact in the fields of the economy, socio-cultural changes or cooperation with developing countries.

Qualifications: the applicant must have

• a PhD degree in economics, or equivalent qualifications;
• a significant scientific record proven by international publications;
• either studied abroad for an extensive period or had substantial experience outside UCL;
• experience in and aptitude for teaching at university level;
• the capacity to work within a team of teachers and to integrate research findings in their courses;
• creativity and must be open to pedagogic innovation and interdisciplinarity;
• the capacities required to undertake academic research at a high level and to advise, or lead, a research team ;
• a good knowledge of both spoken and written French. If this is not the case, the applicant should be willing to learn French within 2 years. Fluency in English and other languages is an additional advantage;
• the capacity to teach in French and in a second language.

For more details and to apply for this job click here

© EuroEconomistJobs.com, 2011
all rights reserved 

Mike Luca on Yelp

My colleague Mike Luca (whose work I wrote about here when he was still a grad student) has a paper on the influence of Yelp reviews on restaurant revenues.

It's recently been receiving some attention both locally at HBS working knowledge, and in the larger blogosphere: One-Star Bump On Yelp Leads To Big Revenue Boost, Study Finds

Here's the abstract of his paper:
"Do online consumer reviews affect restaurant demand?  I investigate this question using a novel dataset combining reviews from the website Yelp.com and restaurant data from the Washington State  Department of Revenue.   Because  Yelp prominently displays a restaurant's rounded average rating,  I can  identify the  causal  impact of Yelp ratings on demand with a  regression discontinuity framework that exploits Yelp‟s rounding thresholds.  I present three findings about the impact of consumer reviews on the restaurant industry: (1) a one-star increase in Yelp rating leads to a  5-9 percent increase in revenue, (2) this effect is driven by independent restaurants; ratings do not affect restaurants with chain affiliation, and (3) chain restaurants have declined in market share as Yelp penetration has increased. This suggests that  online  consumer reviews substitute for more traditional forms of reputation. I then test whether  consumers use these reviews  in a way that is consistent with standard  learning models.  I present  two additional findings: (4) consumers do not use all available information and are more responsive to quality changes that are more visible and (5) consumers respond more strongly when a rating contains more information.  Consumer response to a restaurant‟s average rating is affected by the number of reviews and whether the reviewers are certified as “elite” by Yelp, but is  unaffected by the size of the reviewers‟ Yelp friends network." "

Law schools and transfer students

A recent paper discusses a growing trend: many law students transfer from the law school to which they are initially admitted to a higher ranked law school. (Part of the discussion of the paper involves the fact that this used to be a taboo subject, maybe a repugnant transaction...). One attraction of transfer students, apparently, aside from the tuition they bring, is that their LSAT scores don't count in the reputational rankings, so a school can admit its lower score students as transfers without appearing less selective...

The paper is The Tragedy of the Student Commons: Law Student Transfers and Legal Education, by Jeff Rensberger.

Here's the summary from a blog post by Brian Tamanaha:Transfer Students are the New Normal (With Significant Implications for Law Schools)

"Transfer students are sweeping across law schools, with about 5 percent of students moving annually. In 2008, the most recent year with publicly available records, every accredited law school in America but one saw transfers; at almost every law school, the transfer door swung in both directions: outgoing students departed for a better school, just as incoming students came in. It is an annual reshuffle of students up the law school chain.

"Remarkably—a sign of how crazy things have gotten—even students at top fifteen schools transfer up to find a better perch in the law school hierarchy. In the four years on record (2005-2008), as many as 10 students have transferred up in a given year from Michigan, Duke, and Northwestern, and a greater number have left Cornell and Georgetown.

"Law professors treat transfers as if a taboo. A recent article about transfers in the Journal of Legal Education supplies numbers, but redacts the identities of the law schools (declining to "name names").
...
"Transfer students are the new normal. When nearly every law school (that can) takes in transfers, and many do so in significant numbers, it is silly to treat it as a deviant or dirty practice. The scale of this phenomenon--the names and numbers--may surprise you.

"This phenomenon starts at the top. Law schools try to strike the best balance between improving or maintaining their median LSAT and harvesting revenue. As LSAT-free revenue payers, transfer students are ideal: they are capable students who bring in money with no downside beyond a bit of institutional inconvenience.

"Among elite law schools, the undisputed champions of cashing in on transfers are Georgetown (net student gain of 87, 87, 81, and 71 in 2005-2008) and Columbia (39, 54, 62, and 72 in same years). But the other industry blue bloods are not shy about it either. Almost all of the elite schools brought in transfers each year in significant numbers: one to two dozen at Yale, Stanford, Penn, and Chicago (adding 8 to 13 percent to their classes); two to three dozen at Harvard, Michigan, Berkeley; three to four dozen at NYU and Northwestern. (Gaining a leg up in the transfer grab, Northwestern sent “conditional admittance” letters to a bunch of students denied initial admission, informing them that they will be admitted as transfers if they meet a specified class rank in their first year elsewhere. ) Virginia went up and down. Only Duke, Cornell, and Texas consistently netted around 10 or fewer students (the net gain of the first two was depressed by the significant number of students they lost).

"Once schools at the top absorb transfers in real numbers, the process inevitably cascades. Schools drained of students by higher-ups, in turn take transfers from schools lower in the chain, and so on down. That’s why virtually every school in the country sees transfers in or out, and in most cases in both directions.

"An illuminating picture can be seen in the latest published statistics (keep in mind that this is just one year, 2008, and things are fluid). When measured in terms of the percentage of the second year class—which tells you the proportion of new bodies in the group that graduates—Rutgers-Camden is number one at nearly 23 percent of the class, and Columbia is second at 21 percent. One out of five Columbia law school graduates in 2010 did their first year elsewhere.

...

"If more law schools in the top 15 begin to take transfers on a scale approaching Columbia’s, students from law schools ranked in the second group (15 to 25) will serve as their prime draft pool. Schools in this category will be shorn of a painful number of their better students and will have to take in more students to make up for the financial hit. Even if the top 15 maintain their current transfer patterns, schools in the 15 to 25 range can ramp up their transfer numbers on their own. Either of these scenarios would ramify through the remaining hundred and seventy five law schools. Every transfer student taken is a loss elsewhere, which losing schools would try to make up by taking transfers of their own. In this fashion, each transfer at the top can multiply several times down the ladder. The logic of the situation leans toward escalation because schools that currently moderate their transfer numbers are leaving money—transfer bodies—on the table to be grabbed by their less reticent cohorts.

"No law school (outside of HYS) entirely controls its own fate. Every school is subject to the consequences of decisions made by higher ups as well as decisions by competitor schools in the same rank group. The 2008 numbers cited above likely understates current numbers of transfers taken by top schools.

"And then there are the net losers (literally not pejoratively).

"Two law schools, Cooley and Florida Coastal, incorporate transfers-out as an element of their economic model. These schools feed on students with rock bottom LSAT scores who have little chance of obtaining initial entry elsewhere. Many students come hoping to do well enough to transfer to a better school after the first year. For this to work financially, these schools must take in a large number of students, anticipating massive attrition at the end of the first year (transfers out, quitting, failing out). Unlike most law schools, which count on three years of tuition, these institutions will settle for one. In 2008, Cooley law school lost 188 transfers out, but it had 1,903 entering students. Florida Coastal lost 78 transfers out from a total class of 573. (Ramping up in size, in 2010 they took in 808 JD students.) These schools will be okay financially because they are built to operate that way.

"Other schools that lose transfers in large numbers may be in trouble. Ave Maria saw 27 students leave a class of 127. Whittier lost 28 students from a class of 156 (4 transferred in). Ave Maria, Whittier, Thomas Jefferson, Detroit Mercy, Phoenix, and Widener (Wilmington) all suffered net losses of more than 10 percent of their class. Syracuse and Florida A & M were nearly 10 percent down. Valparaiso and St. Thomas (Minnesota) were down 8.5 percent. New England lost 8 percent, and Catholic was close to that. Hofstra, Oklahoma City, and Dayton suffered net losses of more than 7 percent.

"Departures of this size are financial blows, not to mention the exodus of many of their best students. Each student who leaves is two years of tuition (discounted for scholarships) up in smoke. Few businesses could sustain revenue losses on this order without undergoing changes in how they operate. But there isn’t much that law schools in this position can do. They can up scholarship offers to dissuade students from heading out, but that would take away scholarship money needed for the next entering class, and many students will depart for greener pastures anyway. Alternatively, these schools can take in more transfers themselves, assuming they have drawing power. 

...

"The article on transfers mentioned at the outset calls it a "tragedy," and portrays schools that take transfers as "poachers" engaging in sharp practices. Dean Matasar of New York Law School called it "predatory behavior." Critics speak as if law schools have some kind of claim over their students--implying that students who leave are disloyal (or worse, ripping off their former institution of its investment in a student's development), suggesting that schools that take transfers are behaving unethically and harming the collective good (read the article to get the full flavor)."

HT: Mary O'Keeffe

Kessler-Roth at the Health Law Policy and Bioethics Workshop today

At 5pm today Judd Kessler and I will be speaking at Harvard Law School at this seminar*, on this paper**...

It's open to the public, Hauser Hall Room 105.

*Petrie Flom Center Health Law Policy Workshop

**Kessler, Judd B. and Alvin E. Roth, '' Organ Allocation Policy and the Decision to Donate,'' American Economic Review, forthcoming.

If fur is repugnant (in West Hollywood, CA), why not leather?

That's the question the NY Times asks (Ban Fur? Then Why Not Leather?) following the decision by the city of West Hollywood California to ban the sale of fur garments.

(In addition, "The city has established no-kill animal shelters, outlawed the declawing of cats, and banned the sale of dogs and cats in pet stores...")

In my discussions of repugnance I've often been struck by how hard it is to model just what will strike some people as repugnant and what not. This isn't surprising in view of the fact that what is repugnant at one place or at one time may not be regarded that way at another place or time.

Vohra on "What is Market Design?"

Ricky Vohra, thinking about how to construct a market design course, asks "What is Market Design?"

Worth reading (and I hope he'll let me know when he finds out the answer).

Public nudity: San Francisco is different

In most places, public nudity is considered repugnant. Not in San Francisco:

"Other nearby cities like Berkeley and San Jose have passed laws prohibiting public nudity, but in San Francisco it remains legal. In accordance with state law, public nudity is only illegal when accompanied by “lewd thoughts or acts” or “where there are present other persons to be offended or annoyed.” But since state law prohibits police officers from being the offended party, it takes a citizen’s arrest— a rare occurrence in a city that prides itself on its open-mindedness and tolerance — to take a naked person into custody."


And even those who would like to limit it are different in SF: there is now
"...a proposed law — introduced by Scott Wiener, a city supervisor — that would prohibit nudity in restaurants and require unclad people to put a towel or other material down before sitting bare-bottomed on benches or other public seats."


All this from the NY Times: 
Protesters Bare All Over a Proposed San Francisco Law

Cramton^3 on market design

IMT Institute for Advanced Studies, Lucca Piazza San Ponziano 6, Lucca Italy
 October 4-6, 2011

 THREE LECTURES ON MARKET DESIGN
 Peter Cramton
 Professor of Economics, University of Maryland




During the week of 3 October 2011, Professor Peter Cramton will present a series of three lectures on market design. The emerging field of market design applies auctions and matching to solve resource allocation problems. The lectures focus on auction design, the branch of market design where money is used to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. Within auctions, the paper examines applications involving government regulated resources. Who should use the scarce radio spectrum and at what prices? How should electricity markets be organized? How should financial markets be regulated? And how should governments procure health care goods and services? All of these are important questions in major industries. Researchers in market design have made substantial progress in answering these questions over the last seventeen years. The efforts, although at the forefront of theory have been closely tied to practice, and involved interdisciplinary teams of economists, computer scientists, and engineers, all working to solve real problems. Despite this rapid progress, the field holds much promise to provide better answers in even more complex economic environments over the next two decades. The rewards to society from improved markets will be immense.



 Tuesday, October 4, 2011 - 2 pm
 Electricity Market Design and Climate Policy

 Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - 2 pm
Spectrum Auction Design

Thursday, October 6, 2011 - 2 pm
Medicare Auctions: A Case Study of Market Design in Washington, DC

Brain dead patients as research subjects in xenotransplantation

It turns out that economists aren't the only people willing to contemplate things that others may find repugnant... Mike Rees, the kidney surgeon who leads the Alliance for Paired Donation, also has a lively research interest in xenotransplantation, which offers the still distant prospect of using pig kidneys to cure human kidney disease. But first a lot of research needs to be done...would it be ok to use it on brain dead patients whose dead body is still kept functioning on a ventilator? Or would that be disrespectful of the dead?

The last bullfight in Catalonia

Another transaction becomes repugnant:

The last Ole! Bullfighting comes to an end in Catalonia

Almost seven hundred years of Catalan bullfighting history ended on Sunday night with the final death blow dealt by its hometown hero.

Harvard Nobel Prediction Market

Ran Shorrer asks me to post the following announcement:

It's that time of the year again!

The recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics will be announced soon, which means there's little time left for you to place your bets in the Harvard Nobel Prediction Market! Put your economics training to the test and see if your predictions can bring you fame and riches. Previous participants have walked away with sizable winnings and bragging rights.

To enter, fill out this Google Form or print and mail this paper form. Betting closes at 11:59pm EST, October 9th, 2011. Online payments should be received by the same deadline, and payments by mail must be post-marked by October 9th, 2011. Cambridge economists may also give the payment to Brenda Piquet or put the money in Daniel Pollmann's Littauer mailbox.

Submit online payments to johnczhou@gmail.com from your Amazon Payments account. To pay IN CASH, mail the printed form and the sum of your bets to

Daniel Pollmann, Littauer Center, Harvard University,
1875 Cambridge St, Cambridge MA 02138 

Check our website on Sunday, October 9th for the most popular choices, as well as for the winners soon after October 10th.

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

Update

Al Roth  -  10:40 AM  -  Public

A commenter asks if this is legal--does anyone know?

Market Design: Harvard Nobel Prediction Market

  -  Comment  -  Share

Mallesh Pai - Probably not- intrade had to move out of of the US for legality reasons- and they're the biggest prediction market I know... (I'm guessing +David Pennock will know more).

10:47 AM (edited)   

David Pennock - Not technically legal in the US, but neither are office pools. No one would ever be prosecuted for betting in this. The operator of the market might worry more, but I highly doubt something on this scale on this topic would be prosecuted. Look up betcha.com for the worst-case scenario but that was sports betting, a clear no-no.

11:02 AM   

Driving and voting while female in Saudi Arabia

Find the repugnant transaction in this story...


Saudi woman to be lashed for defying driving ban

"A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a woman to 10 lashes for breaking the country's ban on female drivers.
...
"The sentence comes two days after the Saudi leader King Abdullah announced women would be allowed to vote for the first time in 2015."


Update: Saudi king revokes woman's lashing sentence
""Thank God, the lashing of Sheima is cancelled. Thanks to our beloved King," said Princess Amira al-Taweel, wife of Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, on her twitter account."

Full tuition and college admissions

The NY Times is shocked by the results of a survey of admissions officers: Universities Seeking Out Students of Means

"More than half of the admissions officers at public research universities, and more than a third at four-year colleges said that they had been working harder in the past year to recruit students who need no financial aid and can pay full price..."
...
"Similarly, 22 percent of the admissions officials at four-year institutions said the financial downturn had led them to pay more attention in their decision to applicants’ ability to pay.

“As institutional pressures mount, between the decreased state funding, the pressure to raise a college’s profile, and the pressure to admit certain students, we’re seeing a fundamental change in the admissions process,” said David A. Hawkins, director of public policy and research at the National Association for College Admission Counseling. “Where many of the older admissions professionals came in through the institution and saw it as an ethically centered counseling role, there’s now a different dynamic that places a lot more emphasis on marketing.”

Dialysis: continued debate about tragic choices, and how to finance not having to make them

This recent story about who pays for dialysis for uninsured illegal immigrants reminds me of the initial stories of how Medicare came to cover dialysis, making kidney disease unique in the way it is financed. There is a special horror in denying routine life saving treatment to patients who will die without it. That is, emergency rooms aren't supposed to deny treatment to anyone, but dialysis only becomes an emergency when regular access is denied...but we haven't done a great job of figuring out the financing.

Here's the NY Times story on illegal immigrants, by Kevin Sack: Deal Reached on Dialysis for Immigrants


"Twenty-one illegal immigrants will continue to receive regular dialysis at no cost for three years under an agreement disclosed Friday by Atlanta’s public hospital, Grady Memorial, and the world’s largest dialysis provider, Fresenius Medical Care.

"The deal solves an impasse created when a previous one-year contract between Grady and Fresenius expired on Aug. 31 and the dialysis provider refused to serve patients who showed up for their regular thrice-a-week treatments.

"The patients spent the past week seeking care in Atlanta-area emergency rooms, including Grady’s, which are required by federal law to screen and treat those at risk of impairment or death.

"In some instances, ailing patients were turned away by emergency room doctors who determined that their elevated potassium levels and fluid retention were not yet severe enough to justify emergency treatment. Each renal patient’s need for dialysis is different, but those unable to artificially clean the toxic substances from their blood can die in as little as two weeks.
...
"The patients’ odyssey began two years ago when Grady closed its outpatient dialysis clinic, where many had received free treatment for years. Illegal immigrants are not eligible for Medicare, which covers most dialysis costs for American citizens. After the immigrants filed a lawsuit and gained news media attention, the hospital agreed to pay Fresenius to care for them during a transitional period. Other than the past week, it has never ended.

"Under the new contract, Grady agrees to pay Fresenius $15,500 per patient per year for treatment at the company’s outpatient clinics. That is less than half of the $750,000 flat fee Grady paid Fresenius for the yearlong contract that just ended.

"Grady, which receives direct appropriations from two county governments, faces a budget shortfall of more than $20 million this year. It maintained in negotiations that it could not afford to pay Fresenius the previous rates."
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Here's a previous post on how dialysis entered Medicare:

The special (Medicare) status of kidney disease

" In Seattle, in response to financial limitations, access to dialysis was restricted through explicit rationing carried out by an anonymous lay committee — an approach that was laid bare for the American public in a Life magazine article in November 1962.² Elsewhere, decisions limiting access to dialysis were tacitly incorporated into traditional medical decision making. Dialysis highlighted the tragic choices that had to be made when fundamental societal values encountered problems of scarcity.

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"In November 1971, a patient received dialysis — albeit very briefly — at a hearing of the House Committee on Ways and Means."
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And here's a post on the continued debate about tragic choices, even without the added distraction of immigration status: 

Medicare payments for dialysis

The New York Times describes the growing federal expenses for dialysis, and some surrounding controversy: When Ailments Pile Up, Asking Patients to Rethink Free Dialysis


"Of all the terrible chronic diseases, only one —end-stage kidney disease — gets special treatment by the federal government. A law passed by Congress 39 years agoprovides nearly free care to almost all patients whose kidneys have failed, regardless of their age or ability to pay.


"But the law has had unintended consequences, kidney experts say. It was meant to keep young and middle-aged people alive and productive. Instead, many of the patients who take advantage of the law are old and have other medical problems, often suffering through dialysis as a replacement for their failed kidneys but not living long because the other chronic diseases kill them.