Canice Prendergast on The Allocation of Food to Food Banks

Market design has arrived at Chicago, here's a nice paper presented at the recent NBER market design conference.:

The Allocation of Food to Food Banks 
Canice Prendergast∗ Preliminary Draft August 13, 2015

Abstract Food banks throughout the U.S. provide nutrition to the needy. Yet the food that is distributed through food banks often originates with donors - large manufacturers or distributors - far from those needy clients. How that food is distributed to food banks across the country is the subject of this essay. An informal description is given of an innovation introduced in 2005 by Feeding America (at the time the organization was called America’s Second Harvest) that would better allow food bank preferences to be reflected in their allocations. Specifically, Feeding America transitioned from the centralized allocation process, where they would make decisions based on their perception of food bank need, to one where local affiliates would bid for food items. To do so, Feeding America constructed a specialized constructed currency called “shares” that are used to bid on loads of donated food. The process by which this change came about, its necessary idiosyncrasies, and its outcomes are described.
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Scott Kominers pointed me to an earlier news article on the paper
What happens when America's Soviet-style food banks embrace free-market economics?

"Initially, there was plenty of resistance. As one food bank director told Canice Prendergast, an economist advising Feeding America, "I am a socialist. That's why I run a food bank. I don't believe in markets. I'm not saying I won't listen, but I am against this." But the Chicago economists managed to design a market that worked even for participants who did not believe in it."

Interview about market design by the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts

An interview about market design by the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts inevitably turned to the real estate market...

Nobel Prize Winner Alvin Roth Plays the Match Game  By Allen Kenney

Here's the final question and answer:

REIT: What about on a more discrete level? If you’re an executive in the real estate industry, for example, how might you know if you could get better results by changing how you engage in your own micro-markets for deals?

Roth: I’m a sometimes observer and participant in the residential real estate market. The large role still played by realtors is surprising to me as prices and searchability have gone up.

There was a time when the multiple listing service was a monopoly that made it hard to know what houses were on the market if you didn’t engage a realtor. Nowadays, it’s much easier to know what houses are on the market. You can even take virtual tours.

Still, realtors’ commissions have remained steadily at high rates around the country, even as prices have gone up. Of course, there’s more competition among realtors, so it’s not necessarily the case that realtors are all getting rich. But I’m surprised by the high commissions that are still extracted in cases when it’s not clear to me that the realtors are providing a big service.

If commercial real estate is similar, there might be ways to arrange more bilateral transactions. There might be ways to sell without so much assistance from realtors.

The singularity is not as near as you thought...

Artificial intelligence may not be poised to take over the world just yet, or at least there will be a distribution of intelligence even among the artificial kind.

I received an email from a biomedical literature service that would like me to sign up to keep track of articles related to one of mine, specifically

Roth AE: The art of designing markets. Harv Bus Rev; 2007 Oct;85(10):118-26, 166, PMID: 17972500

The top three related papers they suggest are (emphasis added)

1. The art of designing markets.

Roth AE.

Harv Bus Rev; 2007 Oct;85(10):118-26, 166.

2. [Art therapy and "art brut"].

Kovács E, Simon L.

Psychiatr Hung; 2010;25(4):323-32.

3. [Multiple pregnancies after ART: problems and possible solutions].

Shebl O, Ebner T, Sommergruber M, Sir A, Urdl W, Tews G.

Gynakol Geburtshilfliche Rundsch; 2007;47(1):3-8.

A plea for kidney sales in the Atlantic, from an Orthodox rabbi

Writing in the Atlantic, kidney donor Shmuly Yanklowitz argues that it would be easier for more people to do as he did if kidney donors could be paid.

Give a Kidney, Get a Check
Some people in poorer countries are compelled to sell their organs on the black market. Why not build a regulated system that compensates them fairly and ensures their safety? 

Yanklowitz is an Orthodox rabbi: here's a bit of his bio:

Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L’Tzedek. In 2012 and 2013, Newsweek rated Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America. Rav Shmuly is the author of 7 books on Jewish Ethics. He studied at the University of Texas as an undergraduate and Harvard University for a Masters in Leadership and Psychology, and he completed a second Masters degree in Jewish Philosophy at Yeshiva University. He completed his doctorate at Columbia University in Moral Development and Epistemology, and has taught as an instructor of moral philosophy at Barnard College and at the UCLA Law School. Shmuly was ordained as a Rabbi by Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (the YCT Rabbinical School) as a Wexner Graduate Fellow prior to which he studied Talmud and Jewish law at Yeshivat Hamivtar in Efrat, Israel for two years.

Assisted suicide legislation is clarified in Germany (family members won't be prosecuted, but professional assistance is forbidden)

Timo Mennle writes  from Zurich:

"the German parliament ("Bundestag") passed a new law concerning assisted suicide. The law generally forbids aiding others in their own suicide. However, it has two important points: first, it imposes a penalty of up to 3 years imprisonment if assistance for suicide is provided in a "business-like" fashion. This explicitly rules out the provision of such services for profit but also the professional provision by organization. Second, relatives and persons with a close relationships are exempt from punishment if they assist in a suicide out

of “altruistic motives.” The same is true for medical doctors in case of

decisions on a by-case basis. The new law closes a legal gap that previously left medial doctors and relatives in an ambiguous situation.

The express purpose of the new law is to "prevent a habituation of society to assisted suicide and to prevent the pressuring of old or sick persons into killing themselves." The vote in parliament was taken anonymously; the usual obligation of the members of parliament to vote according to their respective party's recommendation was explicitly suspended and they were asked to follow only their own conscience in this decision.

This and more information can be found in the following news articles

(unfortunately in German):

http://www.tagesschau.de/eilmeldung/eilmeldung-279.html

http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/bundestag-verbot-sterbehilfe-organisationen-101.html

An English article about the topic can be found here:

http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2015/11/06/germany-passes-law-allowing-some-types-of-assisted-suicide"

More on (third party) litigation financing, including a medieval word, "champerty"

In the NY Times: Should You Be Allowed to Invest in a Lawsuit?
In recent years, investors have started buying shares in other people’s
litigation proceedings. Are they warping the legal system in the process?
By MATTATHIAS SCHWARTZ

"Despite the hypercapitalist spirit of its rise, litigation finance actually has its roots in antiquity. According to Max Radin, a historian of ancient city-states, members of Athenian political clubs would back each other in lawsuits against their rivals. Apollodorus, a wealthy banker’s son, bought shares of lawsuits and hired professional orators — some of the earliest lawyers in Western history — to write his court speeches. The Romans tolerated the practice in some cases until the sixth century, when it was banned by Emperor Anastasius. The Roman taboo on litigation finance, Radin writes, sprang from the idea that ‘‘a controversy properly concerned only the persons actually involved in the original transaction,’’ not self-interested meddlers. In medieval England, litigants could hire ‘‘champions’’ to represent them in ‘‘trial by battle.’’ By the late 13th century, these strongmen were being compared to prostitutes, and their prevalence hastened the movement of dispute resolution to the courtroom. During the Middle Ages, this concept of ‘‘champerty’’ — assisting another person’s lawsuit in exchange for a share of the proceeds — emerged as part of the larger ecclesiastical taboo against usury. Though the word was associated with feudal land grabs, Radin notes that in practice, champerty was used by rich lawyers ‘‘on behalf of propertied defendants.’’ In 1787, Jeremy Bentham, the political philosopher, mocked prohibitions on champerty as a holdover from feudal days, where courts were beholden to ‘‘the sword of a baron, stalking into court with a rabble of retainers at his heels.’’

Nevertheless, a vestigial squeamishness about investing in lawsuits made its way across the Atlantic. The first such disputes, early in the 20th century, were over contingency fees, the practice, now common, of lawyers taking on a case in exchange for a percentage of future damages. Unlike England, which still caps fees for winning solicitors, America was open to this kind of payment structure, in keeping with its frontier ethic toward credit and speculation. Twenty-eight states now explicitly permit champerty, as long as funders do not act out of malice, back frivolous lawsuits or exert too much control over trial strategy."

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For previous posts on litigation financing, see here, here, and here.

What a review of Who Gets What and Why would look like if my name were Andy...

The Nation gives me a trendier first name in a review of Who Gets What and Why.

The challenge of designing Asia-proof markets:

"One positive consequence of the global financial crisis is a complete rethink of the foundations of economic analysis. Of the thousands of ideas that are beginning to challenge economic orthodoxy, two books stand out. The first is Nassim Taleb's "Anti-fragility", which challenged the whole basis of conventional risk management. The other is Nobel Laureate Andy Roth's "Who Gets What - and Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design", which returns to the fundamentals of markets."

Economic Rockstar podcast: Alvin Roth on Match-Making, Repugnant Markets and Market Design

You can find the interview here:
Economic Rockstar Connecting Brilliant Minds in Economics and Finance
057: Alvin Roth on Match-Making, Repugnant Markets and Market Design November 5, 2015

Algorithmic economics at Microsoft Research NYC

A rose by any other name (and a postdoc position at Microsoft Research NYC): Algorithmic Economics at Microsoft Research

Here's their description of what they do.

"Research in the Algorithmic Economics group at MSR-NYC spans a wide variety of topics at the interface of economics and computation. Application areas include auctions, crowdsourcing, gaming, information aggregation, machine learning in markets, market interfaces, market makers, monetization, online advertising, optimization, polling, prediction engines, preference elicitation, scoring rules, and social media.

Increasingly, online service design teams require dual expertise in social science and computer science, adding competence in economics, sociology, and psychology to more traditionally recognized requirements like algorithms, interfaces, systems, machine learning, and optimization. Our researchers combine expertise in computer science and economics to bridge the gap between modeling human behavior and engineering web-scale systems."


Call for Postdocs in Algorithmic Economics. Deadline for full consideration: December 8, 2015

"Eligible applicants must hold a Ph.D. in computer science, economics, operations research, or a related field. More specifically, we seek applicants who embody a diverse mix of skills, including a background in computer science (e.g., artificial intelligence or theory), and knowledge of the theoretical and experimental economics literature."

Are Uber drivers contractors or employees? It's in the courts

The WSJ has the story: Meet the Boston Lawyer Who’s Putting Uber on Trial
"Ms. Liss-Riordan represents drivers who say the ride-service company has illegally classified them as freelancers and not employees, barring them from reimbursements for their expenses, among other protections. She is also suing Lyft, Postmates and others over the labor model on which they depend.
...
"The closely watched Uber case, which continues in federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday, won class-action status in September and could go to trial as early as next year. A final verdict against Uber in this case could change how the firm does business with its drivers and send shocks through the on-demand economy.

"Uber’s lawyers have argued that it is a software platform connecting car owners with people seeking rides, and not the manager of a fleet of drivers. The $51 billion venture-backed company has no plans to settle and is willing to fight the case to the Supreme Court if necessary, according to people familiar with its legal strategy."

Airbnb unbound: Prop F voted down in San Francisco

Airbnb has escaped the narrow limits on rentals (75 days a year per property) that Proposition F sought to impose: SFGate has the story.
Prop. F: S.F. voters reject measure to restrict Airbnb rentals
By Carolyn Said Updated 12:14 am, Wednesday, November 4, 2015

"San Francisco voters handed a victory Tuesday to Airbnb and city residents who want to turn their homes into vacation rentals. Proposition F, a measure that would have drastically curbed short-term rentals, lost by 55 percent to 45 percent, with all precincts reporting and most mail ballots counted.

"Prop. F was one of the most contentious issues on the ballot and centered on whether vacation rentals divert scarce housing to lucrative illegal year-round hotels, as its backers claimed, or help middle-class people make ends meet, as Airbnb and other opponents of the measure said. Airbnb spent millions to defeat the measure, running the most expensive campaign in this city election."
...
"Prop. F sought to limit vacation rentals to 75 days a year; beef up enforcement and penalties; and establish big payoffs for neighbors and others who successfully sued violators. The measure’s backers, a coalition of housing activists, landlords, neighborhood groups and hotel workers’ unions, said the city’s existing regulations for short-term rentals, enacted in February, are toothless. They noted that only about 700 of Airbnb’s thousands of hosts complied with a requirement to register their homes as temporary rentals.

"Airbnb poured more than $8 million into the campaign to defeat Prop. F, dramatically outspending the measure’s backers, who raised $482,000, the bulk of it coming from Unite Here, the hotel workers’ union. Although Prop. F would have curbed all short-term rentals — including ones listed through other companies, such as HomeAway/VRBO, Flipkey or Craigslist — Airbnb clearly had the most at stake in its hometown and was the only company to fight the measure.
...
"Two weeks ago, Airbnb stumbled with an ill-advised corporate advertising campaign that used bus shelters and billboards to congratulate itself for remitting $12 million a year to San Francisco in hotel taxes. Social media exploded in outrage against the messages, which critics called snarky, passive-aggressive and tone-deaf. Airbnb apologized and removed the ads.

"Airbnb had a potent weapon besides its massive campaign war chest. A jaw-dropping 138,000 city residents stayed in Airbnb rentals or hosted guests themselves in the past year, the company said. It contacted all of them, urging them to vote against Prop. F. That compares with 446,841 registered voters in the whole city, about half of whom voted in 2014.

"Founded in San Francisco five years ago to provide temporary housing on airbeds, Airbnb is now one of the world’s most valuable startups, valued at $25.5 billion — more than the Marriott, Starwood or Wyndham hotel chains. It has more than 2 million listings in 190 countries. Its explosive success has set off struggles in cities worldwide as lawmakers and residents grapple with how to regulate the explosion of vacation rentals in their midst. But San Francisco is the first, and so far only, city where voters have weighed in."

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See yesterday's post for some more background.

Update: see this followup story, on the politics that come into play with a marketplace that has lots of users: Airbnb and Uber Mobilize Vast User Base to Sway Policy

Proposition F: does Airbnb have a repugnance problem?

The president won't get elected today, but it is an election day. And in San Francisco, the home of Airbnb, voters will vote on City of San Francisco Initiative to Restrict Short-Term Rentals, Proposition F (November 2015). It would restrict short term rentals to no more than 75 days a year.

Here's the story in the LA Times: San Francisco residents to vote on contentious Prop. F targeting Airbnb
"Proposition F supporters say it's about time tougher rules are created. Laws enacted by City Hall this year have been weak, and companies like Airbnb have been skirting the rules with impunity, according to attorney Joseph Tobener, who represents the San Francisco Tenants Union (also a supporter of Proposition F).

"I think they're having a heyday right now because there's no enforcement," Tobener said. "There is no enforcement in the city at all right now. It's do whatever you want. Rent out as much as you want. No one is going to enforce it."

To Tobener's point, enforcement of existing laws that require short-term rental hosts to be registered with the Planning Department seems lax. There are an estimated 10,000 short-term rental listings in San Francisco. As of Thursday, the recently created Office of Short-Term Rentals had issued only 728 registration certificates.

According to office director Kevin Guy, most San Francisco listings on Airbnb are probably in violation of current law."

Airbnb seems to have raised some visceral repugnance.
TechCrunch has the story: Housing Activists Swarm Airbnb On Day Before The Vote On Prop F
"A group of activists from the Coalition on Homelessness took over Airbnb headquarters in the SOMA neighborhood of San Francisco this afternoon to protest what they believe is a company at the root cause of evictions and homelessness in the city.

Airbnb has added the lion’s share (more than $8 million) into defeating Proposition F, a proposal some believe is hiking up the rent in SF and converting a bunch of needed housing into bed and breakfasts, instead. Prop F, which goes up for a vote tomorrow, would limit to 75 the amount of days Airbnb hosts could rent out their properties per year."

Who Gets What and Why in Dutch

Here is a book review in Dutch of the English version of Who Gets What and Why, by Burak Can. And here is his translation of his review in English: Book Review: “Who gets what and why?” by Al Roth

Matching and market design at the INFORMS meeting in Philadelphia, Nov 1-4

If I were at the INFORMS meeting in Philadelphia, I'd enjoy lots of sessions on matching and market design, by a variety of (increasingly young) market designers.

Session Information		: Sunday Nov 01, 08:00 - 09:30
Title:	Matching Markets
Chair:	Itai Ashlagi,MIT, 100 Main st, Cambridge Ma 02139, United States of America, iashlagi@mit.edu
Abstract Details
Title:	Welfare-sensitive Assortment Optimization: An Application to School Choice
	Presenting Author:	Peng Shi,MIT Operations Research Center, 1 Amherst Street, E40-149, Cambridge MA 02139, United States of America, pengshi@mit.edu
Abstract:		In many settings, a planner gives a set of options to agents, who choose among them to maximize their own value, but agents' choices have externalities on system revenue/cost. Examples include school choice, public housing, and health insurance. Welfare-Sensitive Assortment Optimization is to find a set of options that maximize the sum of agents' values and system revenue. We give efficient algorithms under MNL utilities and various constraints, and apply this to improve school choice in Boston.
Title:	Near Feasible Stable Matchings With Couples
	Presenting Author:	Thanh Nguyen,Krannert School of Management, Purdue University, West Lafayette IN, United States of America, nguye161@purdue.edu
	Co-Author:	Rakesh Vohra,University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, United States of America, rvohra@seas.upenn.edu
Abstract:		The National Resident Matching program strives for a stable matching of medical students to teaching hospitals. With the presence of couples, stable matchings need not exist. For any student preferences, we show that each instance of a matching problem has a `nearby' instance with a stable matching. The nearby instance is obtained by perturbing the capacities of the hospitals.
Title:	Matching With Externalities
	Presenting Author:	Jacob Leshno,Columbia University, 3022 Broadway,, Uris Hall, 406, New York NY 10027, United States of America, jleshno@columbia.edu
Abstract:		We show existence of stable matching in markets with a continuum of students. Stable matchings are characterized as rational expectations market clearing cutoffs.
Title:	What Matters in Tie-breaking Rules? How Competition Guides Design
	Presenting Author:	Afshin Nikzad,Stanford University, 37 Angell Court, APT 116, Stanford Ca 94305, United States of America, afshin.nikzad@gmail.com
	Co-Author:	Itai Ashlagi,MIT, 100 Main st, Cambridge Ma 02139, United States of America, iashlagi@mit.edu
		Assaf Romm,Harvard, Boston, United States of America, assaf.romm@gmail.com
Abstract:		School districts that adopt the Deferred Acceptance (DA) mechanism to assign students to schools face the tradeoff between fairness and efficiency when selecting how to break ties among equivalent students. We analyze a model with with random generated preferences for students and compare two mechanisms differing by their tie-breaking rules: DA with one single lottery (DA-STB) and DA with a separate lottery for each school (DA-MTB). We identify that the balance between supply and demand in the market is a prominent factor when selecting a tie-breaking rule. When there is a surplus of seats, we show that neither random assignments under these mechanisms stochastically dominates each other, and, the variance of student's assignments is larger under DA-STB. However, we show that there is essentially no tradeoff between fairness and efficiency when there is a shortage of seats: not only that DA-STB (almost) stochastically dominates DA-MTB, it also results in a smaller variance in student's rankings. We further find that under DA-MTB many pairs of students would benefit from directly exchanging assignments ex post when there is a shortage of seats, while only few such pairs exist when there is a surplus of seats. Our findings suggest that it is more desirable that ``popular" schools use a single lottery over a separate lottery in order to break ties, while in other schools there is a real tradeoff.

and

Title:	Two-Sided Matching Markets
Chair:	Peng Shi,MIT Operations Research Center, 1 Amherst Street, E40-149, Cambridge MA 02139, United States of America, pengshi@mit.edu
Co-Chair:	Yash Kanoria,Assistant Professor, Columbia University, New York, United States of America, ykanoria@columbia.edu
	Itai Ashlagi,MIT, 100 Main st, Cambridge Ma 02139, United States of America, iashlagi@mit.edu
Abstract Details
Title:	On the Efficiency of Stable Matchings in Large Markets
	Presenting Author:	Sangmok Lee,Univ of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, United States of America, sangmok@sas.upenn.edu
	Co-Author:	Leeat Yariv,Caltech, 1200 E california Blvd, Pasadena, United States of America, lyariv@hss.caltech.edu
Abstract:		We study the wedge between stability and efficiency in large one-to-one matching markets. We show stable matchings are efficient asymptotically for a large class of preferences. In these environments, stability remains an appealing objective even on efficiency grounds, and monetary transfers are not necessary for efficiency purposes. Nonetheless, for severely imbalanced markets, when preferences entail sufficient idiosyncrasies, stable outcomes may be inefficient even asymptotically.
Title:	Short Lists in Centralized Clearinghouses
	Presenting Author:	Nick Arnosti,Stanford University, Stanford CA, United States of America, narnosti@stanford.edu
Abstract:		In the presence of frictions, participants in centralized clearinghouses generally fail to list all acceptable match partners. As a consequence, mutually acceptable pairs are left unmatched. The number of unmatched agents (and the happiness of matched agents) depends crucially on the structure of correlations in participants' preferences. This work identifies a fundamental tradeoff between match quality and quantity, and uses this to offer guidance for the design of school choice mechanisms.
Title:	How Much Choice is There in Two-sided Matching Markets?
	Presenting Author:	Itai Ashlagi,MIT, 100 Main st, Cambridge Ma 02139, United States of America, iashlagi@mit.edu
Abstract:		We study the structure of two-sided random matching markets with tiers. Our results provide insights on the amount of choice agents have in the core.

and

Session Information		: Sunday Nov 01, 13:30 - 15:00
Title:	Market Design
Chair:	Gabriel Weintraub,Professor, Columbia University, Uris Hall, New York NY 10027, United States of America, gyw2105@columbia.edu
Abstract Details
Title:	Incentive Issues in Paired Organ Donation
	Presenting Author:	Eduardo Azevedo,Assistant Professor, Wharton, 3620 Locust Walk, Wharton, SHDH 1400, Philadelphia Pe 19102, United States of America, eazevedo@wharton.upenn.edu
	Co-Author:	Nikhil Agarwal,MIT, 77 Mass Ave, Cambridge MA, United States of America, agarwaln@mit.edu
		Itai Ashlagi,MIT, 100 Main st, Cambridge Ma 02139, United States of America, iashlagi@mit.edu
		Clayton Featherstone,Wharton, 3620 Locust Walk, Wharton, SHDH 1400, Philadelphia Pe 19102, United States of America, claytonf@wharton.upenn.edu
Abstract:		In the last few years a new type of organ donation has arisen. In a paired kidney exchange two recipients with incompatible live donors receive organs from each other's live donor. Sometimes transactions involve more recipients and/or donors. While many exchanges happen in a decentralized way, others happen in large centralized exchanges. We empirically examine how agents in these markets respond to incentives and whether incentives are misaligned with social goals.
Title:	Optimal Procurement Mechanisms for Differentiated Products
	Presenting Author:	Gabriel Weintraub,Professor, Columbia University, Uris Hall, New York NY 10027, United States of America, gyw2105@columbia.edu
	Co-Author:	Daniela Saban,Stanford University, 655 Knight Way, Stanford CA, United States of America, dsaban@stanford.edu
Abstract:		We study the mechanism design problem faced by a buyer that selects an assortment of differentiated products and unit prices from a set of suppliers with private costs. Then, consumers can choose their most preferred product from this set. The buyer maximizes consumer surplus; to do so, he must balance the trade-off between variety and price competition. We characterize the optimal mechanism and use these results to analyze practical mechanisms.
Title:	Efficiency and Stability in Large Matching Markets
	Presenting Author:	Yeon-koo Che,Columbia University, 420 West 118th Street, 1029 IAB, New York NY, United States of America, yeonkooche@gmail.com
	Co-Author:	Olivier Tercieux,Professor, Paris School of Economics, Department of Economics, Paris, France, tercieux@pse.ens.fr
Abstract:		We study efficient and stable mechanisms in matching markets when the number of agents is large and individuals' preferences and priorities are drawn randomly. When agents' preferences are correlated over objects, the prevailing mechanisms are either inefficient or unstable even in the asymptotic sense. We propose a variant of deferred acceptance which is asymptotically efficient, asymptotically stable and also asymptotically incentive compatible.
Title:	Market Fragmentation
	Presenting Author:	Rakesh Vohra,University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, United States of America, rvohra@seas.upenn.edu
	Co-Author:	Ahmad Peivandi,Participation And Unbiased Pricing In Cds Settlement Mechanisms, Georgia State University, 35 Broad St, Atlanta, United States of America, apeivandi@gsu.edu
Abstract:		Centralized markets reduce the costs of search for buyers and sellers. Their `thickness' increases the chance of of order execution at competitive prices. In spite of the incentives to consolidate, some markets, have fragmented into multiple trading venues. We argue in this paper that fragmentation is an unavoidable feature of any centralized exchange. Our argument introduces a new way to think about participation in a mechanism when the outside option is endogenous.

and
Session Information : Monday Nov 02, 08:00 - 09:30

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Title: Matching Markets and Their ApplicationsChair: Thayer Morrill,NC State University, Raleigh, NC, United States of America, thayer_morrill@ncsu.edu

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Abstract Details

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Title: Incentives in the Course Allocation Problem Presenting Author: Hoda Atef Yekta,University of Connecticut School of Business, Storrs, CT, CT, United States of America, Hoda.AtefYekta@business.uconn.edu
 Abstract: Kominers et al. (2011) introduced a heuristic for comparing incentives among the course allocation problem (CAP) algorithms. We investigate their method and adapt it to a more realistic setting with course overlap and a limited number of courses for each student. We compare algorithms including the bidding-point mechanism, the draft mechanism, and recently proposed algorithms like the proxy-agent second-price algorithm in their vulnerability to non-truthful bidding.  Title: Near-optimal Stochastic Matching with Few Queries Presenting Author: John Dickerson,CMU, 9219 Gates-Hillman Center, Pittsburgh PA 15213, United States of America, dickerson@cs.cmu.edu
 Co-Author: Avrim Blum,Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15213, United States of America, avrim@cs.cmu.edu
 Nika Haghtalab,Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15213, United States of America, nhaghtal@cs.cmu.edu
 Ariel Procaccia,Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15213, United States of America, arielpro@cs.cmu.edu
 Tuomas Sandholm,Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15213, United States of America, sandholm@cs.cmu.edu
 Ankit Sharma,Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15213, United States of America, ankits@cs.cmu.edu
 Abstract: In kidney exchange, patients with kidney failure swap donors. Proposed swaps often fail before transplantation. We explore this phenomenon through the lens of stochastic matching, which deals with finding a maximum matching in a graph with unknown edges that are accessed via queries, and its generalization to k-set packing. We provide adaptive and non-adaptive algorithms that perform very few queries, and show that they perform well in theory and on data from the UNOS nationwide kidney exchange.  Title: The Secure Boston Mechanism Presenting Author: Thayer Morrill,NC State University, Raleigh, NC, United States of America, thayer_morrill@ncsu.edu
 Co-Author: Unut Dur,umutdur@gmail.com
 Robert Hammond,Decision Analyst, Chevron, 1400 Smith St, Houston, United States of America, rhammond@chevron.com
 Abstract: We introduce the first mechanism that Pareto dominates the Deferred Acceptance algorithm (DA) in equilibrium. Our algorithm, the Secure Boston Mechanism (sBM), is a hybrid between the Boston Mechanism and DA. It protects students that are initially guaranteed a school but otherwise adjusts priorities based on student rankings. We demonstrate that sBM always has an equilibrium that weakly dominates the DA assignment, and that in equilibrium no student receives worse than a fair assignment.  Title: Mechanism Design for Team Formation Presenting Author: Yevgeniy Vorobeychik,Vanderbilt University, 401 Bowling Ave, Nashville TN, United States of America, eug.vorobey@gmail.com
 Co-Author: Mason Wright,masondw@umich.edu
 Abstract: We present the first formal mechanism design framework for team formation, building on recent combinatorial matching market design literature. We exhibit four mechanisms for this problem, two novel, two simple extensions of known mechanisms from other domains. We use extensive experiments to show our second novel mechanism, despite having no theoretical guarantees, empirically achieves good incentive compatibility, welfare, and fairness.

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 Session Information : Tuesday Nov 03, 16:30 - 18:00

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Title: Dynamic Matching Markets
Chair: John Dickerson,CMU, 9219 Gates-Hillman Center, Pittsburgh PA 15213, United States of America, dickerson@cs.cmu.edu

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Abstract Details

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Title: Global Kidney Exchange
Presenting Author: Afshin Nikzad,Stanford University, 37 Angell Court, APT 116, Stanford Ca 94305, United States of America, afshin.nikzad@gmail.com
 Co-Author: Mohammad Akbarpour,Stanford, Stanford, CA 94305, Stanford, United States of America, mohamwad@gmail.com
 Alvin Roth,Stanford, Stanford, CA 94305, Stanford, United States of America, alroth@stanford.edu
 Abstract: In some countries, many patients die after a few weeks of diagnosis mainly because the costs of kidney transplantation and dialysis are beyond the reach of most citizens. We analyze the two proposals in which patients with financial restrictions who have willing donors participate in kidney exchange without paying for surgery. Our proposals can save thousands of patients, while substantially decreasing the average dialysis costs; in particular, we prove that they are "self-financing"  Title: Matching with Stochastic Arrival Presenting Author: Neil Thakral,Harvard, 1805 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA, United States of America, nthakral@fas.harvard.edu
 Abstract: We study matching in a dynamic setting, with applications to public-housing allocation. Objects of different types that arrive stochastically over time must be allocated to agents in a queue. When objects share priorities over agents, we propose an efficient, envy-free, and strategy-proof mechanism. The mechanism continues to satisfy these properties if and only if the priority relations are acyclic. Estimated welfare gains over existing housing-allocation procedures exceed $5000 per applicant.  Title: Dynamic Kidney Exchange with Heterogeneous Types Presenting Author: Maximilien Burq,Student, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge MA 02139, United States of America, mburq@mit.edu
 Co-Author: Itai Ashlagi,MIT, 100 Main st, Cambridge Ma 02139, United States of America, iashlagi@mit.edu
 Patrick Jaillet,MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge MA 02139, United States of America, jaillet@mit.edu
 Vahideh Manshadi,Yale University, 165 Whitney Ave, Rm 3473, New Heaven, United States of America, vahideh.manshadi@yale.edu
 Abstract: Kidney exchange programs face growing number of highly sensitized patients. We develop an online model that models such heterogeneity, and we prove that having some easy-to-match patients in the pool greatly reduces waiting times both in the presence of bilateral matching and chain matching. We provide simulations showing that some prioritizing leads to improved overall efficiency.  Title: Competing Dynamic Matching Markets Presenting Author: Sanmay Das,WUSTL, One Brookings Dr, CB 1045, St. Louis MO 63130, United States of America, sanmay@wustl.edu
 Co-Author: John Dickerson,CMU, 9219 Gates-Hillman Center, Pittsburgh PA 15213, United States of America, dickerson@cs.cmu.edu
 Zhuoshu Li,WUSTL, One Brookings Dr, CB 1045, St. Louis MO 63130, United States of America, zhuoshuli@wustl.edu
 Tuomas Sandholm,Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15213, United States of America, sandholm@cs.cmu.edu
 Abstract: We extend a framework of dynamic matching due to Akbarpour et al. to characterize outcomes in cases where two rival matching markets compete. One market matches quickly while the other builds thickness by matching slowly. We present analytical and simulation results, both in general and for kidney exchange, demonstrating that rival markets increase overall loss compared to a single market that builds thickness.

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Session Information		: Tuesday Nov 03, 11:00 - 12:30
Title:	Empirical Market Design
Chair:	Peng Shi,MIT Operations Research Center, 1 Amherst Street, E40-149, Cambridge MA 02139, United States of America, pengshi@mit.edu
Abstract Details
Title:	Market Congestion and Application Costs
	Presenting Author:	John Horton,Assistant Professor, NYU Stern School of Business, 44 West Fourth Street, Kaufman Management Center, New York NY 10012, United States of America, John.Horton@stern.nyu.edu
	Co-Author:	Dana Chandler,Civis Analytics, West Loop, Chicago IL, United States of America, dchandler@gmail.com
		Ramesh Johari,Stanford University, 475 Via Ortega, Stanford Ca 94305, United States of America, ramesh.johari@stanford.edu
Abstract:		We report the results of an experimental intervention that increased the cost of applying to vacancies in an online labor market by requiring workers to answer questions about the job. Although the ordeal positively selected candidates, it was the information in the answers that mattered for match formation. Although the overall number of matches and speed to fill a vacancy was unchanged, employers engaged in less recruiting activities and formed higher quality matches.
Title:	Experiments as Instruments: Heterogeneous Position Effects in Sponsored Search Auctions
	Presenting Author:	Justin Rao,Researcher, Microsoft Research, 641 Avenue of Americas, New York NY 10014, United States of America, Justin.Rao@microsoft.com
	Co-Author:	Matthew Goldman,UCSD, 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla CA 92093, United States of America, mrgoldman@ucsd.edu
Abstract:		The Generalized Second Price auction has been shown to achieve an efficient allocation and favorable revenue properties provided the causal impact of ad position on user click probabilities is a constant the scaling factor for all ads. We develop a novel method to re-purpose internal business experimentation at a major search engine and we strongly reject the conventional multiplicatively-separable model, instead finding substantial heterogeneity of the causal impact of position on CTR.
Title:	Optimal Design of Two-sided Market Platforms: An Empirical Case Study of Ebay
	Presenting Author:	Brent Hickman,Assistant Professor Of Economics, University of Chicago, 1226 E 59th St, Chicago IL 60637, United States of America, hickmanbr@uchicago.edu
	Co-Author:	Aaron Bodoh-creed,Assistant Professor Of Economics, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, S545 Student Services Building, Berkeley CA 94720, United States of America, acreed@berkeley.edu
		Joern Boehnke,Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications, Science Center 325, One Oxford Street, Cambridge MA 02138, United States of America, jboehnke@uchicago.edu
Abstract:		We investigate design of platform markets that house many auctions over time. We combine a unique dataset with a model of bidding where the option value of re-entering the market creates incentive for buyers to shade bids below private valuations in the current period. We show the model is identified using the Bellman equation for a representative bidder. We estimate the model and investigate the degree to which eBay is able to reduce transaction costs and approach the efficient allocation.
Title:	Stability of Demand Models Across Policy Reforms: An Emperical Study with Boston Public Schools
	Presenting Author:	Peng Shi,MIT Operations Research Center, 1 Amherst Street, E40-149, Cambridge MA 02139, United States of America, pengshi@mit.edu
	Co-Author:	Parag Pathak,MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Building E17, Room 240, Cambridge MA 02139, United States of America, ppathak@mit.edu
Abstract:		In counterfactual analysis using demand modelling, an important but seldom checked assumption is that the proposed reform does not affect the demand model. We validate this assumption across a major school choice reform in Boston in 2014. To control for post-analysis bias, we precommit to forecasts before the reform. We find that while our prediction of the number of applicants were off, the logit and mixed-logit demand models we fit were stable before and after the reform.

Session Information		: Tuesday Nov 03, 13:30 - 15:00
Title:	Kidney Allocation and Exchange
Chair:	Naoru Koizumi,Assoc Professor, GMU, 3351 N Fairfax Dr, Arlington VA 22203, United States of America, nkoizumi@gmu.edu
Abstract Details
Title:	The Dynamics of Kidney Exchange
	Presenting Author:	John Dickerson,CMU, 9219 Gates-Hillman Center, Pittsburgh PA 15213, United States of America, dickerson@cs.cmu.edu
	Co-Author:	Tuomas Sandholm,Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15213, United States of America, sandholm@cs.cmu.edu
Abstract:		We discuss analytic, optimization, and game-theoretic approaches to matching in dynamic kidney exchange. We consider dynamism (i) at the post-match pre-transplant stage (ii) as patients and donors arrive and depart over time, and (iii) as multiple exchanges compete for overlapping sets of participants. We empirically validate our models and theoretical results on over 150 match runs of the UNOS national kidney exchange.
Title:	A New Model to Decide Kidney–offer Admissibility Dependent on Patients' Lifetime Failure Rate
	Presenting Author:	Michael Bendersky,Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba, Israel, michael.bendersky@gmail.com
	Co-Author:	Israel David,Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba, Beersheba, Israel, idavid@bgu.ac.il
Abstract:		We propose a new model to decide kidney-offer admissibility depending on patient's age, estimated lifetime probabilistic profile and prospects on the waiting list. We allow for a broad family of lifetime distributions - Gamma - thus enabling flexible modeling of one's survival under dialysis. It yields the optimal critical times for acceptance of offers of different qualities and may serve the organizer of a donation program, the surgeon and the individual recipient practicing patient-choice.
Title:	Preemptive Approach to Kidney Allocation in USA
	Presenting Author:	Philip Appiahk-Kubi,Ohio University, 14 Pine ST, APT #1B, The Plains Oh 45780, United States of America, pa809911@ohio.edu
Abstract:		The new kidney allocation policy improves kidney utilization. However, the policy has no consideration for allocation of cadaveric kidneys under emergency situations; a problem observed by the National Kidney Foundation. This research evaluates a point scoring model with considerations for emergency allocation. Simulated results indicate that the model minimizes number of waitlist deaths by 2% while prioritizing sensitive candidates and waiting time.
Title:	Optimal Integration of Kidney Exchange Programs with Antibody Reduction Therapy
	Presenting Author:	Naoru Koizumi,Assoc Professor, GMU, 3351 N Fairfax Dr, Arlington VA 22203, United States of America, nkoizumi@gmu.edu
	Co-Author:	Monica Gentili,Georgia Tech, North Ave NW, Atlanta GA, United States of America, mgentili3@mail.gatech.edu
		Keith Melancon,George Washington University Hospital, 900 23rd St NW, Washington DC, United States of America, jmelancon@mfa.gwu.edu
Abstract:		Kidney paired donation (KPD) allows incompatible pairs to exchange kidneys with other incompatible pairs. However, evidence suggests there stills exist barriers to KPD utilization, especially among difficult-to-match transplant candidates and positive actual or virtual crossmatches. Using mathematical models, we investigate how to optimally integrate antibody reduction therapy in KPD to increase successful living-donor kidney transplants among difficult to match candidates.

Session Information : Sunday Nov 01, 13:30 - 15:00

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Title: Revenue Management in Online AdvertisingChair: Hamid Nazerzadeh,University of Southern California, Bridge Memorial Hall, 3670 Trousdale Parkway, LOS ANGELES 90089, United States of America, hamidnz@marshall.usc.edu

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Abstract Details

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Title: Recent Results in Internet Advertising Allocations Presenting Author: Nitish Korula,Research Scientist, Google, New York, nitish@google.com
 Co-Author: Hossein Esfandiari,University of Maryland, College Park MD, United States of America, hossein@cs.umd.edu
 Vahab Mirrokni,Google Research, New York, United States of America, mirrokni@google.com
 Morteza Zadimoghaddam,Google, New York NY 10011, United States of America, zadim@google.com
 Abstract: Advertising provides the economic foundation of the Internet. Internet advertising applications motivate a host of optimization problems with unique challenges and as such, there is a large body of literature on optimizing various aspects of ad allocations. I will survey some of the recent work in this field, with special focus on two problems: Designing algorithms that work well in both adversarial and stochastic settings, and algorithms that balance multiple system objectives.  Title: Multi-stage Intermediation in Online Internet Advertising Presenting Author: Ozan Candogan,University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, Chicago, United States of America, ozan.candogan@chicagobooth.edu
 Co-Author: Santiago Balseiro,Assistant Professor, Duke University, 100 Fuqua Drive, Durham NC 27708, United States of America, srb43@duke.edu
 Huseyin Gurkan,Duke, Duke University, Durham NC 27705, United States of America, huseyin.gurkan@duke.edu
 Abstract: We consider a setting where an advertiser tries to acquire impressions from an ad exchange, through a chain of intermediaries. We characterize equilibrium profits of intermediaries as a function of their position in the chain. We consider three value distributions for the advertiser: (i) exponential, (ii) Pareto, (iii) uniform. We establish that in (i) all intermediaries have the same profit, whereas in (ii) and (iii) respectively downstream/upstream intermediaries have higher profits.  Title: Adverse Selection and Auction Design for Internet Display Advertising Presenting Author: Nick Arnosti,Stanford University, Stanford CA, United States of America, narnosti@stanford.edu
 Co-Author: Marissa Beck,Stanford University, 579 Serra Mall, Landau Economics, Stanford CA 94305, United States of America, mbeck22@gmail.com
 Paul Milgrom,Stanford University, 579 Serra Mall, Landau Economics, Room 243, Stanford CA 94305, United States of America, milgrom@stanford.edu
 Abstract: We model an online display advertising environment with brand advertisers and better-informed performance advertisers. We consider a mechanism which assigns the item to the highest bidder only when the ratio of the highest bid to the second highest bid is sufficiently large. For fat-tailed match-value distributions, this mechanism captures most of the gains from good matching and improves match values substantially compared to the common practice of setting aside impressions in advance.  Title: Deals or No Deals: Contract Design for Selling Online Advertising Presenting Author: Hamid Nazerzadeh,University of Southern California, Bridge Memorial Hall, 3670 Trousdale Parkway, LOS ANGELES 90089, United States of America, hamidnz@marshall.usc.edu
 Co-Author: Vahab Mirrokni,Google Research, New York, United States of America, mirrokni@google.com
 Abstract: I will discuss some of the challenges in maximizing revenue of online advertising market. I will explain preferred deals: a new generation of contracts for selling display advertising that allow publishers to offer their inventory to “first look” buyers before the inventory is made available to other buyers (advertiser) in the general auction. I present algorithms for deal recommendation and show that deals can obtain significantly higher revenue than auctions.

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I'd also be glad to hear

Centralized Seat Allocation for Engineering Colleges in India
  Presenting Author:  Yash Kanoria,Assistant Professor, Columbia University, New York, United States of America, ykanoria@columbia.edu

Abstract:  The central government funds over 75 engineering colleges in India with 50,000 seats a year, and a diversity of programs and admissions criteria. We deploy a new, centralized, seat allocation mechanism, that accounts for the preferences of students as well as the admissions criteria for different colleges/programs using a deferred acceptance inspired approach.