Markets for buying and selling privacy

Noam Nisan at AGT/E reports on New Papers on Auctions by computer scientists, including this one that I find interesting for several reasons: it is about market design for markets in which privacy is sold.

Selling Privacy at Auction by Arpita Ghosh and Aaron Roth

We initiate the study of markets for private data, through the lens of differential privacy. Although the purchase and sale of private data has already begun on a large scale, a theory of privacy as a commodity is missing. In this paper, we propose to build such a theory. Specifically, we consider a setting in which a data analyst wishes to buy information from a population from which he can estimate some statistic. The analyst wishes to obtain an accurate estimate cheaply. On the other hand, the owners of the private data experience some cost for their loss of privacy, and must be compensated for this loss. Agents are selfish, and wish to maximize their profit, so our goal is to design truthful mechanisms. Our main result is that such auctions can naturally be viewed and optimally solved as variants of multi-unit procurement auctions. Based on this result, we derive auctions for two natural settings which are optimal up to small constant factors:
1. In the setting in which the data analyst has a fixed accuracy goal, we show that an application of the classic Vickrey auction achieves the analyst’s accuracy goal while minimizing his total payment.
2. In the setting in which the data analyst has a fixed budget, we give a mechanism which maximizes the accuracy of the resulting estimate while guaranteeing that the resulting sum payments do not exceed the analysts budget.
In both cases, our comparison class is the set of envy-free mechanisms, which correspond to the natural class of fixed-price mechanisms in our setting.
In both of these results, we ignore the privacy cost due to possible correlations between an individuals private data and his valuation for privacy itself. We then show that generically, no individually rational mechanism can compensate individuals for the privacy loss incurred due to their reported valuations for privacy.

How to Fix a Broken Marketplace

That's the title of an interview/story by Carmen Nobel that HBS Working Knowledge put online today: How to Fix a Broken Marketplace


The lead sentence is "An economic handyman of sorts, Alvin E. Roth fixes broken markets."

Incentives and erroneous research

The Atlantic runs a profile of Dr. John Ioannidis, who studies bad science. He focuses on medicine, where the incentives are perhaps highest (and in which the costs of bad science might be greatest). But the issues he discusses concern all scientists: Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science

"He chose to publish one paper, fittingly, in the online journal PLoS Medicine, which is committed to running any methodologically sound article without regard to how “interesting” the results may be. In the paper, Ioannidis laid out a detailed mathematical proof that, assuming modest levels of researcher bias, typically imperfect research techniques, and the well-known tendency to focus on exciting rather than highly plausible theories, researchers will come up with wrong findings most of the time. Simply put, if you’re attracted to ideas that have a good chance of being wrong, and if you’re motivated to prove them right, and if you have a little wiggle room in how you assemble the evidence, you’ll probably succeed in proving wrong theories right. His model predicted, in different fields of medical research, rates of wrongness roughly corresponding to the observed rates at which findings were later convincingly refuted: 80 percent of non-randomized studies (by far the most common type) turn out to be wrong, as do 25 percent of supposedly gold-standard randomized trials, and as much as 10 percent of the platinum-standard large randomized trials. The article spelled out his belief that researchers were frequently manipulating data analyses, chasing career-advancing findings rather than good science, and even using the peer-review process—in which journals ask researchers to help decide which studies to publish—to suppress opposing views. “You can question some of the details of John’s calculations, but it’s hard to argue that the essential ideas aren’t absolutely correct,” says Doug Altman, an Oxford University researcher who directs the Centre for Statistics in Medicine.

"Still, Ioannidis anticipated that the community might shrug off his findings: sure, a lot of dubious research makes it into journals, but we researchers and physicians know to ignore it and focus on the good stuff, so what’s the big deal? The other paper headed off that claim. He zoomed in on 49 of the most highly regarded research findings in medicine over the previous 13 years, as judged by the science community’s two standard measures: the papers had appeared in the journals most widely cited in research articles, and the 49 articles themselves were the most widely cited articles in these journals. These were articles that helped lead to the widespread popularity of treatments such as the use of hormone-replacement therapy for menopausal women, vitamin E to reduce the risk of heart disease, coronary stents to ward off heart attacks, and daily low-dose aspirin to control blood pressure and prevent heart attacks and strokes. Ioannidis was putting his contentions to the test not against run-of-the-mill research, or even merely well-accepted research, but against the absolute tip of the research pyramid. Of the 49 articles, 45 claimed to have uncovered effective interventions. Thirty-four of these claims had been retested, and 14 of these, or 41 percent, had been convincingly shown to be wrong or significantly exaggerated. If between a third and a half of the most acclaimed research in medicine was proving untrustworthy, the scope and impact of the problem were undeniable. That article was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. "

The article ends on a philosophical note:

"We could solve much of the wrongness problem, Ioannidis says, if the world simply stopped expecting scientists to be right. That’s because being wrong in science is fine, and even necessary—as long as scientists recognize that they blew it, report their mistake openly instead of disguising it as a success, and then move on to the next thing, until they come up with the very occasional genuine breakthrough. But as long as careers remain contingent on producing a stream of research that’s dressed up to seem more right than it is, scientists will keep delivering exactly that.

“Science is a noble endeavor, but it’s also a low-yield endeavor,” he says. “I’m not sure that more than a very small percentage of medical research is ever likely to lead to major improvements in clinical outcomes and quality of life. We should be very comfortable with that fact.”

"Proofiness" as mathematical truthiness

The NY Times Magazine "On Language" column covers Truthiness, Stephen Colbert's neologism describing things that sound true but aren't.

"The latest in the “X-iness” parade is the title of Charles Seife’s new book, “Proofiness,” defined by Seife as “the art of using bogus mathematical arguments to prove something that you know in your heart is true — even when it’s not.” Seife, an associate professor of journalism at New York University, told me that the title is very much a homage to Colbert. He credits his wife with recognizing during the writing of the book that his topic was “the mathematical analogue of truthiness.” "

The market for Ph.D. economists

Here's a description of the market for Ph.D. economists, as viewed by the founders of the site walras.com, on VoxEU: A brief guide to hiring PhD economists by Raphael Auer Goran Mišković Jason Wildhagen

Dan Ariely constructs a Forbes list of new economists

Dan gives new meaning to the word "new" as applied to economists...at least in my case. (Although I'm reminded of Frank Hahn's wish to live to a very old age but be remembered as having passed away young and full of promise...)

Here is Dan's list in Forbes (Dan Ariely picks the seven most powerful new economists) , and (easier to scan) on his web page: New Economists worth knowing.

Continued unraveling of college admissions, accompanied by growing use of waiting lists

The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) has released their  (gated) 2010 State of College Admission report .

From the press release:
"Early Decision and Early Action Activity Increases: 65 percent of colleges with ED policies reported increases in the number of students accepted through Early Decision, compared to 43 percent in 2008 and 36 percent in 2007. Nearly three-quarters of colleges reported an increase in Early Action applications and Early Action admits.

"At Colleges with Early Decision (ED) Policies, Gap In Acceptance Rates Between ED and Regular Decision Applicants Increases: For the Fall 2009 admission cycle, colleges with Early Decision policies reported a 15-percentage point gap in acceptance rates between ED applicants and the overall applicant pool (70 percent versus 55 percent), up from an 8 percentage point gap in Fall 2006 (61 percent compared to 53 percent)."

Furthermore (the Chronicle of Higher Ed reports),
"The survey also found an uptick in the proportion of colleges with waiting lists: 39 percent used them in the 2009 cycle. That’s a greater share than in recent years, with the exception of 2007, when waiting-list use reached a high of 41 percent. Forty-seven percent of colleges reported placing more students on a waiting list than they did the year before, and 51 percent said they had accepted more students off of the list.


"This year, for the first time, colleges were asked whether they stratified their waiting lists by various criteria. Fifty-six percent said they had stratified the list based on academic credentials; 45 percent by students’ interest in the college; 33 percent based on students’ commitment to attend if admitted; and 27 percent on ability to pay. On average, colleges accepted 34 percent of students who chose to remain on waiting lists."

Visiting student: another option for undergraduates

American students at four year colleges mostly apply to colleges and get admitted as freshmen. A much smaller number of students transfer from one college to another, and graduate from the college that they entered as sophomores or juniors. And of course many students spend a junior year abroad, often visiting a college overseas. But a small number of students spend some time at another American college as visitors. The Crimson describes this at Harvard: Visiting Harvard.

"...Rush and her fellow VUS (pronounced “vuzz” by those in the know) come to Harvard from universities around the world to study for a semester or a year. Though the VUS become involved in most aspects of Harvard life, the existence of this program remains unknown to many at the University and nearly unadvertised outside of Harvard.


"The Visiting Undergraduate Student Program allows undergraduates from any university in the world to apply to attend Harvard for one or two semesters.


"Many of those who participate in this program are international students. Others come from small liberal arts schools in the U.S., and a few come from Harvard’s peer institutions—last year, one visiting student hailed from Princeton and another from Brown.

"The students list a variety of reasons for coming to Harvard, but most center on academics. According to Sarah R. Cole, a lecturer on History and Literature who serves as the advising coordinator for the VUS Program, most of the international students major in economics in their home countries and hope to gain an American perspective on the field. The domestic students, she said, tend to be math or science concentrators who feel they have exhausted the course offerings in their subjects at their colleges.
...
"The application process for visiting students is similar to the regular admissions process, but it differs in several significant ways. First, VUS can enter Harvard in either the fall or spring semesters, so applications are evaluated twice each year.

...
"The number of VUS applications and the admissions rate for the program contrast starkly with the Harvard admissions norm. Whereas 614 students applied for transfer admission and over 30,000 sought regular admission in fall 2010, just 47 applied for the VUS Program. Of those applicants, 32 were admitted, and 30 decided to attend—21 are here for just the fall semester, and 9 will stay for the full year.


"Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 said that the program receives a low number of applicants because the admissions office does not promote it heavily. Though there is a page on the admissions website about the program and the admissions office prints an informational card about it, Fitzsimmons said that his office does not “recruit” VUS applicants as it does for degree candidates.
...
"Another concern for some VUS is the cost of the program. Visiting students are not offered financial aid and thus must pay the full rate of $17,488 per semester to take four courses, in addition to the cost of off-campus housing."

Marketing colleges: Two paths to more applications, the common app, and fast-track

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed sheds some light on two different ways that colleges try to market themselves to a larger pool of applicants. One is the Common Application (which allows applicants to fill out one application online and then send it to many places, sometimes with supplements required by colleges that don't want too many casual applications). Another is "fast track" applications, which are mailed to high school students with invitations to fill in a shorter application, maybe without any essays at all.
The Curious Case of ‘Catnip’ and the Common Application

"Many high-school counselors offer colorful descriptions of “fast-track” applications, an increasingly popular recruitment tool among colleges. Such applications come with students’ names and other information already filled in. Typically, these solicitations also provide other incentives, like waived essay requirements, and promise quick admissions decisions...

"But there’s growing concern in high schools about how such applications are coexisting with another fixture of the admissions realm—the Common Application, the free admissions form accepted by 414 colleges.

"At the National Association for College Admission Counseling’s annual conference last month, several counselors discussed what they described as an increasingly common scenario: students using a fast-track application to apply to a college that’s a member of the Common Application. In such cases, high schools cannot electronically submit students’ supporting documents—transcripts, secondary-school reports, and letters of recommendation—to colleges.

"Why not? Because a member college isn’t able to download those documents until (or unless) a student submits his or her application through the Common Application’s Web site. In other words, a student can bypass the Common Application’s system by submitting a fast-track app, but that student’s counselor cannot do the same.
...
"Mr. Graf and other counselors have criticized Royall & Company, a direct-marketing firm that has pioneered the use of fast-track applications. Some of Royall’s clients package them as “V.I.P.” applications. The irony: Some colleges send such apps to thousands—even tens of thousands—of prospective students each year...

"The company’s leaders, who did not immediately return a telephone message on Wednesday, have previously described fast-track applications as a time-saving means of simplifying the application process, helping colleges reach more prospective students. They’re also good for business: Most colleges that use them report significant increases in applications.

"In recent years, Robert Killion, the Common Application’s executive director, has heard numerous complaints about the challenges raised by fast-track applicants applying to Common App colleges. Some counselors have asked why the nonprofit association does not transmit supporting documents for students who choose that option.

"Money is one answer, Mr. Killion concedes. For each application filed through the Common Application, the association gets a $4 fee from member colleges who use the Common App exclusively (institutions that also accept other applications pay $4.75 per applicant). “We’ve built a system for students who want to follow the Common App model,” says Mr. Killion. “If a student wants to pursue an alternative path, that’s their prerogative, but I’m not sure why we, for free, should have to subsidize someone else’s system.”
...
"Willamette is a member of the Common Application, and it offers a fast-track application. “Colleges that use both are put in a squeeze,” says Ms. Rhyneer, a former chairwoman of the Common Application’s steering committee.

"Although Ms. Rhyneer seconds the concerns expressed by Mr. Graf and other counselors, she disagrees with negative characterizations of fast-track apps. Willamette sends such an app to about half of its inquiry pool and uses it to encourage particularly promising applicants to apply. “Counselors tend to paint everybody using it with the same brush, but we’re not trying to get a zillion apps,” she says."

Class notes for sale?

NoteUtopia seeks to become a marketplace for class notes taken by students; it offers to buy your class notes, or sell you someone else's. Not everyone thinks this is a great idea: they have been told to cease and desist.

"NoteUtopia, a startup company for college students founded by a young Sacramento State graduate, has been ordered to "cease and desist" by the CSU chancellor's office, which said the company is violating state education codes that prohibit students from selling their class notes.
...
"The 10-year-old law that prompted the ban is so obscure that it caught NoteUtopia's founder, campus officials and Internet law experts by surprise.

"Eric Goldman,director of the High-Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University Law School and a professor of Internet law, said "many people had no idea it's on the books."

"But while the law may be a sleeper, the issue of what students can do with material taken from class lectures "comes up with some regularity," Goldman noted. It's at the heart of an academic and legal debate on intellectual property rights involving how classroom content is shared among students."

The editorial page editors at the Harvard Crimson approve of the ban on selling notes:

Not For Sale Universities alone should decide when to distribute lecture material By THE CRIMSON STAFF

"Recently, California State University prohibited students from buying and selling lecture notes online in light of NoteUtopia, a new website created for this purpose. Their decision is the correct one. The practice of trading class notes does not reflect the purpose of education and should be discouraged. Although proponents of this activity claim that the ban violates free speech, they should acknowledge it is entirely within an institution’s remit to control the distribution of lecture material as it sees fit."

Richard T. Gill, economist and opera singer

Richard T. Gill, Economist and Opera Singer, Dies at 82

"Mr. Gill, a longtime Harvard faculty member who wrote many widely used economics textbooks, did not undertake serious vocal training (which he began as an anti-smoking regimen) until he was nearly 40.
...
"But after just a few years of study a world-class voice emerged, and Mr. Gill soon forsook chalk and tweed for flowing robes and very large headgear.
...
"This was new and dazzling terrain for the author of “Economics and the Private Interest: An Introduction to Microeconomics.”
...
"Mr. Gill quit his tenured job at Harvard. He became a fixture at City Opera, singing in a wide array of productions over the next few years.
...
"In some respects, he later said, Mr. Gill found the roiling world of opera more appealingly straightforward than the roiling world of academe.
“Performing is a great reality test,” he told Newsweek in 1975. “There’s no tenure in it and the feedback is much less complicated than you get in academia."

Oil and gas auctions in Iraq

Apparently it's hard to get energy companies to bid on some of Iraq's energy reserves, but that varies province by province. Iraq recently completed auctions to develop natural gas reserves:

Iraq awards all gas fields in energy auction that draws little interest and 5 bidders
"BAGHDAD _ A South Korean-led consortium walked away with the biggest prize Wednesday in Iraq´s third energy auction since Saddam Hussein´s ouster, while a Kuwaiti company nabbed a gas field along its border with its larger neighbour in a win as politically symbolic as it was a business coup.
...
"Only five companies submitted bids for the fields, a showing that will likely disappoint Iraqi oil officials."

Last year Iraq auctioned oil rights:
Russia's Lukoil Big Winner At 2nd Iraq Oil Auction

"None of the U.S.oil majors, such as Exxon Mobil or Chevron submitted bids, leaving only Occidental among U.S. companies to make one failed offer on the auction's first day."

HT: Jing Li

Regulation of repugnant transactions

One argument for not outlawing repugnant transactions is that if they are legal they can be regulated. When people follow that line of reasoning about prostitution, they are normally thinking about testing for sexually transmitted diseases, controlling trafficking and child abuse, etc. But all sorts of regulation are possible, it turns out, the Telegraph reports: Spanish prostitutes ordered to wear reflective vests for their own safety.

"Women touting for customers on a rural highway outside Els Alamus near Lleida in Catalonia have been told to don the yellow fluorescent bibs or pay fines of 40 euros (£36) under road traffic laws."

Sally Satel on compensating donors

In my market design class today, I'll start off by talking about kidney exchange (sometimes called kidney paired donation, KPD). After the coffee break we'll switch gears and a guest, Sally Satel, will broach the subject of a monetary market for kidneys. Here's a recent article of hers on the subject: Is It Ever Right to Buy or Sell Human Organs?

(Last year, after I talked about kidney exchange, we discussed repugnance as a constraint on markets.)

Update:

Physician, heal thyself: kidney docs as kidney donors

Tufts Medical Center's physician newsletter has a feature on Kidney Transplantation (starting on p4) that highlights the story of Dr. Andrew Levy, the chief of Nephrology there, who also donated a kidney to his wife as part of a kidney exchange organized by the New England Program for Kidney Exchange (NEPKE).

"Last year, Levey’s wife — oncologist Roberta Falke, MD — needed a kidney transplant due to worsening
polycystic kidney disease. Levey was a willing but incompatible donor. So he and Falke did what Levey had been advising some of his own patients to do — they signed on with the New England Program for Kidney Exchange in Newton. The exchange program helps to increase the pool of potential donors by orchestrating matches among altruistic strangers.

"In late October, Falke was notified of a match. But it didn’t stop there. Levey was a match for a man named Peter Scheibe. Scheibe’s wife Susan wasn’t a match for her husband, but she was a match for a man named Hai Nguyen. And Nguyen’s wife Vy wasn’t a match for him, but she was a match for Falke. And on December 15, in an exquisitely choreographed series of operations at Tufts Medical Center and the Lahey Clinic Medical Center, the three healthy donor kidneys were harvested and transplanted into the three recipients. Today, all six participants in this “circle of miracles” are doing fine."

The piece mentions in passing another remarkable story:
"In the 1980s, Levey and Susan Hou, MD, who completed her nephrology fellowship here, wrote about how kidney donation from living unrelated donors could help expand the donor pool. Today, approximately
20 percent of kidney transplants at Tufts MC are from such donors (with 30 percent from living related donors and the remaining 50 percent from deceased donors). Hou, incidentally, went on to become Medical Director of the Renal Transplant Program at Loyola University Medical Center in suburban Chicago and made headlines when she donated a kidney to one of her patients in 2003."

The article ends with a quote from Dr. Levy:
"“All of us doctors want to help our patients,” he continues. “But it’s rare to get the chance to do anything so direct and meaningful to restore someone’s health. To give a personal gift that you can give only once to another person, it’s a unique confluence of both professional and personal ideals.”

Here's my earlier post on that exchange, and a story about it in the Globe.
And here is a story about Dr. Hou's donation of a kidney to her patient (nothing ever seems simple in medicine): Doctor's unique donation prompts ethical concerns
Here's a link to another story: Chicago Doctor Donates Kidney to Patient
""I can't bring about world peace, I can't eliminate world hunger, but I can get one person off dialysis," said Hou, 56, medical director of the renal transplant program at Loyola University Medical Center in suburban Chicago."

Unraveling of pre-Christmas sales

Stores Push Black Friday Into October says the NY Times (today,Thursday, Oct 28):


"The first “Black Friday Now” deals at Sears will be available beginning Friday and Saturday. Amazon’s electronics department will offer sales on items like Blu-ray players and high-definition TVs on Friday, and Toys “R” Us is putting all the items in its 80-page Christmas toy book on sale on Sunday.


"Black Friday creep has been around for a while, but analysts say this year breaks new ground: the range of stores offering early discounts is wider, the discounts are steeper and the sale periods longer — in some instances, a full month before the real thing. Sears, for example, offered early promotions last year but expanded the hours and days this year, while Amazon is beginning earlier than ever.

“Consumers have been trained to buy merchandise only ‘on sale,’ ” Sherif Mityas, a partner in the retail practice at the consulting firm A. T. Kearney, said in an e-mail. “Given a limited budget, if retailers don’t capture that first or second purchase, they may find themselves with a lot of inventory the week before Christmas and the need for massive discounting to save the holiday.”

"Some shoppers asked for a longer sale period, both for convenience and out of nervousness over crowds, said Barbara Schrantz, executive vice president of marketing and sales promotion at Bon-Ton Stores. After a Wal-Mart employee was trampled and killed on Black Friday in 2008, stores increased their crowd-control measures, but they do not want safety concerns to keep shoppers away from stores.

"In some instances, deal hunters say, stores are just hijacking the Black Friday label. Mike Riddle, who started the site Black-Friday.net in 2006 to track deals, said shoppers should not believe that “special” prices for the Friday were necessarily lower than the usual price.

“Retailers are taking advantage of the term,” he said, citing the first Sears “Black Friday Now” circular as “nothing more than their weekly ad rebranded.” Tom Aiello, a spokesman for Sears Holdings, said the prices were not standard discounts; so far, customer response has been positive about this weekend’s deals, he said.

"Traditionally, stores used low prices on the Friday after Thanksgiving to attract shoppers, who, they hoped, would put full-price items in their carts alongside the bargains.

Kidney paired donation conference: financing kidney exchange

A conference in Philadelphia today will take a look at a so far unresolved aspect of kidney exchange: how to finance it. Since transplantation is far cheaper than dialysis, this shouldn't in principle be a big problem, but there are still lots of kinks to iron out in determining who pays for what. I spoke to a similarly constituted group in Minneapolis in 2007...
Kidney Paired Donation Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2010

8:00 a.m. Welcome and Opening Remarks, Chris Pricco, Chief Operating Officer, Complex Medical
Conditions, OptumHealth Care Solutions

8:05 a.m. Introduction and Conference Overview, Dennis Irwin, MD, National Medical Director, Transplant Solutions, Complex Medical Conditions, OptumHealth Care Solutions

8:15 a.m. Kidney Transplantation: Alternative Donors, Lloyd E. Ratner, MD, New York-Presb - Columbia
Campus

8:35 a.m. The Unmet Need for Kidney Transplantation as Viewed by the National Kidney Foundation,
Bryan Becker, MD, University of Illinois-Chicago

8:55 a.m. The OptumHealth/UnitedHealthcare Experience with End Stage Renal Disease, Kidney
Transplantation and the Unmet Need, F. Gregory Grillo MD, National Medical Director, Kidney
Resource Services, OptumHealth Care Solutions

9:15 a.m. The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) Pilot, Kenneth Andreoni, The Ohio State
University Hospitals

Representation and Overview from UNOS Coordinating Centers

9:45 a.m. Ruthanne L Hanto RN MPH, New England Program for Kidney Exchange

10:00 a.m. Dorry Segev, MD, PhD, Johns Hopkins Hospital

10:15 a.m. Michael Rees, MD, PhD, Alliance for Paired Donation

10:30 a.m. Jeffrey L. Veale MD, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center

Successful Single Center Experience with Paired Kidney Donation

10:45 a.m. John Friedewald, MD, Northwestern University Hospital

11:00 a.m. Adam Bingaman, MD, PhD, Texas Transplant Institute

11:30 a.m. National Kidney Registry, Garet Hil, National Kidney Registry (Invited)

11:45 a.m. Kidney Paired Donation from the Donor’s Perspective, John Milner, MD, Loyola University
Medical Center

12:00 p.m. The OPO perspective, Speaker TBD

12:15 p.m. Summary of the recent Living Kidney Donor Follow-Up: State of the Art and Future Directions
conference, Alan Leichtman, MD, University of Michigan

12:30 p.m. National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP): 23 Years of Experience in Establishing and
 Managing a Successful Program for Matching Willing Donors to Recipients, Jeffrey W. Chell,
MD, Chief Executive Officer, National Marrow Donor Program

1:30 p.m. Facilitated Discussion, Clifford Goodman, PhD, Vice President, The Lewin Group

4:00 p.m. Closing Remarks

Note: OptumHealth reserves the right to make any necessary changes to this program. Efforts will be made to keep presentations as scheduled. However, unforeseen circumstances may result in the substitution of faculty or content. Last Updated: 10/05/10

Flash sales--buying in a hurry

Time Is Money
...
"But commerce will always require the creation of scarcity, bottlenecks and stampedes. The most immediate way to do this is to make time seem tight — the going-going-gone approach to sales. For years, digital-world salespeople have been putting in overtime to resurrect the illusion that consumers must put up their money now or life will pass them by.


"Not long ago they figured it out: the online private-shopping club. It’s brilliant and insidious. No current retail trick so successfully conjures the bygone retail climate of hotness and nowness — with its proven capacity to create value — as luxuriously capitalized clothing vendors like Gilt Groupe, HauteLook and Rue La La. For shoppers who register, these services host “flash sales” — sudden sales of limited inventory that offer a seemingly exclusive group of consumers deep discounts on known labels in a few-frills atmosphere.
...

"Gilt Groupe, HauteLook and Rue La La are the holy trinity of flash-sale event dealers, at least when it comes to clothes. Know them by their five-star labels, their ticking clocks, their sheen of exclusivity and their limited searchability.


"EBay won’t be left out of the private-club revolution. The latest way to beat those preposterous M.S.R.P.’s — manufacturer’s suggested retail prices — is eBay Fashion Vault, a shopping club like Gilt Groupe but with some of the madcapness of eBay. "

Susan Athey on online experiments

My colleague Susan Athey (in whose class I'll be guest lecturing today) speaks to NPR:

"Susan Athey: Did you know that every time you do a search on Google or Bing, you are improving the quality of the search engine? The more people click on a search advertisement from a clothing company or on a link on an online news story, the more prominently it is displayed for the next consumer. And the firms constantly experiment to get things right. They watch what consumers do and adapt their products in response to the results of their experiments.


"But designing the right experiment is difficult. To see just one example, consider spam. An e-mail provider wants to eliminate spam from your inbox. It is nuisance for all of us. That company might test out a new way to filter spam. The filter may do a great job in short-term experiments, where the spammers don't have a chance to respond. But once the new filter is introduced in practice, spammers may find a way around the filter. So, that means that some legitimate e-mail is filtered out and the end result may be that you haven't solved the spam problem at all. You could very well end up worse than where you started, even though the experimental numbers looked great.

"So, if you want to figure out whether a new product will work out the way you hope, you need to be able to anticipate how people will react to your innovation. That is, you don't just have to be a good statistician. It's not just about the numbers that come out of simple experiments; it is about predicting how people will react to the changes you make. You need to understand behavior and how to build models that reflect the choices we all make.

"Unfortunately, our universities and business schools haven't figured out how to train students to do this kind of modeling and prediction. That is, we aren't preparing students to manage the new data-driven businesses. And let's face it: This is where our economy is headed, as consumers are spending more and more of their time online. Creating new jobs in this economy is a must, but making sure that the workforce is ready for the jobs where our growth is happening is more important. The good news is that the young people who do develop the talent and skills to capitalize on this opportunity will be in high demand, which puts them in a great position in today's tough economy."

Single-hospital kidney exchanges in Texas and Illinois

A recent letter to the editor in the New England Journal of Medicine reports on the kidney exchange ("kidney paired donation") program at Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital in San Antonio, TX.

Bingaman AW, Wright FH, Murphey CL., "Kidney paired donation in live-donor kidney transplantation," N Engl J Med. 2010 Sep 9;363(11):1091-2.

"Our center established a KPD program enrolling all consenting recipient candidates who had incompatible donors as well as compatible pairs with donors over the age of 45 years. Since we initiated the program in March 2008, we have performed 83 KPD procedures, including 22 two-way and 13 three-way exchanges.
...
"If the productivity of our KPD program were to be replicated on a national level, it would potentially result in approximately 2000 additional
live-donor transplantations annually and reduce the number of patients on the waiting list. The increased use of this procedure would also probably avert many difficult desensitization therapies. No recent advance in transplantation has achieved such an apparent increase in access to live-donor transplantation, especially in sensitized patients.
"We believe that all transplantation centers should consider the development of an effective KPD program in order to give patients with incompatible donors a full range of options to achieve successful transplantation."

And here's a news report of another exchange at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
All eight patients OK after four-way kidney transplant (Chicago Sun Times, Sept. 23, 2010)

"Arlene Hoffman was Jane Delimba's postal carrier for only about three months. But when Hoffman bumped into Delimba at a Wal-Mart seven years later and learned she needed a kidney transplant, Hoffman didn't hesitate to offer one of her own.

"The two weren't a compatible match.

"Still, Hoffman's generosity helped make it possible for four people, including Delimba, to receive kidney transplants last week in what's known as a "four-way paired exchange."

"In simultaneous operations that took place last Thursday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, four living donors each gave up a kidney, and four people whose kidneys were failing each got one. All eight patients, ranging in age from 28 to 74, are doing well."

And from another story about that exchange: "Northwestern Memorial transplant surgeons performed their first paired exchange in 2006. To date, the hospital has completed 38 paired exchange transplants. "

How does repugnance change over time?

Kwame Anthony Appiah's latest book proposes it has something to do with honor:  The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen.

Here's a book review from Slate:
The Unappreciated Power of Honor: How it has driven moral progress in the past, and still can.

Update: and here's a NY Times Sunday Magazine article: The Art of Social Change By KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH, focusing on the relative success of the movement to abolish foot binding in China, compared to the movement against female genital cutting in Africa.

"A second essential reason for the campaign’s success was that it created institutions; it didn’t content itself with rhetoric. In particular, it created organizations whose members publicly pledged two things: not to bind their daughters’ feet and not to allow their sons to marry women whose feet were bound. The genius of this strategy was that it created both unbound women and men who would marry them. To reform tradition, you had to change the shared commitments of a community. If Chinese families bound their daughters’ feet because that was the normal thing to do, you had to change what was normal. "

Centralized enrolment in New Orleans public schools

The impetus seems to be special education, according to a story in the Times-Picayune, but the New Orleans public schools are going to combine all their public schools into one enrollment system:

"The New Orleans public schools will move to a centralized enrollment system in an effort to better serve special education students, State Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek announced today.
"Since Hurricane Katrina, nearly three-quarters of city schools have become independently-run charters. Parents can fill out a common application for all the schools in the Recovery School District, but enrollment decisions happen on the school level.


"District and state officials acknowledge that children with special needs sometimes fall through the cracks, with no central clearinghouse to ensure they are matched with a school that is equipped to educate them."

HT: Neil Dorosin

NSF ScienceLives interviews me on market design

The NSF writes about market design by interviewing me...
Economist Finds Best Matches for Students and Schools
By Ellen Ferrante, National Science Foundation

Some of the questions are about market design, and you'll have to click on the link above if you want to read my answers to those.  But some of the questions were designed to personalize science, and here are those, and my answers...

"What is the best piece of advice you ever received?
"There’s no limit to what a person can accomplish if he isn’t worried about who gets the credit. "

"What was your first scientific experiment as a child?
"I went to public school in NYC, and as I recall we had science fairs each year starting in grade school. The first projects I recall weren’t experiments; they were demonstrations, little bits of engineering. I remember that I built a carbon arc furnace out of boards, a flower pot, curtain rods and pieces of carbon from the core of a flashlight battery.

"What is your favorite thing about being a researcher?
"You can schedule your own mind. There are plenty of jobs in which a person has an opportunity to solve interesting problems, but a researcher, particularly an academic researcher, gets to choose which problems to work on.

"Who has had the most influence on your thinking as a researcher?
"I think my older brother Ted first persuaded me that science was exciting, and I learned a lot from my Ph.D. advisor at Stanford, Bob Wilson. Over the long term, the group of people from whom I’ve learned the most are my students and post-docs and co-investigators; I’ve been very fortunate in who I’ve been able to work with. "

"If you could only rescue one thing from your burning office or lab, what would it be?
"As often as not there’s a student or postdoc in my office. I’d rescue him or her. "

And here's the picture they ran, over the caption "Al Roth and Marilda Sotomayor photographed with their 1990 book “Two-Sided Matching,” at the conference Roth and Sotomayor: Twenty Years After, held at Duke University in May, 2010. Credit: Marilda Sotomayor"

The history of the market for injectable insulin

First came the great, long awaited discovery. The NY Times has a great account by Dr. Abigail Zuger: Rediscovering the First Miracle Drug.

It's well worth reading the whole thing, but here's one snippet that caught my eye:

"“In some sense, the breakthrough is the easy part,” he said. “Then the real work begins.”

"For both insulin and the AIDS drugs the big challenge was “getting it from here to there,” Dr. Sepkowitz said. The expense and logistics of large-scale insulin manufacture were initially daunting. But soon trainloads of frozen cattle and pig pancreas from the giant Chicago slaughterhouses began to arrive at Lilly’s plant. By 1932 the drug’s price had fallen by 90 percent. "

Diabetes remains a killer disease, but now it's a chronic disease that haunts adults, instead of quickly killing children. 

"But the miracle went only so far: insulin was not a cure. In 1921, New York City’s death rate from diabetes was estimated to be the highest in the country, and today the health department lists diabetes among the city’s top five killers. Now though, it is adults who die, not children. What insulin did was turn a brief, deadly illness into a long, chronic struggle, and both the exhibit and the book, “Breakthrough,” by Thea Cooper and Arthur Ainsberg, on which it is based highlight the complicated questions that inevitably follow medical miracles: Who will get the drug first? Who will pay for it? Who will make enough for everyone?"

Diabetes is of course one of the big causes of kidney failure, and a real cure would go a long way to easing the long lines of people waiting for kidney transplants while undergoing dialysis. (Here's a good recent article on the various dialysis options from the WSJ.)

Rakesh Vohra on repugnant contracts for onions

Over at the Leisure of the Theory Class,  Rakesh  Vohra takes up the question of the day, which is Onions, and in particular, Public Law 85-839, which states

"No contract for the sale of onions for future delivery shall be made on or subject to the rules of any board of trade in the United States."

He invites us to consider why that might be a repugnant transaction. (And in the comments, a reader raises the related question of futures contracts on Hollywood movies, and speculation in general...)

Comment on the proposed NRMP scramble following the resident match

The NRMP website asked for comments on the NRMP's new plan for organizing the post-match scramble, and some of my young colleagues and I were moved to send one in:

Comment on the NRMP’s “Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program” Proposed to Replace the Post-Match Scramble by Peter A. Coles, Clayton R. Featherstone, John William Hatfield, Fuhito Kojima, Scott Duke Kominers, Muriel Niederle, Parag A. Pathak, and Alvin E. Roth.

Executive Summary: "Historical precedent and economic principles suggest that the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP) proposed for the NRMP Scramble will lead to unsatisfactory outcomes by forcing participants to make unnecessarily difficult decisions and giving them strong incentives to break the rules laid out in the SOAP proposal. We suggest, as an alternative Scramble mechanism, that the NRMP run a “Second Match” for the Scramble participants using rules similar to those of the Main Match."


Here's my previous post: Cleaning up the scramble for medical residents with SOAP

Is the law clerk hiring regime on its last legs?

That's the question asked by an Oct 18 article in the National Law Journal. Clerkship scramble: The system for placing them with federal judges is breaking down by Karen Sloan. The article notes both that many judges are hiring law students as clerks earlier than the current guidelines allow, and also, interestingly, that an increasing number of judges are essentially hiring later, by hiring law grads rather than current law students.

"Are the Wild West days of federal clerk hiring back? That's what some law school administrators and judges fear. They worry that the voluntary system whereby federal judges wait until September of the 3L year to hire clerks is teetering. Judges are choosing clerks earlier in the year and are being inundated with applications as the legal job market narrows. And a trend toward hiring the already graduated means fewer positions are available for fresh law graduates.


"There has been a definite strain on the system over the past couple of years," said Sheila Driscoll, director of judicial clerkships at George Washington University Law School and the chairwoman of the National Association for Law Placement's (NALP) judicial clerkship section. "People are really worried that it's not going to last."

"Before 2003, judges hired clerks as early as they pleased. That's when two appellate judges persuaded most of their peers to agree to a voluntary plan that pushed federal clerk hiring back from the 2L year to September of the 3L year.


"The reform has outlasted many previous attempts to make the process orderly and fair, but the prevailing sense among placement officers and even judges is that more judges are jumping the gun. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts doesn't track which judges hire before September, but plenty of anecdotal evidence suggests that judges are picking clerks during the summer and earlier, leaving applicants to wonder about the fairness and transparency of the process. "
...
"Certain circuits openly acknowledge that most of their judges don't follow the plan — most notably the 4th, 5th, 10th and 11th circuits. The judges on the 4th Circuit voted several years ago to bypass the hiring plan altogether, said Chief Judge William Traxler Jr. "There was a long discussion and a division of opinion, but the majority did not want to go along with it," he said.


"One clerkship adviser at a top law school said that many judges are openly advertising their desire to receive applications as soon as 2L grades are available — a change from years past, when judges would solicit early applications less brazenly. The adviser did not want to be identified by name because the situation is delicate for law school administrators trying to give their students the best chance to land clerkships while still adhering to the official time line. Students, meanwhile, have to do more legwork to find out which judges are hiring and when.
...
"The hiring plan received a boost in 2005 with the introduction of the Online System for Clerkship Application and Review (OSCAR), which allows applicants and law schools to submit materials online and lets judges sort applications by specific criteria, such as school or grade-point average. The system will not release student applications to judges until the September kickoff date, which helps encourage compliance. Judge participation has climbed steadily since OSCAR's introduction, but there is no guarantee that judges who advertise positions on OSCAR will wait until September to make decisions.


"You can have a judge who only uses OSCAR for purposes of posting clerkship opportunities, but doesn't adhere to the schedule," said Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who sits on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York and chairs the judiciary's OSCAR working group. "That judge can reach out to applicants who send papers in the mail at any point."

"The frenzy places judges not in preferred cities on the East or West coasts in a tough spot — it's harder for students to make it to their chambers during the whirlwind interview period.

"Quite frankly, we just saw that other areas of the country were not following the plan," said Chief Judge Mary Beck Briscoe of the 10th Circuit. "By the time students would come out to the Midwest for interviews, the candidates with the highest credentials had already been hired."

"Briscoe recalled one candidate two years ago who was hired by another judge while literally in transit to an interview with her in Lawrence, Kan.

"The declining legal job market and the ease of applying with multiple judges through OSCAR have resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of applications. In 2009, OSCAR funneled 401,576 applications to judges — a 324% increase from the 94,693 applications received in 2005.

"With so many applications coming in, some law school career counselors and students worry that connections are playing an even bigger role in the process, as judges look for ways to cut through hundreds or even thousands of applicants. One judge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania received 1,900 applications, said Melissa Lennon, assistant dean for career planning at Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law. "What is going to cut through 1,900 applications? Nothing but a phone call," she said.
...
"Another factor is that the rules don't cover applications from people who have already graduated — judges may hire them at any point. That's a real incentive to hire alumni instead of law students, according to judges and law school administrators. "I think some judges don't like the hiring frenzy that takes place on the first day they can interview 3Ls under the rules," said New York University School of Law Dean Richard Revesz. "A way to avoid that and still comply with the rules is to hire alumni."


"Plenty of judges are going that route. Although federal court administrators don't track the percentage of alumni and law student clerk hires, OSCAR data show that clerkship applications from alumni eclipsed those from law students in 2009 — a first.

"Harvard University clerkship adviser Kirsten Solberg said approximately one-third of Harvard's federal and state clerks are alumni. The shift has been rapid at Temple, where alumni make up about 40% of the school's clerks, compared to about 25% the previous year, Lennon said. "

My previous posts on the judicial clerk market are here. My papers on that market are here.

The market for marijuana in CA--buying is almost legal, selling and growing not

Another transaction takes another step from repugnant to not: Schwarzenegger approves bill downgrading marijuana possession of ounce or less to an infraction

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who opposes legalization of marijuana for recreational use, has approved legislation downgrading possession of an ounce or less from a misdemeanor to an infraction.

"Supporters say the change will keep marijuana-related cases from becoming court-clogging jury trials, even though the penalty will remain a fine of up to $100, with no jail time. Violations will not go on a person's record as a crime.

"I am signing this measure because possession of less than an ounce of marijuana is an infraction in everything but name," Schwarzenegger wrote in a message released after he signed the bill. "In this time of drastic budget cuts, prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement and the courts cannot afford to expend limited resources prosecuting a crime that carries the same punishment as a traffic ticket."
...
"The governor's action immediately became a point of contention in the campaigns for and against Proposition 19 on the statewide November ballot, which would legalize marijuana for recreational use. Schwarzenegger opposes the measure."

At the same time, marijuana cultivation remains illegal in CA, e.g: Mendocino officials pursue third day of marijuana eradications
"Mendocino County Sheriff's officials, assisted by state and federal agencies, made several more arrests in the third day of eradicating illegal marijuana grows and sales in Round Valley on Thursday.

On Tuesday 17 people were arrested, and another 20 were arrested on Wednesday, officials reported."

Phone sex as a repugnant transaction

I was struck by the opening paragraphs of this story:

"In some ways, working as a phone-sex dominatrix is lot simpler than being on a college faculty. Your relationship with others is clearly defined, no one formally complains about anything you say to them, and you stand little risk of getting caught up in messy struggles over power.

"It gets complicated, however, if you try to do both jobs...."

That is from a Chronicle of Higher Education story about troubles in the English department at the University of New Mexico: In Professor-Dominatrix Scandal, U. of New Mexico Feels the Pain

Now you can buy copies of successful college applications

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a new business venture aimed at applicants to selective colleges. For Sale: Successful Ivy League Applications—Only $19.99  By Eric Hoover

"The path to the nation’s most selective colleges is crowded with entrepreneurs—independent consultants, test-preparation companies, and publishers of a zillion guides. They peddle information and insight, along with strategies for unlocking coveted gates. Recently, Howard Yaruss decided to join them.

"Mr. Yaruss is the founder of the Application Project Inc., which sells copies of successful applications to Ivy League colleges. Want to browse applications submitted by 21 members of Brown University’s 2009-10 freshman class? You can buy access to them for $19.99 on the company’s Web site, WeGotIn.net. For the same price, you can see applications filed by 14 members of the 2009-10 freshman class at Columbia University. Or you can buy both sets for $34.99.

"It’s all in the name of transparency, says Mr. Yaruss, who touts his new service a way to show students what successful applications look like—and what admissions officers look for when they evaluate them. Seeing how accepted applicants presented themselves, he says, can help high-school students, especially those who lack affluence, college savvy, and knowledgeable counselors.

“It’s the one remaining part of the process that’s shrouded in mystery,” Mr. Yaruss says. “Students spend thousands of dollars preparing for the SAT. We’re offering this for the cost of a trade paperback.”
...
"Alice Kleeman, a college counselor at Menlo-Atherton High School, in California, calls the service “revolting.” She suspects that the site might cause students to think they have no chance if they happen to lack the academic records, personal experiences, and writing abilities of students who were accepted.

"Ms. Kleeman also thinks there’s a high likelihood of abuse. “Even if students have the integrity not to simply lift responses from these apps, the site could also have the potential of causing students to believe they should submit something just like these apps, rather than their own authentic app,” Ms. Kleeman says. “I would hate to see my students spending money for something like this.”

Waiting lists

In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Toni Adleberg, a recent NYU graduate compares her experiences on the waiting list for graduate admissions, and the wait for a new liver: They'll Just Have to Wait.

Commerce and self interest in medicine

A Guided Tour of Modern Medicine’s Underbelly is a NY Times  book review by Dr. Abigail Zuger of  the book WHITE COAT, BLACK HAT: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine. By Dr. Carl Elliott.

"A physician who specializes in philosophy and ethics, Dr. Elliott hails from that quiet zone of medicine where much of the job involves thinking about, talking about and doling out medications. Hence his primary focus is on the ever-evolving relationship between the high art of medicine and the big business of drugs.

...
"Doctors get pens and trinkets, football tickets, junkets to beach resorts. Less visible are the large sums handed over in “I’m going to make you a star” projects to groom them as trusted faces and voices in the service of some drug. Education and advertisement merge in these elaborate ventures, as the paid professor travels the country, lecturing about disease and, incidentally, the treatment thereof.


"These “key opinion leaders” are bad enough, but who would ever imagine that the curricula vitae of many academic physicians (those on a medical school faculty) are packed with journal articles actually written by ghostwriters sponsored by pharmaceutical companies?

"“Nobody expects American politicians to write their own speeches anymore,” Dr. Elliott reminds us, “and nobody expects celebrities to write their own memoirs.” Apparently doctors have now joined the ranks of the charismatic talking heads, mouthing the words of others.

"And just as “professor” generally describes someone who writes his or her own sentences, “ethicist” generally describes someone who dwells (or at least works) on an unusually high moral plane. But Dr. Elliott also takes a brief and very informative excursion into the world of the medical ethicists. Once they were highly principled, underpaid gadflies, trying to sort out medical decision making. Now they are part of a booming industry, and, speaking of industry, their ties to the pharmaceutical industry are many and complex. Many companies now hire their own ethicists. But who guards those guards?
...
"What a world, what a world, as the melting witch said in “The Wizard of Oz.” But there is one small consolation: at least Dr. Elliott didn’t have to call his book “White Coat, Black Heart.” Now that would have been depressing. The bottom line is that much of what he describes is simply the big business of medicine as we have allowed it to take shape. His bad actors are mostly just that: actors caught up in a script not of their own devising. They all come home in the evening, take off their black hats and hang up their white coats, just regular working stiffs out to make a buck. "

Regulation of the hours that medical residents can work

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports Accreditor Tightens Limits on Medical Residents' 80-Hour Workweeks

"Doctors in training at teaching hospitals would continue to be limited to an 80-hour workweek, but some new limits would be imposed to cut down on errors by sleep-deprived residents under new standards approved on Tuesday by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.


"The standards, which are scheduled to take effect in July 2011, will apply to the 111,000 medical residents who are training in accredited teaching institutions,

"Residents can work more than 80 hours some weeks, as long as the average over a four-week period doesn't exceed 80. First-year residents would be limited to working no more than 16 hours a day—down from 24 hours—and they would be supervised more closely. Residency-training programs would also have a tougher time getting exceptions to the work-hour limits.

"The changes are based on recommendations made in 2008 by the Institute of Medicine, which warned of widespread medical errors caused by sleepy residents, as well as a 16-month review of scientific writings on sleep issues, patient safety, and resident training.

"Some teaching hospitals have argued that limiting residents' work hours would hurt them financially without necessarily improving patient safety.

"The revised standards, which also deal with concerns about mistakes that occur when residents hand off patient-care responsibilities during shift changes, were developed by a 16-member task force made up of specialists from medical education, patient safety, and clinical care."

Market design at Aarhus University in Denmark

The Center for Research in the Foundations of Electronic Markets is having an inaugural conference, Oct. 13-15.

The full program is here.
The first three sessions touch on a number of themes that readers of this blog will recognize:

Wednesday, October 13, 12.30 to 17.30

Session Chair Ivan Damgård
12.30-13.15 – Hervé Moulin, Rice University: Impartial decision among peers
13.15-14.00 – Peter Bogetoft, Copenhagen Business School: Missing Markets
14.00-14.45 – Jens Leth Hougaard, Copenhagen University: Rationing with rights

Session Chair Peter Bro Miltersen
15.15-16.00 – Felix Fischer, Harvard University: Mechanisms for Large-Scale Kidney Exchanges
16.00-16.45 – Lance Fortnow, Northwestern University: Bounding Rationality by Computational Complexity
16.45-17.30 – Kevin Leyton-Brown, University of British Columbia: Computational Mechanism Analysis

Thursday, October 14, 9.30 to 18:00
Session Chair Peter Bogetoft
09.30-10.15 – David Parkes, Harvard University: Mechanism Design and Accounting to Enable Efficient Peer Production and Spectrum Sharing (joint work with Ian Kash (Harvard), Michel Meulpolder (TU Delft), Rohan Murty (Harvard), Jie Tang (UC Berkeley) and Sven Seuken (Harvard))
10.15-11.00 – Ivan Damgård, Aarhus University: How to compute securely – even if you trust no one but yourself

It looks like Aarhaus is a happening place this week.

HT: Noam Nisan at AGT.

The problem with Princeton

France Wrestles With Its 2 Tiers of Higher Education
The article, from the New York Times, discusses the French higher education system of Universities and Grandes Ecoles, and ends with this paragraph:

"It was Cédric Villani, a 37-year-old professor at Lyon who won the 2010 Fields Medal, who gave the most spirited reply to France’s critics. Calling himself “a pure product of the French system,” Mr. Villani, a Normalien who has often taught in the United States, said that while American academic salaries were higher “and it’s easier to make big projects,” France also has particular strengths: “Our tradition, our quality of life, our social cohesion. My big problem in Princeton was finding a place to buy a decent cheese.”

Interview concerning San Francisco school choice

The San Francisco Briefing Room carries an audio interview by Stan Goldberg with Attila Abdulkadiroglu and me (about 30 minutes): Assignment System at Risk.
Here's his blurb: "With the deadline for submitting applications for school assignment in the San Francisco Unified School District rapidly approaching the school district has advised its independent advisors who were scheduled to program the assignment system for free that their services were not needed. Does this action imperil the implementation of the system on time? Has school district transparency moved back to the dark ages? Here’s the story from the design team’s perspective."


(Here are my previous posts on San Francisco school choice.)

Results of Games 1st choice prediction competition

Here's the end (or maybe the middle) of the story that began with Predicting behavior in games: a competition

: Results of Games 1st choice prediction competition

erev@techunix.technion.ac.il Oct 05 08:16AM +0200 ^

Hi: We write to inform you of the results of Games 1st choice prediction
competition. The competition focused on the prediction of behavior in repeated
Market Entry Game. We ran two sets of experiments. We published the results of
the first set, and challenged other researchers to predict the result of the
second set (see http://sites.google.com/site/gpredcomp).

Twenty-two different teams participated in the competition. The total number of
submissions was 25.

The winners are Wei Chen, Chih-Han Chen, Yi-Shan Lee, and Shu-Yu Liu from
National Taiwan University.

The runners up are Tomבs Lejarraga, Varun Dutt, and Cleotilde Gonzalez from
Carnegie Mellon University.

The winners and the runners up were invited to submit papers to Games that
describe their models in detail. Here is a short summary:

The winning model refines I-SAW (the best baseline model described in the
competition website) by the addition of the assumption of a limited memory
span. The refined model assumes: (1) Reliance on a small sample of past
experiences, (2) Strong inertia and recency effects, and (3) Surprise triggers
change.

The runner up model is based upon the Instance Based Learning (IBL) theory
proposed by Gonzalez, Lerch, and Lebiere (2003). The basic assumptions of this
model are: retrieval of past set of experiences of outcomes weighted by their
probability of retrieval from memory (i.e., blending mechanism); dependence on
recency and frequency of past experienced outcomes; and, an inertia mechanism
that depends upon surprise as a function of blended outcomes.

The results support two main suggestions:

(1) Models that assume reliance on small samples of past experiences have a
large advantage over models that assume reliance on running averages of the
previous payoffs (like traditional reinforcement learning and fictitious play
models).

(2) The difference between learning in market entry games, and learning in
individual choice tasks is not large. Indeed, the best models in the current
competition can be described as refinements of the best models in our previous
competition that focused in individual repeated choice task (see Erev et al.,
2010).

The raw data from the 80 repeated market entry games that were run in the
current competition can be found in http://sites.google.com/site/gpredcomp.
The raw data from the 120 repeated choice problems that were run in our
previous competition can be found in
http://tx.technion.ac.il/~erev/Comp/Comp.html. We encourage you to use these
data sets, to improve our understanding of the effect of experience on economic
behavior.
 

Vacancy chains: hiring from your competitors, and having them hire from you

Six Technology Firms Agree to More Hiring Competition

"The American job market is tough for many workers, but things are looking even better than usual for highly paid engineers and scientists in Silicon Valley.

"Six leading technology companies, including Apple, Google and Intel, reached an antitrust settlement on Friday with the Justice Department that promises to increase the competition for sought-after technology workers. The government had conducted a yearlong investigation into agreements among companies not to poach employees from each other.

"The investigation focused on five agreements by the companies not to make cold calls to employees that each company had placed on a do-not-call list. Each of the pacts, according to the Justice Department filing, involved a pair of companies: Apple and Google, Apple and Adobe, Apple and Pixar, Google and Intel, and Google and Intuit.

"The agreements to curb cold-calling of each others’ workers, the Justice Department complaint said, “diminished competition to the detriment of the affected employees who were likely deprived of competitively important information and access to better job opportunities.”

The job market in computer science

Lance Fortnow, blogging at Computational Complexity, posts what is apparently an Annual Fall Jobs Post about the academic job market in computer science. He notes that applications are being considered earlier this year, but there is also a transition in the career path of new CS theory grads, to include postdocs.

"The CRA is working on setting guidelines for job deadlines to help out with some of the gridlock in the job market. Many of the top departments have already moved their deadlines for full consideration to early December or November. Keep an eye out and remember to apply early this year."

...
 
"A little early to tell but this year will likely be similar to last year: a small number of tenure-track positions in TCS and a large number of postdoc positions. Out of necessity almost everyone does a postdoc now and many people doing a second or third as well.

"Have the theoretical computer science community actually moved to postdoc culture, where people are now expected to do a postdoc (or multiple postdocs) before taking a tenure-track position like physics, chemistry and biology? When did the field make that jump?"

This is a labor market that will be interesting to keep track of. (Will the appointment dates for first jobs continue moving earlier in time--i.e. are we seeing the beginning of unravelling? Or is this just a one time move to try to deal with congestion in clearing the market, so that multiple offers to a few stars don't delay things too late in the year?  And, even if appointment to first jobs moves earlier, will tenure track positions move later, via postdocs?  Stay tuned...)

HT: Mike Ostrovsky

Organ donation legislation in California

Judd Kessler (who you could hire this year) writes about changes in CA law regarding organ donation, including live donation:

On Tuesday, October 5, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ceremonially signed new organ donor legislation. There are two new bills that make a variety of changes to policy for both live and deceased organ donation in California. Here is a summary.


SB 1395 makes two changes. First, it authorizes the creation of an:
"Altruistic Living Donor Registry" where individuals can state their willingness to be a live kidney donor. (The bill allows for the possibility of extending the registry to other organs and tissues in the future.) The living donor registry would make information about potential donors available to facilitate pairwise exchanges and donor chains. According to the bill: "(a) ... The donor registry shall be designed to promote and assist live kidney donations, including donor chains, paired exchanges, and nondirected donations. The registrar shall be responsible for developing methods to increase the number of donors who enroll in the registry. (b) The registrar shall make available to the federally designated organ procurement organizations (OPOs) and transplant centers in California information contained in the registry regarding potential altruistic living donors. This information shall be used to expedite a match between identified organ donors and potential recipients."

Second, SB 1395 changes how the department of motor vehicles asks people whether they would like to register to be an organ and tissue donor upon death (i.e. a deceased donor). Currently the DMV allows potential donors to opt in. The application for a new or renewal driver's license or ID card has space to indicate a willingness to join the registry. Starting July 1, 2011, the donor registration question will require an "active" or "mandated" choice. According to the bill, the application will now: "contain a space for the applicant to enroll in the Donate Life California Organ and Tissue Donor Registry. The application shall include check boxes for an applicant to mark either (A) Yes, add my name to the donor registry or (B) I do not wish to register at this time." In addition, the DMV: "shall inquire verbally of an applicant applying in person ... at a department office as to whether the applicant wishes to enroll in the Donate Life California Organ and Tissue Donor Registry."

In Governor Schwarzenegger's speech at the bill signing he called this change to mandated choice "the next best thing" to an opt out system, where individuals would be deceased organ donors by default. He said an opt out system had been suggested to him by Steve Jobs, who recently received a liver transplant and was also in attendance at the bill signing, but that an opt-out system was not plausible due to constitutional concerns. In the Governor's words: "And we have to give [Steve Jobs] a lot of credit, because he came back, apparently from Europe or from somewhere where he called me and he said that, you know, in Europe, in Spain, they have no waiting list because you can only opt out; that if you don’t opt out then you are automatically on a donor list. So we tried to copy the same thing and we talked about that seven months ago. But our Constitution in the United States is different than the Spanish Constitution, so we could not legally do that. So we did the next best thing."

Another bill generated protections for employees who want to be living organ donors or bone marrow donors. SB 1304 requires private employers to provide paid leave for their employees who are organ donors (up to 30 days) or bone marrow donors (up to 5 days) and prevents private employers from blocking such donations by its employees or punishing them for donating. State employees already had this paid leave.

College admissions--a state of the union interview

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports an interview with the departing head of the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC): Admission Group's Departing Leader Takes Stock

"Q. Tell me about one thing that you think is broken in the profession.

A. The number of ways to apply has grown. There’s been an increase in the number of programs under the banner of early decision or early action. There’s the increasing use of “snap apps,” which make it easy to apply. It’s hard for many of us who are long-term professionals to understand all the different ways to apply, and I think that it’s worse for kids and parents. This process should be relatively transparent, though it can’t be totally transparent.

Q. What’s good about college admissions today that wasn’t so good a decade ago?

A. Certainly there’s more information out there about college admissions. When I first started, people had no idea what college admissions was or what it really did. Now there’s far more info out there that’s helpful. To sort through all that information and figure out what’s good is the challenge. There’s far more attention paid to the process.

Q. In some ways, the national dialogue about college admissions has helped demystify the process. But are some of today’s enrollment-management tactics having the opposite effect?

A. Yes. Some of it has been demystified, but some of it has been replaced by other mysteries. There are two extremes. There are a huge number of kids who grow up in good homes where there isn’t a history of going to college. They don’t have the basic understanding that they have to have. Then there are other parents who are obsessed with admissions to certain institutions, and this leads to all kinds of mythology, or as I like to call them, suburban legends. Our challenge is to reach both of those populations—the ones that really need information for access that can change their lives, and those who are so obsessed about getting into a particular college."

Principal agent problems, where the agent is a surgeon and the principal is a patient

Pauline Chen writes in the NY Times about The Surgeon’s Pact With the Patient
"[The] belief — that surgeons can be both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when it comes to the doctor-patient relationship — has been embraced for generations by more than a few nonsurgical doctors, nurses and patients. Heroic in their devotion to patients when they are at their best, surgeons inexplicably seem to transform when they are at their worst. That worst usually comes on the heels of a high-risk operation and a complicated and protracted postoperative course. The nurses, other doctors and sometimes even the patient and family request palliation only; in response, the surgeon often stalls, hesitates or simply refuses.

"Since the late 1970s, ethicists and social scientists have tried explain what they viewed as surgeons’ paradoxical behavior with postoperative patients. One of the earliest researchers attributed to self-protection the surgical imperative to “do everything possible.” Inevitably, this medical sociologist reasoned, all surgeons commit a technical error over the course of their careers. By doing everything possible “for the patient,” surgeons protected themselves against the emotional distress of failure. The rationale behind this common-sense theory was straightforward: At least I did all that I could possibly do.
...
"A study* published this year offers an interesting possible answer...
"In interview after interview, the surgeons referred to a negotiation and agreement — what the researchers called “surgical buy-in” — that occurred during the consent process, long before these doctors and their patients ever entered the operating room. The surgeons believed that patients not only consented to the operation itself but also committed themselves to any care after the operation necessary for successful outcomes. They talked about the operation and postoperative care as being a “package deal” and about a tacit “two-way agreement” that included even well-articulated and well-defined numbers of postoperative days. ...
“Surgeons don’t want to invest themselves in a relationship and a technical tour de force, then have to walk away.”


*Schwarze, Margaret L. MD, MPP; Bradley, Ciaran T. MD, MA; Brasel, Karen J. MD, MPH, "Surgical "buy-in": The contractual relationship between surgeons and patients that influences decisions regarding life-supporting therapy," Critical Care Medicine: March 2010 - Volume 38 - Issue 3 - pp 843-848

The wholesale market for art

We often think of the art market as essentially retail--each artwork is unique--but that's because we aren't art buyers for hotels, in which every room needs a painting or a print or two.

Hong Kong: Art in Big Batches

"Our first two appointments in Hong Kong were separate meetings with art consultants, Sandra Walters at Sandra Walters Art Consultancy and Nicole Jelicich at Enjay Art Consultancy. They collaborate with designers and property owners in providing art for hotels and corporate clients. They work in a volume unheard of in any gallery. Think thousands and tens of thousands of artworks. A new hotel—and there are hundreds under construction in China now—needs thousands of works for the rooms and the public areas. Both consultants have provided work for Ritz Carltons, Intercontinental Hotels, Four Seasons, Morgan Stanley and hundreds of other clients."

From repugnant transaction to Nobel Prize in Medicine

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2010

to

Robert G. Edwards

for the development of in vitro fertilization

From the press release:

"These early studies were promising but the Medical Research Council decided not to fund a continuation of the project. However, a private donation allowed the work to continue. The research also became the topic of a lively ethical debate that was initiated by Edwards himself. Several religious leaders, ethicists, and scientists demanded that the project be stopped, while others gave it their support."


Since then,
"Approximately four million individuals have so far been born following IVF. Many of them are now adult and some have already become parents. A new field of medicine has emerged, with Robert Edwards leading the process all the way from the fundamental discoveries to the current, successful IVF therapy. His contributions represent a milestone in the development of modern medicine."


Afternoon update: Vatican official criticises Nobel win for IVF pioneer
"A Vatican official has said the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Medicine to British IVF pioneer Robert Edwards is "completely out of order".

Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said the award ignored the ethical questions raised by the fertility treatment.

He said IVF had led to the destruction of large numbers of human embryos."

Update 10/6/10: an Op Ed in the NY Times reminds us of some of the early reaction to IVF:
In Vitro Revelation
"Religious groups denounced the two scientists as madmen who were trying to play God. Medical ethicists declared that in vitro fertilization was the first step on a slippery slope toward aberrations like artificial wombs and baby farms.

"Fortunately, Louise Brown was not born a monster, but rather a healthy, 5-pound, 12-ounce blond baby girl."


Further update: here's an NPR broadcast: The Controversies That Still Lie Behind In-Vitro Fertilization?
"The Nobel Prize for medicine was awarded to Robert Edwards yesterday, who developed in vitro fertilization in the 1970. Controversial from its introduction, the practice was initially condemned by the Catholic Church. Today, while many of the original ethical issues have abated, new ones have arisen over questions about the in vitro industry's lack of regulation and the continuing debate surrounding stem cell research.


"Glenn Cohen, co-director of the Petrie-Flom Center, and assistant professof or law at Harvard University, believes the number one controversy today is the safety methods surrounding the practice."

Mail order husbands, on Foreign Son-in-Law Street

A Thai Region Where Husbands Are Imported.

"But unlike many other foreign husbands, Mr. Davis, 54, did not take his wife home with him, choosing instead to settle down in northeastern Thailand, a region known as Isaan.

"He is part of an expanding population of nearly 11,000 foreign husbands in the region, drawn by the low cost of living, slow pace of life and the exotic reputation of Thai women — something like a brand name for Western men seeking Asian partners. “Thai women are a lot like women in America were 50 years ago,” said Mr. Davis, before they discovered their rights and became “strong-headed and opinionated.”

“The women now know they are equal,” said Mr. Davis, a retired Naval officer who has been divorced twice, “so the situation is not as relaxed and peaceful as it is between an American and a Thai lady.”

"It is easy to spot the foreigners’ homes, with their sturdy walls and red-tiled roofs, an archipelago of affluence among the smaller, poorer houses of their new neighbors and in-laws.

"Mixed couples are common on the streets and in the markets of Udon Thani. One street where Western men gather to eat and drink is popularly known as “Foreign Son-in-Law Street.”