From The Federal Judicial Center's page on How the Federal Courts Are Organized FAQ:
How are cases assigned to judges?
Each court with more than one judge must determine a procedure for assigning cases to judges. Most district and bankruptcy courts use random assignment, which helps to ensure a fair distribution of cases and also prevents "judge shopping," or parties’ attempts to have their cases heard by the judge who they believe will act most favorably. Other courts assign cases by rotation, subject matter, or geographic division of the court. In courts of appeals, cases are usually assigned by random means to three-judge panels.
Some other interesting Qs and As:
What is an Article III judge?
The U.S. Supreme Court, the federal courts of appeals and district courts, and the U.S. Court of International Trade are established under Article III of the Constitution. Justices and judges of these courts, known as Article III judges, exercise what Article III calls "the judicial power of the United States."
Are there judges in the federal courts other than Article III judges?
Bankruptcy judges and magistrate judges conduct some of the proceedings held in federal courts. Bankruptcy judges handle almost all bankruptcy matters, in bankruptcy courts that are technically included in the district courts but function as separate entities. Magistrate judges carry out various responsibilities in the district courts and often help prepare the district judges’ cases for trial. They also may preside over criminal misdemeanor trials and may preside over civil trials when both parties agree to have the case heard by a magistrate judge instead of a district judge. Unlike district judges, bankruptcy and magistrate judges do not exercise "the judicial power of the United States" but perform duties delegated to them by district judges. The judges on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims are also not Article III judges. Their court is a special trial court that hears mostly claims for money damages in excess of $10,000 against the United States. With the approval of the Senate, the President appoints U.S. Court of Federal Claims judges for fifteen-year terms.
How many federal judges are there?Congress authorizes a set number of judge positions, or judgeships, for each court level. Since 1869, Congress has authorized 9 positions for the Supreme Court. It currently authorizes 179 court of appeals judgeships and 678 district court judgeships.(In 1950, there were only 65 court of appeals judgeships and 212 district court judgeships.) There are currently 352 bankruptcy judgeships and 551 full-time and part-time magistrate judgeships. It is rare that all judgeships are filled at any one time; judges die or retire, for example, causing vacancies until judges are appointed to replace them. In addition to judges occupying these judgeships, retired judges often continue to perform some judicial work.
And elsewhere on the site, this:
Law Clerks
The practice of hiring a recently graduated law student to serve as an in-chambers judicial assistant was pioneered by Horace Gray. Both as the chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (1864–1881) and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1882–1902), Gray personally paid an assistant, whom he referred to as his “secretary.” Other justices of the Supreme Court followed the practice in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Although Congress in 1886 heeded the advice of the U.S. Attorney General that it pay for each of the justices to hire a stenographer “to assist in such clerical work as might be assigned to him,” it was not until 1919 that it provided funding for the hiring of legally trained assistants. To distinguish these assistants from the stenographers, Congress designated them as “law clerks.”
The early law clerks, most of whom were graduates of the Harvard Law School, conducted legal research, checked citations, and performed a wide range of personal and administrative tasks for their judges. Despite the concerns expressed by some members of the Judicial Conference that such assistance was unnecessary or that highly paid law school graduates were not needed to perform such tasks, Congress in 1930 provided funds for each circuit court of appeals judge to appoint a law clerk. Six years later, Congress authorized up to thirty-five district court judges to appoint law clerks, as long as the senior circuit judge of the circuit in which the district was located issued a certificate of need. A statute of 1945 lifted the restriction on the number of district court judges allowed to appoint a clerk. The certificate of need requirement continued until 1959, when Congress authorized judges to hire “necessary” law clerks subject to the limits of their chambers staff budgets and to the minimum law clerk salary provisions of the Judicial Salary Plan.
As federal judicial caseloads and budgets increased during the last four decades of the twentieth century, the number of law clerks retained by the judges of the federal courts rose steadily, though some judges have eschewed the practice of hiring short term law clerks in favor of “career” clerks, who are hired with the expectation that they will serve for a period of more than four years. Today’s law clerks typically perform quasi-judicial functions, such as preparing bench memoranda on legal issues and composing drafts of judicial opinions.
Further Reading:
Baier, Paul R. “The Law Clerks: Profile of an Institution,” Vanderbilt Law Review 26 (1973): 1125–77.
Newland, Chester A. “Personal Assistants to Supreme Court Justices: The Law Clerks,” Oregon Law Review 40 (1961): 299–317.
“Law Clerks: The Transformation of the Judiciary,” Long Term View: A Journal of Informed Opinion 3 (1995).
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Monday, September 23, 2013
My freshman seminar and Ph.D. class on matching: Fall 2013
ECON 26N: Who gets what? The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design
Freshman Seminar. What are markets and marketplaces? How do they work? How do they fail? How can we fix them when they¿re broken? Recently economists have become market designers to try to answer these questions. What are matching markets and why are they important? This seminar will explore examples of matching markets such as; who goes to which schools and universities? Who gets which jobs? Who gets scarce organs for transplant? Who marries whom? We'll investigate examples of recent market designs in school choice, labor markets and kidney exchange. How internet dating sites and social networking might make courtship very different for your generation than it was previous ones.
Terms: Aut | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-SI | Grading: Letter (ABCD/NP)
Instructors: Roth, A. (PI)
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Nobel monument inscription ceremony: Columbus Ave and W. 81st Street tomorrow
I'll be teaching in California and unable to attend, but if you are near the Museum of Natural History at 5PM tomorrow, Sept 23, you could see what is apparently "the only monument in New York City parks which features the names of living persons"
"Every year, the names of the American Nobel Laureates from the previous year are inscribed onto the monument and unveiled at an annual ceremony."
The event will be in Theodore Roosevelt Park, adjacent to the American Museum of Natural History. The invitation letter says "This is the location of the Nobel Monument, raised in 2003 to honor Alfred Nobel and all American recipients of the Nobel Prize, who along with you now number 332."
**********"Every year, the names of the American Nobel Laureates from the previous year are inscribed onto the monument and unveiled at an annual ceremony."
The event will be in Theodore Roosevelt Park, adjacent to the American Museum of Natural History. The invitation letter says "This is the location of the Nobel Monument, raised in 2003 to honor Alfred Nobel and all American recipients of the Nobel Prize, who along with you now number 332."
I was in NYC on 5/17/2014 and took a walk with Itai Ashlagi and Jacob Leshno to see the monument.
(There aren't so many opportunities to see your name in stone:)
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Golden Goose Award, postscript (and video)
The Golden Goose Award was fun, in a circle the wagons kind of way, since the Congressmen who support federal funding of science are clearly feeling beleaguered. Of course it's not just science funding that is under pressure these days: here's the NY Times headline for a vote that took place at the same time as the awards ceremony (so that Congressmen came to the ceremony then ducked out to vote and then returned to tell us about the difficulties they face): House Republicans Pass Deep Cuts in Food Stamps
But it was an upbeat meeting, and there was a video made from interviews done beforehand, about how basic research is a good investment. The (8 minute) video starts with the part of the award given to me, David Gale and Lloyd Shapley, and the speakers are me and Joel Sobel at UCSD who was a student of Gale's. Here it is on vimeo: Golden Goose Awards 2013 video
Different places have different cultures, and the modest luncheon we attended before the ceremony was a buffet, I gather in order to allow the members of Congress who joined us to keep within the limits set by the Ethics committee: Food or Refreshments of a Nominal Value (Attendance at Receptions)
Here's my pre-ceremony post on the GG event
But it was an upbeat meeting, and there was a video made from interviews done beforehand, about how basic research is a good investment. The (8 minute) video starts with the part of the award given to me, David Gale and Lloyd Shapley, and the speakers are me and Joel Sobel at UCSD who was a student of Gale's. Here it is on vimeo: Golden Goose Awards 2013 video
Different places have different cultures, and the modest luncheon we attended before the ceremony was a buffet, I gather in order to allow the members of Congress who joined us to keep within the limits set by the Ethics committee: Food or Refreshments of a Nominal Value (Attendance at Receptions)
Here's my pre-ceremony post on the GG event
Friday, September 20, 2013
Conflicts of interest in caring for candidates for kidney transplants
Harvey Mysel has posted the following (reproduced in its entirety) here:
How Conflicts of Interest Negatively Impacts a Patients Chance to have a Kidney Transplant
Patients who need a kidney transplant expect their dialysis clinic and/or their transplant hospital to provide them with information on the best medical options available. CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) requires dialysis companies and transplant hospitals to provide this information. These companies may “technically” abide by these rules however, the information is often vague and not very useful.
The Conflict for Dialysis Companies
CMS requires dialysis companies to ask: “Has the patient been informed of kidney transplant options?” A Yes/No box needs to be checked. A dialysis company’s mission is to dialyze patients, not to educate them about kidney transplants. It’s a conflict of interest for the dialysis company. Once a patient receives a kidney transplant, they don’t need the services of the dialysis company. What company will educate their customer to an option that will result in losing their customer?
CMS requires dialysis companies to ask: “Has the patient been informed of kidney transplant options?” A Yes/No box needs to be checked. A dialysis company’s mission is to dialyze patients, not to educate them about kidney transplants. It’s a conflict of interest for the dialysis company. Once a patient receives a kidney transplant, they don’t need the services of the dialysis company. What company will educate their customer to an option that will result in losing their customer?
From the statistics you can see there is a problem in the dialysis community. There are over 400,000 people on dialysis but only 98,000 are on the kidney transplant waiting list. By some estimates, 10% of all dialysis patients die every year. Many dialysis patients were good candidates for a kidney transplant when they first started dialysis, but after years of treatments their health deteriorates and the majority is no longer healthy enough to recover from a kidney transplant.
The Conflict for Transplant Hospitals
CMS requires transplant hospitals to tell their patients they can register at more than one transplant hospital. The primary reason to register at another transplant hospital is to be on a shorter waiting list. Providing this information to their patients is a conflict of interest for the hospital. A hospital might tell their patients they could register somewhere else, without letting them know the benefit of doing so. There are regions in the U.S. where the wait for a deceased donor kidney is 5--10 years, while in another area, which might only be a 1.5 hour drive, the wait time is only 12 months.
CMS requires transplant hospitals to tell their patients they can register at more than one transplant hospital. The primary reason to register at another transplant hospital is to be on a shorter waiting list. Providing this information to their patients is a conflict of interest for the hospital. A hospital might tell their patients they could register somewhere else, without letting them know the benefit of doing so. There are regions in the U.S. where the wait for a deceased donor kidney is 5--10 years, while in another area, which might only be a 1.5 hour drive, the wait time is only 12 months.
There’s another conflict that can develop for the transplant hospital. Patients are given excellent advice and encouraged to find a living kidney donor. There are many benefits of a living donor kidney versus one from a deceased donor.
The biggest benefit is a kidney from a living donor lasts on average twice as long as one from a deceased donor. Statistics show about one--third of all potential donors who are evaluated are not compatible with their intended recipient. Potential donors could have an incompatible blood type or the recipient has certain antibodies, also referred to as being sensitized that will result in rejecting this person’s kidney. High levels of antibodies can develop as a result of a previous transplant, a blood transfusion or for some women giving birth.
Better anti--rejection drugs and Kidney Paired Donations (KPD) also called paired exchanges, chains or swaps allow these incompatible donors to help their intended recipient by donating to another recipient who also has an incompatible donor. KPDs have the potential of adding thousands of kidney transplants a year if a centralized national program is developed and all incompatible pairs are registered in the same pool. Unfortunately there isn’t one centralized program, but many different KPD options. To read more about KPDs go to: www.lkdn.org/LKDN_Paired_Exchanges.pdf
Since there are many KPD programs, the likelihood of being matched with another incompatible pair is increased when you join other KPD programs. It’s a numbers game. There are exceptions to this, if there are many pairs with rare blood types or when a pool contains many difficult pairs to match due to the recipient being sensitized. To read more about the paired exchange conundrum go to:http://www.lkdn.org/LKDN_The_Paired_Exchange_Conundrum.pdf
Here’s the conflict. Hospitals are under no obligation to tell their incompatible pairs about the benefits of registering with other KPD programs. This could result in a patient going to another hospital to receive a transplant. What company will educate their customer to an option that will result in losing their customer?
Kidney dialysis and kidney transplants are very profitable for these institutions. It costs approximately $83,000 a year to provide dialysis services for one patient and a kidney transplant can generate approximately $125,000 for a hospital.
What could be done to help patients understand their options and remove these conflicts of interest?
For the dialysis companies, CMS could authorize an independent company to educate the dialysis patients about kidney transplants. There’s no shortage of organizations that are qualified to provide these services.
For the transplant hospitals, CMS and/or UNOS could also authorize an independent company to educate patients about registering at other transplant hospitals and include the options patients have when a potential donor is incompatible.
A kidney transplant, whether from a deceased or living donor is a life changing and complicated process. Patients who are in need of a kidney transplant need much more help in understanding the options available to them.
Harvey Mysel is a two--time kidney transplant recipient and Founder of LKDN (Living Kidney Donors Network) a nonprofit organization that offers workshops and webinars to educate people in need of a kidney transplant about living kidney donation. LKDN also helps prepare those in need to effectively communicate their situation to family members and friends. LKDN’s website is www.lkdn.org and Harvey can be reached atharvey@lkdn.org
For a printable copy, click here.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
David Gale and Lloyd Shapley and I share the Golden Goose Award
Today I'm in Washington DC to accept The Golden Goose Award made jointly to me, to Lloyd Shapley, who won't be able to attend, and to the late David Gale, whose death kept him from the Nobel celebration of his work with Shapley last December.
As I understand it, the award is for funny sounding ("seemingly obscure," "wacky title," "left field") research that was supported by federal funds and eventually proved to be useful:
“We’ve all read stories about the study with the wacky title, the research project from left field,” Rep. Cooper said. “But off-the-wall science yields medical miracles. We can’t abandon research funding only because we can’t predict how the next miracle will happen.”
This is only the second time the award is being given, and this year's awards will go to Dr. John Eng, whose study of the poisonous venom produced by the Gila monster led to a drug helps treat diabetes, to microbiologist Thomas Brock and glycobiologist Hudson Freeze for their studies of bacteria that thrive in very hot water that yielded a key to the technology of the polymerase chain reaction, and to David and Lloyd and me. Here's the announcement about our part of the prize, which mentions the funding we received from the NSF and the ONR.
The part of the work that I'm being honored for is in fact a team effort: I've been lucky in my colleagues (Utku Unver and Tayfun Sonmez are named in the press release, and some of the others are shouted out to here).
I think the part of our work that is mentioned and that best fits the storyline of "obscure research makes good" is the line that begins with the 1974 paper by Shapley and Scarf in the first issue of the Journal of Mathematical Economics. They proposed a model of exchange of an indivisible good, without the use of money, and called the goods "houses." Since we are obviously able to use money to buy houses (I just bought one and can testify that it cost money), this was funny-sounding research that might have attracted the ire of Senator Proxmire. But playing with toy models is how economic theory gets ready to deal with unanticipated problems. They introduced Gale's top trading cycle algorithm (ttc), which Andy Postlewaite used to further explore the model in a 1977 paper. In a 1982 paper I showed that ttc makes it a dominant strategy for players to reveal their true preferences. Atila Abdulkadiroglu and Sonmez later generalized the mechanism in ways that, when it came time to organize kidney exchange, made it easy to propose that it be organized in a ttc way involving cycles and chains, with the dominant strategy property being an important piece of the puzzle. Whilettc isn't how we eventually helped organize kidney exchange (we had to start with just pairwise exchanges for logistical reasons), the practice of kidney exchange has been evolving in the direction of cycles and (long) chains, in ways that Itai Ashlagi and our surgical colleagues have been working to understand and build upon. So, what started with a model of exchanging houses without money has evolved into exchanging kidneys in a way that's become a standard part of transplantation in the U.S. in the last few years.
This is an opportunity to remind Congress and the public of the importance of investigator-initiated, peer reviewed research. Go NSF! (NSF posts on kidney exchange are here and here.)
If you're a fan of science as a public good, you might be glad to know if your congressman is one of those involved:
As I understand it, the award is for funny sounding ("seemingly obscure," "wacky title," "left field") research that was supported by federal funds and eventually proved to be useful:
ABOUT THE GOLDEN GOOSE AWARD
What: The purpose of the “Golden Goose” award is to demonstrate the human and economic benefits of federally funded research by highlighting examples of seemingly obscure studies that have led to major breakthroughs and resulted in significant societal impact. Such breakthroughs include development of life-saving medicines and treatments; game-changing social and behavioral insights; and major technological advances related to national security, energy, the environment, communications, and public health. Such breakthroughs may also have resulted in economic growth through the creation of new industries or companies.
Congressman Jim Cooper (D-TN) originally conceived of the Golden Goose award as a means of educating Members of Congress and the general public about the value of federal funding of basic scientific research. The name of the award is a play on the “Golden Fleece” awards issued between 1975 and 1988 by Senator William Proxmire (D-WI), which targeted specific federally funded research grants as examples of government waste. The name also alludes to the fable of the goose that laid the golden eggs. Researchers who have used federal funding to make their research breakthroughs constitute the “goose,” and the innovations stemming from their work are the “golden eggs.” The Golden Goose Award explicitly links the two.
Who: The Golden Goose Awards will be announced three to four times a year, with an annual awards event in Washington to honor awardees. Honorees will be selected from a pool of potential nominees developed by a partnership of founding universities, think tanks, and businesses led by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the Breakthrough Institute, the Progressive Policy Institute, The Science Coalition, the Task Force on American Innovation, and United for Medical Research. The criteria for selecting awardees are:
- Nominees must have received a federally funded research grant within the past 60 years that contributed to an important discovery or breakthrough (Grant agencies include, but are not limited to, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, and Energy.);
- Nominees’ research must already have led to demonstrable, significant human and economic benefits (the Golden Goose Award is not intended to honor current research that might lead to breakthroughs in the future);
- Research teams are eligible to receive a nomination for their work;
- Individuals may be nominated for their work posthumously, but only if an individual or organizational representative is available to accept the award at an event;
“We’ve all read stories about the study with the wacky title, the research project from left field,” Rep. Cooper said. “But off-the-wall science yields medical miracles. We can’t abandon research funding only because we can’t predict how the next miracle will happen.”
This is only the second time the award is being given, and this year's awards will go to Dr. John Eng, whose study of the poisonous venom produced by the Gila monster led to a drug helps treat diabetes, to microbiologist Thomas Brock and glycobiologist Hudson Freeze for their studies of bacteria that thrive in very hot water that yielded a key to the technology of the polymerase chain reaction, and to David and Lloyd and me. Here's the announcement about our part of the prize, which mentions the funding we received from the NSF and the ONR.
 |
AWARDEES: Alvin Roth, David Gale, Lloyd Shapley
FEDERAL FUNDING AGENCY: Office of Naval Research, National Science Foundation
|
I think the part of our work that is mentioned and that best fits the storyline of "obscure research makes good" is the line that begins with the 1974 paper by Shapley and Scarf in the first issue of the Journal of Mathematical Economics. They proposed a model of exchange of an indivisible good, without the use of money, and called the goods "houses." Since we are obviously able to use money to buy houses (I just bought one and can testify that it cost money), this was funny-sounding research that might have attracted the ire of Senator Proxmire. But playing with toy models is how economic theory gets ready to deal with unanticipated problems. They introduced Gale's top trading cycle algorithm (ttc), which Andy Postlewaite used to further explore the model in a 1977 paper. In a 1982 paper I showed that ttc makes it a dominant strategy for players to reveal their true preferences. Atila Abdulkadiroglu and Sonmez later generalized the mechanism in ways that, when it came time to organize kidney exchange, made it easy to propose that it be organized in a ttc way involving cycles and chains, with the dominant strategy property being an important piece of the puzzle. Whilettc isn't how we eventually helped organize kidney exchange (we had to start with just pairwise exchanges for logistical reasons), the practice of kidney exchange has been evolving in the direction of cycles and (long) chains, in ways that Itai Ashlagi and our surgical colleagues have been working to understand and build upon. So, what started with a model of exchanging houses without money has evolved into exchanging kidneys in a way that's become a standard part of transplantation in the U.S. in the last few years.
This is an opportunity to remind Congress and the public of the importance of investigator-initiated, peer reviewed research. Go NSF! (NSF posts on kidney exchange are here and here.)
Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN)
Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA)
Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA)
Rep. Robert Dold (R-IL)
Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ)
Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY)
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Fires and the market for fire fighters
We are winning our ancient battle against fire: it turns out that fighting fires with fire fighters, and with fire-resistant construction is working, and big urban fires are becoming increasingly rare. Leon Neyfakh of the Boston Globe has the story.
Plenty of firefighters, but where are the fires? As ‘emergency’ changes its meaning, some critics are arguing it’s time to revisit a century-old system
"as a recent Globe story reported, city records show that major fires are becoming vanishingly rare. In 1975, there were 417 of them. Last year, there were 40. That’s a decline of more than 90 percent. A city that was once a tinderbox of wooden houses has become—thanks to better building codes, automatic sprinkler systems, and more careful behavior—a much less vulnerable place.
Plenty of firefighters, but where are the fires? As ‘emergency’ changes its meaning, some critics are arguing it’s time to revisit a century-old system
"as a recent Globe story reported, city records show that major fires are becoming vanishingly rare. In 1975, there were 417 of them. Last year, there were 40. That’s a decline of more than 90 percent. A city that was once a tinderbox of wooden houses has become—thanks to better building codes, automatic sprinkler systems, and more careful behavior—a much less vulnerable place.
As this has happened, however, the number of professional firefighters in Boston has dropped only slightly, from around 1,600 in the 1980s to just over 1,400 today. The cost of running the department, meanwhile, has increased by almost $43 million over the past decade, and currently stands at $185 million, or around 7.5 percent of the city’s total budget.
...
"FIRE USED TO routinely devastate America’s towns and cities. It wiped out almost all of Detroit in 1805, a vast swath of Chicago in 1871, and much of Boston’s downtown in 1872. Boston, as it happens, was the site of the first volunteer firefighting force in the New World: A group of about 20 neighbors who pledged in 1718 to protect one another’s homes as part of a so-called Mutual Fire Society. More formal volunteer organizations started cropping up after 1736, when Benjamin Franklin founded the Union Fire Company in Philadelphia. Before long, many American cities were home to multiple volunteer fire crews, which competed to be first on the scene to collect bonuses from local governments and insurance companies. According to historians, these bonuses ultimately proved to be the undoing of the volunteer firefighter movement. By the mid-19th century, street brawling between rival companies became so common that cities started shutting them down and replacing them with professional, municipally operated fire departments."
...
"FIRE USED TO routinely devastate America’s towns and cities. It wiped out almost all of Detroit in 1805, a vast swath of Chicago in 1871, and much of Boston’s downtown in 1872. Boston, as it happens, was the site of the first volunteer firefighting force in the New World: A group of about 20 neighbors who pledged in 1718 to protect one another’s homes as part of a so-called Mutual Fire Society. More formal volunteer organizations started cropping up after 1736, when Benjamin Franklin founded the Union Fire Company in Philadelphia. Before long, many American cities were home to multiple volunteer fire crews, which competed to be first on the scene to collect bonuses from local governments and insurance companies. According to historians, these bonuses ultimately proved to be the undoing of the volunteer firefighter movement. By the mid-19th century, street brawling between rival companies became so common that cities started shutting them down and replacing them with professional, municipally operated fire departments."
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Gibson Lecture at Queen's University in Kingston Ontario
I'll be speaking today at Queen's University in Kingston
What have we learned from market design?
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
4:30 PM
4:30 PM
Grant Hall, Queen's University
43 University Avenue, Kingston, ON
43 University Avenue, Kingston, ON
**Light refreshments to follow: Room 145 Robert Sutherland Hall, 138 Union Street
ALL ARE WELCOME
2012 Nobel Laureate
Alvin Roth
Alvin Roth is the Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University. Roth has made important contributions in many fields of economics, including axiomatic bargaining theory and experimental economics, but his contributions in matching and market design have been especially highly regarded, as exemplified by the Nobel Prize in 2012, which was awarded to him together with Lloyd Shapley. Prof. Roth has been involved in the design of the National Resident Matching Program for U.S. doctors, school choice systems in New York City and Boston, the New England Program for Kidney Exchange and the Market for Gastroenterology Fellows. He is a Sloan fellow, a Guggenheim fellow, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Econometric Society and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Abstract:
The talk will address recent developments in market design, focusing particularly on kidney exchange, which has begun to flourish in Canada as well as the United States. It will also cover some general lessons that market design teaches us about markets and marketplaces. Finally, the talk will address how some transactions (like selling organs for transplantation) are regarded as repugnant, despite the fact that there are people willing to engage in them.
Monday, September 16, 2013
The market for medical schools...
...is the subject of this Bloomberg news story by Janet Lorin, that focuses on for-profit Caribbean medical schools: DeVry Lures Medical School Rejects as Taxpayers Fund Debt
On the one hand, those schools offer a path towards a medical career to students who are not admitted to American schools. On the other hand, that path can be risky and debt-ridden, and changes the model by which students get clinical experience to one in which for-profit schools pay hospitals to take their students on 'clerkship' rotations.
The article focuses this and federal loan guarantees.
"DeVry’s pay-for-play model has drawn the ire of the American Medical Association. In June, the state of Texas passed a law prohibiting foreign medical schools from sending students to the state.
Congress needs to examine the law that makes foreign for-profit medical schools eligible for federal loans, says Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from DeVry’s home state of Illinois.
“These schools are taking advantage of an offshore loophole that allows federal funding to be released to students attending a medical school that is not accredited in the U.S.,” Durbin says. “Until Congress acts, these schools will stop at nothing to keep the American taxpayer dollars flowing.”
Students at the four schools -- the two DeVry schools, along with St. George’s University School of Medicine and, since July, Saba University School of Medicine -- are also eligible for tuition benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs."
***********
In a recent post I noted that U.S. medical school enrollment is increasing faster than residency positions. This will squeeze the offshore schools, as the number of graduates of American schools more nearly fills the available residencies.
On the one hand, those schools offer a path towards a medical career to students who are not admitted to American schools. On the other hand, that path can be risky and debt-ridden, and changes the model by which students get clinical experience to one in which for-profit schools pay hospitals to take their students on 'clerkship' rotations.
The article focuses this and federal loan guarantees.
"DeVry’s pay-for-play model has drawn the ire of the American Medical Association. In June, the state of Texas passed a law prohibiting foreign medical schools from sending students to the state.
Congress needs to examine the law that makes foreign for-profit medical schools eligible for federal loans, says Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from DeVry’s home state of Illinois.
“These schools are taking advantage of an offshore loophole that allows federal funding to be released to students attending a medical school that is not accredited in the U.S.,” Durbin says. “Until Congress acts, these schools will stop at nothing to keep the American taxpayer dollars flowing.”
Students at the four schools -- the two DeVry schools, along with St. George’s University School of Medicine and, since July, Saba University School of Medicine -- are also eligible for tuition benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs."
***********
In a recent post I noted that U.S. medical school enrollment is increasing faster than residency positions. This will squeeze the offshore schools, as the number of graduates of American schools more nearly fills the available residencies.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Payday loans (and other high interest lending) as repugnant transactions
In poor communities there is a profitable business of making very high interest rate loans to employed but "unbanked" workers. High interest rates (between lenders and apparently willing borrowers) have been repugnant transactions for a long time, and payday loans are no exception: here's a story from Pro Publica on the controversy in Missouri. The Payday Playbook: How High Cost Lenders Fight to Stay Legal
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Kidney allocation changes expected by end of 2014
Kidney Allocation Changes Approved
The board approved substantial amendments to OPTN policy for deceased donor kidney allocation. Implementation of the policy is expected to occur at the end of 2014.
Features of the policy include the following:
- prioritization of kidneys with longest estimated function to a limited number of candidates expected to benefit the longest
- wider geographic allocation of kidneys with shorter potential function, to increase utilization for candidates facing a significant mortality risk remaining on dialysis long-term
- definition of waiting time expanded to include time a patient spent on dialysis prior to waiting list registration
- a sliding scale of priority for candidates with high PRA, as well as matching of blood subtype A2 and A2B offers for candidates with blood type B, and
- elimination of the kidney payback system and existing kidney allocation variances.
**************
Some background on the origins of this policy change are in this Oct 2012 post.
Friday, September 13, 2013
The econometrics of many-to-one matching: Nikhil Agarwal and William Diamond
It turns out that you can get a lot more information about preferences from many to one (or many to many) matching than from one to one matching, because e.g. something about your employer's preferences (and why they wanted to hire you) can be deduced from who else they hired.
IDENTIFICATION AND ESTIMATION IN TWO-SIDED MATCHING MARKETS
By Nikhil Agarwal and William Diamond
Abstract: We study estimation and non-parametric identification of preferences in two-sided matching markets using data from a single market with many agents. We consider a model in which preferences of each side of the market is homogeneous, utility is nontransferable utility and the observed matches are pairwise stable. We show that preferences are not identified with data on one-to-one matches but are non-parametrically identified when data from many-to-one matches are observed. This difference in the identifiability of the model is illustrated by comparing two simulated objective functions, one that does and the other that does not use information available in many-to-one matching. We also prove consistency of a method of moments estimator for a parametric model under a data generating process in which the size of the matching market increases, but data only on one market is observed. Since matches in a single market are interdependent, our proof of consistency cannot rely on observations of independent matches. Finally, we present Monte Carlo studies of a simulation based estimator.
Here's my post on Nikhil's defense.
IDENTIFICATION AND ESTIMATION IN TWO-SIDED MATCHING MARKETS
By Nikhil Agarwal and William Diamond
Abstract: We study estimation and non-parametric identification of preferences in two-sided matching markets using data from a single market with many agents. We consider a model in which preferences of each side of the market is homogeneous, utility is nontransferable utility and the observed matches are pairwise stable. We show that preferences are not identified with data on one-to-one matches but are non-parametrically identified when data from many-to-one matches are observed. This difference in the identifiability of the model is illustrated by comparing two simulated objective functions, one that does and the other that does not use information available in many-to-one matching. We also prove consistency of a method of moments estimator for a parametric model under a data generating process in which the size of the matching market increases, but data only on one market is observed. Since matches in a single market are interdependent, our proof of consistency cannot rely on observations of independent matches. Finally, we present Monte Carlo studies of a simulation based estimator.
Here's my post on Nikhil's defense.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Advice to those seeking a kidney donor
I occasionally get emails from kidney patients seeking advice about transplantation. Often they are seeking a donor. I don't have much help to offer when I correspond with them, but perhaps the generic form of my response will be useful to others. I'm assuming in what follows that the advice is for a kidney patient who is already registered on the deceased donor waiting list and with an American hospital that does a lot of kidney transplants.
Sometimes people write to me with questions related to kidney exchange, on aspects of which I've written many blog posts. For someone who is looking for a living donor, kidney exchange means that the donor you find needn't be compatible with you, he or she simply needs to be healthy enough to donate a kidney, and willing to donate one so that you get one. One of the several kidney exchange networks can take it from there; it is probably best to work with the one that your transplant center has the easiest working relations with, although you can find the links to the ones I work with the most as you sort through my posts.
When I write to someone who already has a donor I write more than this about kidney exchange, but if you don't have a donor, you need to think about how to get one.
If you are not already registered on the deceased donor waiting list, talk to your docs about getting on the list, since time on the list plays an important role for kidneys. But the waiting lists are organized by region, and the wait is much longer in some regions of the country than in others. (That's why Steve Jobs, who lived in California, got a liver transplant in Tennessee.)
A new organization that helps people register on the waiting lists of regions where the wait is shorter (even if that isn't where the patient lives) is OrganJet (which I've blogged about here). They are mostly involved in helping arrange transportation (since you have to be able to travel for checkups etc. at the distant hospital at which you are registered in addition to your local hospital). But their website has an app that identifies transplant centers with shorter waiting times, and that might be a good way to start, since this is a case in which there may be a conflict of interest between you and your local transplant center.
But a living donor is likely better as well as quicker, if you can find one. Here's a link suggesting how to organize a campaign for a living donor:
Living Kidney Donor Network founded by Harvey Mysel.
There are various kinds of kidney matchmaking sites, like matchingdonors.com, and more specialized sites like http://www.kidneymitzvah.com/ and Renewal.
My impression is that quite a few donors come from faith based organizations, so if you are a member of some kind of congregation, you might let them know of your search for a donor.
*************************
There are other options that I don't recommend, but here's a post with a link to an article by the Harvard Law professor Glenn Cohen that seeks to shed some light on overseas markets for kidneys, some less black than others.
(There's a legal market for kidneys in Iran, but I believe you have to be an Iranian citizen to participate in it.)
Sometimes people write to me with questions related to kidney exchange, on aspects of which I've written many blog posts. For someone who is looking for a living donor, kidney exchange means that the donor you find needn't be compatible with you, he or she simply needs to be healthy enough to donate a kidney, and willing to donate one so that you get one. One of the several kidney exchange networks can take it from there; it is probably best to work with the one that your transplant center has the easiest working relations with, although you can find the links to the ones I work with the most as you sort through my posts.
When I write to someone who already has a donor I write more than this about kidney exchange, but if you don't have a donor, you need to think about how to get one.
If you are not already registered on the deceased donor waiting list, talk to your docs about getting on the list, since time on the list plays an important role for kidneys. But the waiting lists are organized by region, and the wait is much longer in some regions of the country than in others. (That's why Steve Jobs, who lived in California, got a liver transplant in Tennessee.)
A new organization that helps people register on the waiting lists of regions where the wait is shorter (even if that isn't where the patient lives) is OrganJet (which I've blogged about here). They are mostly involved in helping arrange transportation (since you have to be able to travel for checkups etc. at the distant hospital at which you are registered in addition to your local hospital). But their website has an app that identifies transplant centers with shorter waiting times, and that might be a good way to start, since this is a case in which there may be a conflict of interest between you and your local transplant center.
But a living donor is likely better as well as quicker, if you can find one. Here's a link suggesting how to organize a campaign for a living donor:
Living Kidney Donor Network founded by Harvey Mysel.
There are various kinds of kidney matchmaking sites, like matchingdonors.com, and more specialized sites like http://www.kidneymitzvah.com/ and Renewal.
My impression is that quite a few donors come from faith based organizations, so if you are a member of some kind of congregation, you might let them know of your search for a donor.
*************************
There are other options that I don't recommend, but here's a post with a link to an article by the Harvard Law professor Glenn Cohen that seeks to shed some light on overseas markets for kidneys, some less black than others.
Glenn Cohen on Transplant Tourism: purchasing organ transplants internationally
(There's a legal market for kidneys in Iran, but I believe you have to be an Iranian citizen to participate in it.)
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Is market design like synthetic biology?
Synthetic biology is concerned with the creation of new kinds of cells and organisms, and an interesting blog post by the economic sociologist/sociologist of science Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra at LSE riffs on some possible connections between synthetic biology and market design: Will the Real Engineers Please Stand Up
He concludes:
"Talking with the language of design provides, as Martha Poon rightly pointed out, a more productive approach to the study of markets. But it also makes possible imagining a bolder version of market design than that currently advocated within economics. While the markets created by Roth and Milgrom are truly feats, much more can be done. Indeed, market design need not be a type of ‘consultancy economics’. Rather, it can follow an alternative metaphor that is pragmatic, perhaps even civic, an image of the future closer to that of the (biological) engineers who today work away in their labs redesigning the fundamental building blocks of nature."
**************
Pardo-Guerra is working in the emerging sociological/science-studies tradition of "performativity". Here's his paper Making markets: infrastructures, engineers and the moral technologies of finance which tracks the development of electronic financial exchanges through the electronic order book:
"How do markets change? Conventional sociological accounts answer this question by stressing the weight of social structures on the transactional core of the marketplace. This paper provides an alternative approach. Market change is identified as an infrastructural transformation in which novel market devices and classifications are defined as the legitimate platforms for exchange. Rather than focusing on the traditional subjects of sociological enquiry, this study looks at the developers of market infrastructures in order to appraise the evolution and reinvention of markets. Empirically, the paper focuses on four historical episodes relating to the invention and dissemination of the electronic order book, a device that is central to global financial capitalism. These show how infrastructural work was implicated in creating the politics and structures of modern finance by criticising established institutions, mounting competitive challenges against incumbent institutions, establishing expansive projects of marketization and integrating otherwise disconnected marketplaces."
***********
He also has coauthored an interesting looking paper on high frequency trading (that I haven't yet read, only the abstract is on his site): Drilling Through the Allegheny Mountains: Liquidity, Materiality and High Frequency Trading
(it will be interesting to compare the work of economic sociologists with that of market designers on this topic, see e.g. this recent post Budish, Cramton and Shim on The High-Frequency Trading Arms Race)
*************
He and his colleagues seem to be bringing some thought about market design into the discussion of the sociology of markets.
***********
He also has coauthored an interesting looking paper on high frequency trading (that I haven't yet read, only the abstract is on his site): Drilling Through the Allegheny Mountains: Liquidity, Materiality and High Frequency Trading
(it will be interesting to compare the work of economic sociologists with that of market designers on this topic, see e.g. this recent post Budish, Cramton and Shim on The High-Frequency Trading Arms Race)
*************
He and his colleagues seem to be bringing some thought about market design into the discussion of the sociology of markets.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Citation collaboration
"Impact factors" have become important to journals, and efforts to manipulate them come to light from time to time. Here's a Brazilian story from the journal Nature: Brazilian citation scheme outed
Thomson Reuters suspends journals from its rankings for ‘citation stacking’.
"Mauricio Rocha-e-Silva thought that he had spotted an easy way to raise the profiles of Brazilian journals. From 2009, he and several other editors published articles containing hundreds of references to papers in each others’ journals — in order, he says, to elevate the journals’ impact factors.
"Because each article avoided citing papers published by its own journal, the agreement flew under the radar of analyses that spot extremes in self-citation — until 19 June, when the pattern was discovered. Thomson Reuters, the firm that calculates and publishes the impact factor, revealed that it had designed a program to spot concentrated bursts of citations from one journal to another, a practice that it has dubbed ‘citation stacking’. Four Brazilian journals were among 14 to have their impact factors suspended for a year for such stacking. And in July, Rocha-e-Silva was fired from his position as editor of one of them, the journal Clinics, based in São Paulo."
Thomson Reuters suspends journals from its rankings for ‘citation stacking’.
"Mauricio Rocha-e-Silva thought that he had spotted an easy way to raise the profiles of Brazilian journals. From 2009, he and several other editors published articles containing hundreds of references to papers in each others’ journals — in order, he says, to elevate the journals’ impact factors.
"Because each article avoided citing papers published by its own journal, the agreement flew under the radar of analyses that spot extremes in self-citation — until 19 June, when the pattern was discovered. Thomson Reuters, the firm that calculates and publishes the impact factor, revealed that it had designed a program to spot concentrated bursts of citations from one journal to another, a practice that it has dubbed ‘citation stacking’. Four Brazilian journals were among 14 to have their impact factors suspended for a year for such stacking. And in July, Rocha-e-Silva was fired from his position as editor of one of them, the journal Clinics, based in São Paulo."
Monday, September 9, 2013
Are behavioral results more likely to be exaggerated than biological results?
That's the claim (reported in the blog Retraction Watch) of
"And Fanelli was also quick to point out that this kind of exaggeration doesn’t seem to be exclusive to the U.S.
"a new paper in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests that it’s behavioral science researchers in the U.S. who are more likely to exaggerate or cherry-pick their findings.
For the new paper, Daniele Fanelli — whose 2009 paper in PLoS ONE contains some of the best data on the prevalence of misconduct — teamed up with John Ioannidis, well known for his work on “why most published research findings are false.” They looked at
1,174 primary outcomes appearing in 82 metaanalyses published in health-related biological and behavioral research sampled from the Web of Science categories Genetics & Heredity and Psychiatry and measured how individual results deviated from the overall summary effect size within their respective meta-analysis.
And while studies
whose outcome included behavioral parameters were generally more likely to report extreme effects, and those with a corresponding author based in the US were more likely to deviate in the direction predicted by their experimental hypotheses, particularly when their outcome did not include additional biological parameters.
But they didn’t find the same to be true for non-behavioral studies.
Although this latter finding could be interpreted as a publication bias against non-US authors, the US effect observed in behavioral research is unlikely to be generated by editorial biases. Behavioral studies have lower methodological consensus and higher noise, making US researchers potentially more likely to express an underlying propensity to report strong and significant findings.
So where might this predisposition come from, ask the authors?
...A complete explanation would probably invoke a combination of cultural, economic, psychological, and historical factors, which at this stage are largely speculative. Our preferred hypothesis is derived from the fact that researchers in the United States have been exposed for a longer time than those in other countries to an unfortunate combination of pressures to publish and winner-takes-all system of rewards (20, 22). This condition is believed to push researchers into either producing many results and then only publishing the most impressive ones, or to make the best of what they got by making them seem as important as possible, through post hoc analyses, rehypothesizing, and other more or less questionable practices (e.g., 10, 13, 22, 26). Such a pattern of modulating forces may gradually become more prevalent also in other countries currently and in the near future (18, 20, 21)."
"And Fanelli was also quick to point out that this kind of exaggeration doesn’t seem to be exclusive to the U.S.
The US are an ideal subject because they are relatively homogeneous and yet very big and scientifically productive, so it was easy for us to compare the US to the rest of the world. And of course the US-effect was especially interesting, since it helped us exclude classic explanations, such as editorial biases and simple file-drawer effects. But we suspect that with higher statistical power we would observe specific biases in other countries, in Europe and elsewhere, possibly limited to specific fields and periods in time.
Before opening the floor to what we hope will be a robust discussion, we’ll close with lovely description of science that opens the paper:
Science is a struggle for truth against methodological, psychological, and sociological obstacles."
Sunday, September 8, 2013
German kidney transplant surgeon on trial
Prosecutors in Germany have accused a transplant surgeon of attempted murder, for allegedly manipulating the waiting list to obtain organs for his patients, and thus victimizing those who should have been ahead of them in line to receive the organs in question
Google translate renders the headline as "He killed without being a murderer"
"The surgeon Ayman O. is on trial. He is said to have manipulated information to patients to transplant organs to them. The prosecution sees this as attempted murder, he had taken the death of the other into account. The process in Göttingen will make the system of organ allocation to the test."
HT: Rosemarie Nagel
Google translate renders the headline as "He killed without being a murderer"
"The surgeon Ayman O. is on trial. He is said to have manipulated information to patients to transplant organs to them. The prosecution sees this as attempted murder, he had taken the death of the other into account. The process in Göttingen will make the system of organ allocation to the test."
HT: Rosemarie Nagel
Saturday, September 7, 2013
In Taiwan, most registered organ donors are women
Women far more willing to donate organs, numbers show
"Taipei, Aug. 25 (CNA) Of the 620,000 people on Taiwan's organ donation list, 65 percent are women, which one expert says proves woman have bigger hearts than men.
"Wu Ying-lai, secretary general of the Republic of China Organ Procurement Association, made the remarks as her association released a report on trends in local organ donation to mark its 20th anniversary on Sunday.
"The trend is more pronounced in the largest demographic of organ donors, those aged 21-50, which features 2.2 times more women than men, Wu said, based on an analysis of the 223,250 people who have signed up for the national organ donation program in the past 10 years.
"Looking at the data more closely, the largest groups of donors are women aged 31-40, followed by women aged 41-50, women aged 21-30, men aged 31-40, and men aged 41-50, she noted."
"Taipei, Aug. 25 (CNA) Of the 620,000 people on Taiwan's organ donation list, 65 percent are women, which one expert says proves woman have bigger hearts than men.
"Wu Ying-lai, secretary general of the Republic of China Organ Procurement Association, made the remarks as her association released a report on trends in local organ donation to mark its 20th anniversary on Sunday.
"The trend is more pronounced in the largest demographic of organ donors, those aged 21-50, which features 2.2 times more women than men, Wu said, based on an analysis of the 223,250 people who have signed up for the national organ donation program in the past 10 years.
"Looking at the data more closely, the largest groups of donors are women aged 31-40, followed by women aged 41-50, women aged 21-30, men aged 31-40, and men aged 41-50, she noted."
Friday, September 6, 2013
A sociologist looks at the design of electricity capacity markets
The discussion among sociologists of the "performativity" of economics is taking more sophisticated note of market design. Here's a recent paper from the journal Social Studies of Science.
Designing a market-like entity: Economics in the politics of market formation
Daniel Breslau
Department of Science and Technology in Society, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA
Abstract: Recent work on the relationship of economics to economic institutions has argued that economics is constitutive of economic institutions, and of markets in particular. In opposition to economic sociology, which has treated economics as a competing disciplinary frame or an ideology, the ‘performativity’ literature takes economics seriously as a set of market-building practices. This
article demonstrates the compatibility of these perspectives by analyzing the role of economics
in the politics of market formation. It presents a case study of the formation of a new institution:
capacity markets connected to wholesale electricity markets in the United States. The case
demonstrates how economic framing shapes the politics of markets by imposing a specific set of
terms for the legitimate conduct of the struggle over market rules.
Designing a market-like entity: Economics in the politics of market formation
Daniel Breslau
Department of Science and Technology in Society, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA
Abstract: Recent work on the relationship of economics to economic institutions has argued that economics is constitutive of economic institutions, and of markets in particular. In opposition to economic sociology, which has treated economics as a competing disciplinary frame or an ideology, the ‘performativity’ literature takes economics seriously as a set of market-building practices. This
article demonstrates the compatibility of these perspectives by analyzing the role of economics
in the politics of market formation. It presents a case study of the formation of a new institution:
capacity markets connected to wholesale electricity markets in the United States. The case
demonstrates how economic framing shapes the politics of markets by imposing a specific set of
terms for the legitimate conduct of the struggle over market rules.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Project Renewal: Kidney donation in faith-based communities
It appears that many American non-directed kidney donors (perhaps a third, judging from informal evidence from the programs with which I deal) come from faith-based communities. (I understand that policemen and firemen are also well represented among nondirected donors.) Non-directed donors are particularly important because they can initiate chains of donations among patient-donor pairs waiting for kidney exchange.
A Jewish organization that has contributed many non-directed donors is Renewal, founded by Mendy Reiner.
Here's an article about Renewal, by Rabbi Boruch Wolf, which focuses on the big effect of these living donors from the religious Jewish community, and contrasts it with the reluctance of members of that community to sign deceased-donor registration cards, because of concerns among other things about what is involved in deciding that someone is deceased.
Do Chareidim Contribute Their ‘Fair Share’ of Organs?
A Jewish organization that has contributed many non-directed donors is Renewal, founded by Mendy Reiner.
Here's an article about Renewal, by Rabbi Boruch Wolf, which focuses on the big effect of these living donors from the religious Jewish community, and contrasts it with the reluctance of members of that community to sign deceased-donor registration cards, because of concerns among other things about what is involved in deciding that someone is deceased.
Do Chareidim Contribute Their ‘Fair Share’ of Organs?
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Kidney transplantation in Nepal
From (the blog) The Kidney Doctor, comes these remarks and links on kidney transplantation in Nepal. They surely apply to other countries as well, since many countries have laws against living donor transplants from unrelated donors.
The first kidney transplant program in Nepal was launched in 2009 by Dr. Dibya Singh Shah at Tribhuban University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) with the help of an Australian transplant surgeon. Over 200 transplants have been performed, but these are exclusively living related. Launching and maintaining a quality kidney transplantation has been a heroic effort on the part of Dr. Dibya Singh. Many in her place would probably not pulled off what she has done.
However, more needs to be done. No living unrelated transplants are allowed under Nepalese law and there is no deceased donor program.
The government of Nepal needs to change it's policy on unrelated donor transplantation. By not allowing this to happen, a sizable number of patients are denied the opportunity of receiving a transplant and a new lease on life. It is a pity that the price of avoiding a small number of bad actors doing commercially motivated transplantation in Nepal means patients who have an unrelated donor being unable to undergo transplantation. It doesn't seem either feasible or sensible to limit a whole country to an approach that is essentially driven by fear.
The first kidney transplant program in Nepal was launched in 2009 by Dr. Dibya Singh Shah at Tribhuban University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) with the help of an Australian transplant surgeon. Over 200 transplants have been performed, but these are exclusively living related. Launching and maintaining a quality kidney transplantation has been a heroic effort on the part of Dr. Dibya Singh. Many in her place would probably not pulled off what she has done.
However, more needs to be done. No living unrelated transplants are allowed under Nepalese law and there is no deceased donor program.
The government of Nepal needs to change it's policy on unrelated donor transplantation. By not allowing this to happen, a sizable number of patients are denied the opportunity of receiving a transplant and a new lease on life. It is a pity that the price of avoiding a small number of bad actors doing commercially motivated transplantation in Nepal means patients who have an unrelated donor being unable to undergo transplantation. It doesn't seem either feasible or sensible to limit a whole country to an approach that is essentially driven by fear.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Ashlagi and Shi on community cohesion in school choice
Itai Ashlagi and Peng Shi have a paper motivated by some of the recent discussions of school choice in Boston:
Improving Community Cohesion in School Choice via Correlated-Lottery Implementation
Itai Ashlagi and Peng Shi
Draft Date: August 6, 2013
Abstract:
In school choice, children submit a preference ranking over schools to a centralized assignment algorithm, which takes into account schools’ priorities over children and uses randomization to break ties. One criticism of current school choice mechanisms is that they tend to disperse communities so children do not go to school with others from their neighborhood.
We suggest to improve community cohesion by implementing a correlated lottery in a given school choice mechanism: we find a convex combination of deterministic assignments that maintains the original assignment probabilities, thus maintaining choice, but yields increased cohesion.
To analyze the gain in cohesion for a wide class of mechanisms, we first prove the following characterization which maybe of independent interest: any mechanism which, in the large market limit, is non-atomic, Bayesian incentive compatible, symmetric and efficient within each priority class, is a “lottery-plus-cutoff” mechanism. This means that the large market limit can be described as follows: given the distribution of preferences, every student receives an identically distributed lottery number, every school sets a lottery cutoff for each priority class, and a student is assigned her most preferred school for which she meets the cutoff. This generalizes Liu and Pycia (2012) to allow arbitrary priorities. Using this, we derive analytic expressions for maximum cohesion under a large market approximation. We show that the benefit of lottery-correlation is greater when students’ preferences are more correlated.
In practice, although the correlated-lottery implementation problem is NP-hard, we present a heuristic that does well. We apply this to real data from Boston elementary school choice 2012 and find that we can increase cohesion by 79% for K1 and 37% for K2 new families. Greater cohesion gain is possible (tripling cohesion for K1 and doubling for K2) if we apply lottery-correlation on top of reducing the choice menu (to what was eventually adopted by Boston after the 2012-2013 school choice reform). This has minimal impact on racial or socio-economic diversity.
Improving Community Cohesion in School Choice via Correlated-Lottery Implementation
Itai Ashlagi and Peng Shi
Draft Date: August 6, 2013
Abstract:
In school choice, children submit a preference ranking over schools to a centralized assignment algorithm, which takes into account schools’ priorities over children and uses randomization to break ties. One criticism of current school choice mechanisms is that they tend to disperse communities so children do not go to school with others from their neighborhood.
We suggest to improve community cohesion by implementing a correlated lottery in a given school choice mechanism: we find a convex combination of deterministic assignments that maintains the original assignment probabilities, thus maintaining choice, but yields increased cohesion.
To analyze the gain in cohesion for a wide class of mechanisms, we first prove the following characterization which maybe of independent interest: any mechanism which, in the large market limit, is non-atomic, Bayesian incentive compatible, symmetric and efficient within each priority class, is a “lottery-plus-cutoff” mechanism. This means that the large market limit can be described as follows: given the distribution of preferences, every student receives an identically distributed lottery number, every school sets a lottery cutoff for each priority class, and a student is assigned her most preferred school for which she meets the cutoff. This generalizes Liu and Pycia (2012) to allow arbitrary priorities. Using this, we derive analytic expressions for maximum cohesion under a large market approximation. We show that the benefit of lottery-correlation is greater when students’ preferences are more correlated.
In practice, although the correlated-lottery implementation problem is NP-hard, we present a heuristic that does well. We apply this to real data from Boston elementary school choice 2012 and find that we can increase cohesion by 79% for K1 and 37% for K2 new families. Greater cohesion gain is possible (tripling cohesion for K1 and doubling for K2) if we apply lottery-correlation on top of reducing the choice menu (to what was eventually adopted by Boston after the 2012-2013 school choice reform). This has minimal impact on racial or socio-economic diversity.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Sex trafficking from Nepal to India
This story from the NY Times reports on sex trafficking in which at least some women are kidnapped and involuntarily sold to brothels: Women, Bought and Sold in Nepal.
"Although reliable data on the scope of the issue is difficult to gather, Unicef reports that as many as 7,000 women and girls are trafficked out of Nepal to India every year, and around 200,000 are now working in Indian brothels."
***********
Market designers spend a lot of our time trying to make failed markets succeed, but this kind of thing is a reminder that many markets succeed so well that even making them illegal isn't sufficient to make them fail. I don't know enough about this particular market, but in general we might spend some time thinking on how to make illegal markets fail...
"Although reliable data on the scope of the issue is difficult to gather, Unicef reports that as many as 7,000 women and girls are trafficked out of Nepal to India every year, and around 200,000 are now working in Indian brothels."
***********
Market designers spend a lot of our time trying to make failed markets succeed, but this kind of thing is a reminder that many markets succeed so well that even making them illegal isn't sufficient to make them fail. I don't know enough about this particular market, but in general we might spend some time thinking on how to make illegal markets fail...
Sunday, September 1, 2013
NBER Market Design conference at Stanford, Oct 25 (and 26)
Below is the announcement, from Susan Athey and Parag Pathak. Although the conference is at Stanford, I won't be able to attend because it conflicts with the ESA meetings at which I was already scheduled to speak. But come if you can, Stanford is lovely in the Fall.
From: Susan Athey and Parag
Pathak
To: NBER Market Design Working Group
The National Bureau of Economic Research workshop on
Market Design is a forum to discuss new academic research related to the design
of market institutions, broadly defined. The next meeting will be held in
Stanford, California on Friday, October 25, 2013.
We welcome new and interesting research, and are happy to
see papers from a variety of fields. Participants in the past meeting covered a
range of topics and methodological approaches.
Last year's program can be viewed at: http://conference.nber.org/confer/2012/MDf12/program.html
The conference does not publish proceedings or issue NBER
working papers - most of the presented papers are presumed to be published
later in journals.
There is no requirement to be an NBER-affiliated
researcher to participate. Younger
researchers are especially encouraged to submit papers. If you are interested in presenting a paper
this year, please upload a PDF version by September 2, 2013 to this link:
Preference will be given to papers for which at least a
preliminary draft is ready by the time of submission. Only authors of accepted
papers will be contacted.
For presenters and discussants in North America, the NBER
will cover the travel and hotel costs. For speakers from outside North America,
while the NBER will not be able to cover the airfare, it can provide support
for hotel accommodation.
There are a limited number of spaces available for
graduate students to attend the conference, though we cannot cover their costs.
Please email ppathak@mit.edu a short
nominating paragraph.
Please forward this announcement to any potentially
interested scholars. We look forward to
hearing from you.
******************
Updated: it will be a two day conference, Oct 25-26 (so it exactly overlaps with the ESA meetings:(
Here is the program
Updated: it will be a two day conference, Oct 25-26 (so it exactly overlaps with the ESA meetings:(
Here is the program
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Double blind reviewing
"Double blind reviewing" is the practice in some academic journals of not only concealing the reviewers' identities from the authors, but of also concealing the authors' identities from the reviewers. The idea is that papers should be evaluated "on their own merits," without information about the authors. The controversies that arise have to do with whether there is valuable information in knowing who the authors are. For a number of years the American Economic Review tried to have double blind reviewing (that was somewhat undermined by the growing ease of finding papers on the internet), but they abandoned this practice a few years ago.
I was reminded of this by the story of J.K. Rowling's (of Harry Potter fame) venture into publishing a story under a pseudonym, later revealed...
‘Cuckoo’s Calling’ Reveals Long Odds for New Authors
"“The Cuckoo’s Calling” became the publishing sensation of the summer when word leaked that its first-time author, Robert Galbraith, was none other than J. K. Rowling, the mega-best-selling creator of Harry Potter.
"Mystery solved? Maybe not. It’s no surprise that “The Cuckoo’s Calling,” a detective story set in a London populated by supermodels and rock stars, shot to the top of best-seller lists once the identity of the author was revealed. But if the book is as good as critics are now saying it is, why didn’t it sell more copies before, especially since the rise of online publishing has supposedly made it easier than ever for first-time authors?"
I was reminded of this by the story of J.K. Rowling's (of Harry Potter fame) venture into publishing a story under a pseudonym, later revealed...
‘Cuckoo’s Calling’ Reveals Long Odds for New Authors
"“The Cuckoo’s Calling” became the publishing sensation of the summer when word leaked that its first-time author, Robert Galbraith, was none other than J. K. Rowling, the mega-best-selling creator of Harry Potter.
"Mystery solved? Maybe not. It’s no surprise that “The Cuckoo’s Calling,” a detective story set in a London populated by supermodels and rock stars, shot to the top of best-seller lists once the identity of the author was revealed. But if the book is as good as critics are now saying it is, why didn’t it sell more copies before, especially since the rise of online publishing has supposedly made it easier than ever for first-time authors?"
Friday, August 30, 2013
Fading repugnance watch: Marijuana and same sex marriage
Two stories in yesterday's NY Times were about repugnant transactions that are in the process of becoming less repugnant:
U.S. Says It Won’t Sue to Undo State Marijuana Laws
"The Obama administration on Thursday said it would not sue to undo laws legalizing marijuana in 20 states, although it will monitor operations in those states to make sure they do not run afoul of several enforcement priorities."
I.R.S. to Recognize All Gay Marriages, Regardless of State
"All legally married same-sex couples will be recognized for federal tax purposes, regardless of whether the state where they live recognizes the marriage, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday."
U.S. Says It Won’t Sue to Undo State Marijuana Laws
"The Obama administration on Thursday said it would not sue to undo laws legalizing marijuana in 20 states, although it will monitor operations in those states to make sure they do not run afoul of several enforcement priorities."
I.R.S. to Recognize All Gay Marriages, Regardless of State
"All legally married same-sex couples will be recognized for federal tax purposes, regardless of whether the state where they live recognizes the marriage, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday."
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Wagaroo update: designing a mechanism to identify responsible sources for pet dogs
In
February, Christine Exley, a graduate student in economics at Stanford,
introduced us to Wagaroo, a new market
for pets, here. Since then, she has developed an interesting new mechanism to screen out puppy mills from her Owner Rehoming Program. Her
Owner Rehoming Program is also serving as a substitute for animal shelters for
some dogs. As Wagaroo expands she and her colleagues hope this will
help drive down the animal shelter population. (You can hear her in the last link below, a video...)
She writes:
"Wagaroo
makes it easy for people to find dogs from ethical sources. We only post dogs from the shelters, rescues,
responsible breeders, and families needing to rehome their dogs. Dogs are adopted from the last group via our
Owner Rehoming Program, which involves owners who need to find new loving homes
for their dogs due to a variety of reasons, such as a death in the
family, financial challenges, or having to move. By using our Owner Rehoming Program, these
owners keep their dogs until they find a new family for their dog – that is,
they keep their dogs out of animal shelters.
"When
we were developing our Owner Rehoming Program, we wanted to develop a system
that keeps out puppy mills, places that cruelly mass-produce puppies in horrid
conditions. To do so, we thought of a
mechanism that aligns incentives. To
illustrate, lets assume Alice wants to adopt a dog from Bob through our Owner
Rehoming Program. To finalize the
adoption, Wagaroo asks Alice to pay a $100 adoption fee to Wagaroo, 50% of
which is donated to a local animal shelter.
"How
does this keep out puppy mills? First,
Bob does not receive any money for his dog, so he clearly is not a puppy mill
trying to make money by selling dogs.
Since Alice does not want a dog from a puppy mill, we can rely on her to
not pay Bob. Second, Bob wants to avoid
problems that can arise when giving away dogs for free, such as them being used
in dog fights or other cruel ways.
Because of this, we can rely on Bob making sure Alice pays the adoption
fee to Wagaroo. This
aligns incentives well, and the system is working wonderfully so far!
"If you
would like to support our cause, please join in our crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo. You may also learn
more about the economics behind Wagaroo in this video!"
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Tourism pricing at the Jaipur observatory
Here's the price list...
And well worth it, to see a sculpture garden of assorted sundials of varying sophistication:
And well worth it, to see a sculpture garden of assorted sundials of varying sophistication:
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Why it's hard to reimburse non-directed kidney donors for their travel costs
A letter to the editor of the American Journal of Transplantation:
To the Editor:
We are responding to the Melcher et al. [1] article, which recommends that the National Living Donor Assistance Center (NLDAC) pay for travel and lodging for nondirected donors (NDDs). We commend the work done by this group of stakeholders and believe the publishing of their findings is vital to improving the process of kidney paired donation. We do, however, need to clarify one point in their many important recommendations.
The article recommends “The National Living Donor Assistance Center should provide travel and lodging expenses to the NDD.” It is important to note that there are limits to the NLDAC program that were put in place by the U.S. Congress. NLDAC cannot pay for the travel and lodging expenses for all NDDs. The Organ Donation Recovery and Improvement Act (ODRIA) [2] established the legislative parameters for NLDAC. ODRIA states that individuals may not receive compensation from the grant if these expenses can reasonably be paid by a State or Federal program, an insurance company or the recipient of the organ. ODRIA requires means testing of the recipient's household income.
In practice, this means a recipient must be identified before an application can be filed with NLDAC. Because NDDs do not have a recipient identified before their evaluation trip to transplant center, NLDAC cannot reimburse those expenses. However, after a recipient is identified, a NLDAC application may then be filed. It should be noted that NLDAC received 42 applications between 2008 and 2012 for NDD, of which 32 were approved, providing NDDs with reimbursement of travel expenses through NLDAC.
If the recipient's household income is below the income threshold of 300% of the HHS Poverty Guidelines, NLDAC is allowed to reimburse those donor's expenses for the surgery and medical follow-up trips. If the recipient's income is above the income threshold, NLDAC may reimburse the donor's expenses if financial hardship is proven by the recipient. If the application is not approved, the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) [3] allows the recipient to reimburse the donor's expenses.
Lastly, we agree with the article's recommendation that payers should cover donor travel and lodging costs given that, by donating and traveling, the donor is enabling not only the recipient's transplant, but also those of other recipients.
This letter represents the views of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of the grant funder.
A. O. Ojo1*, R. M. Merion2, D. H. Howard3 and P. H. Warren4
1Division of Nephrology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
2Division of Transplantation, Department of Surgery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
3Department of Health Policy and Management, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
4National Living Donor Assistance Center, American Society of Transplant Surgeons, Arlington, Virginia
*Corresponding author: Akinlolu Ojo, aojo@med.umich.edu
The letter is found under the heading
Response to “Dynamic Challenges Inhibiting Optimal Adoption of Kidney Paired Donation: Findings of a Consensus Conference” by Melcher et al.
American Journal of Transplantation, Volume 13, Issue 8, page 2228, August 2013
To the Editor:
We are responding to the Melcher et al. [1] article, which recommends that the National Living Donor Assistance Center (NLDAC) pay for travel and lodging for nondirected donors (NDDs). We commend the work done by this group of stakeholders and believe the publishing of their findings is vital to improving the process of kidney paired donation. We do, however, need to clarify one point in their many important recommendations.
The article recommends “The National Living Donor Assistance Center should provide travel and lodging expenses to the NDD.” It is important to note that there are limits to the NLDAC program that were put in place by the U.S. Congress. NLDAC cannot pay for the travel and lodging expenses for all NDDs. The Organ Donation Recovery and Improvement Act (ODRIA) [2] established the legislative parameters for NLDAC. ODRIA states that individuals may not receive compensation from the grant if these expenses can reasonably be paid by a State or Federal program, an insurance company or the recipient of the organ. ODRIA requires means testing of the recipient's household income.
In practice, this means a recipient must be identified before an application can be filed with NLDAC. Because NDDs do not have a recipient identified before their evaluation trip to transplant center, NLDAC cannot reimburse those expenses. However, after a recipient is identified, a NLDAC application may then be filed. It should be noted that NLDAC received 42 applications between 2008 and 2012 for NDD, of which 32 were approved, providing NDDs with reimbursement of travel expenses through NLDAC.
If the recipient's household income is below the income threshold of 300% of the HHS Poverty Guidelines, NLDAC is allowed to reimburse those donor's expenses for the surgery and medical follow-up trips. If the recipient's income is above the income threshold, NLDAC may reimburse the donor's expenses if financial hardship is proven by the recipient. If the application is not approved, the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) [3] allows the recipient to reimburse the donor's expenses.
Lastly, we agree with the article's recommendation that payers should cover donor travel and lodging costs given that, by donating and traveling, the donor is enabling not only the recipient's transplant, but also those of other recipients.
This letter represents the views of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of the grant funder.
A. O. Ojo1*, R. M. Merion2, D. H. Howard3 and P. H. Warren4
1Division of Nephrology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
2Division of Transplantation, Department of Surgery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
3Department of Health Policy and Management, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia
4National Living Donor Assistance Center, American Society of Transplant Surgeons, Arlington, Virginia
*Corresponding author: Akinlolu Ojo, aojo@med.umich.edu
The letter is found under the heading
Response to “Dynamic Challenges Inhibiting Optimal Adoption of Kidney Paired Donation: Findings of a Consensus Conference” by Melcher et al.
American Journal of Transplantation, Volume 13, Issue 8, page 2228, August 2013
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