Women protest Saudi driving ban, in small numbers

The WSJ has the story: Women Accelerate Challenge to Saudi Driving Ban

"Three Saudi women drove cars on Saturday in an ongoing challenge of the world's last official ban on women driving, activists and female drivers in the kingdom said.

Security forces in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah pulled over one female driver there within minutes of her taking the wheel, a passenger in the woman's car said. In the eastern city of Khobar, another woman drove at length Saturday without being stopped. A third drove Saturday evening in the capital, Riyadh, and also wasn't detained, activists said.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are officially forbidden from driving."

**************
It must be difficult to get a lot of Saudi women drivers to protest the driving ban, since there can't be a lot of Saudi women drivers. Most if not all of the women protesters at this and similar demonstrations must have learned to drive outside of Saudi Arabia, i.e. in places where it is legal for them to drive.  Perhaps women who want to protest the driving ban should find another way...e.g. many more women would be able to participate in a protest that involved blocking traffic by lying down in the road, which would resemble protests that have attracted attention to causes in other countries.

Kidney exchange at University of Alabama at Birmingham

UAB Launches Paired Exchange and Incompatible Kidney Transplant Program

Dale Mortensen, 1939-2014

Dale Mortensen, Nobelist for Labor Market Work, Dies at 74

Here's the short bio from his website:

Dale T. Mortensen 

is the Board of Trustees Professor of Economics at Northwestern University, a visiting Professor of Economics at Aarhus University, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and a research fellow of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). Professor Mortensen received his B.A. in Economics from Willamette University in 1961 and his Ph.D. in Economics from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1967. Mortensen is a fellow of Econometrica Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Society of Labor Economics, and the European Economic Association.  He was awarded the IZA Labor Economics Prize in 2005 and the Society of Labor Economics Mincer Prize in 2007. In 2008 he was elected an American Economic Association Distinguished Fellow. Together with Peter Diamond and Christopher Pissarides he was awarded the 2010Sveriges Riksbank (Nobel) Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, 2010 for their contributions to the analysis of “markets with search friction.” In 2013 he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Science and the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.

 

Mortensen pioneered the theory of search and search unemployment and extended it to study labor turnover, personal relationships, and labor reallocation. His insight, that friction is equivalent to the random arrival of trading partners, has become the leading technique for analysis of labor markets and the effects of labor market policy. The development of equilibrium dynamic models designed to account for wage dispersion, the time series behaviour of job and worker flows, and the role of reallocation in the determination of aggregate growth and productivity are the principal topics of his current research. His publications include over fifty scientific articles. His books include Wage Dispersion: Why Are Similar Workers Paid Differently?, published by MIT Press in 2003, and Job Matching, Wage Dispersion, and Unemployment (jointly authored with Christopher A. Pissarides),published by Oxford University Press in 2011.

Learning and adaptation in the social sciences: NAS Sackler conference, January 10-11

Ido Erev and I will be presenting a paper  on learning and choice behavior at one of the Sackler Colloquia run by the National Academy of Sciences:

In the Light of Evolution VIII: Darwinian Thinking in the Social Sciences

Organized by Brian Skyrms, John C. Avise and Francisco J. Ayala

January 10-11, 2014 at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center in Irvine, CA.

 Overview

Darwinian thinking is now having a major impact in social science, both in the consideration of the consequences of biological and cultural evolution on traditional questions, and in the use of quasi-Darwinian adaptive dynamics in evolutionary game theory. This Darwinian point of view is having a major impact on economics, political science, sociology, anthropology, and demography.

Agenda

I.  Evolution of Social Norms

Bargaining and Fairness, Kenneth Binmore, University College London
Cooperation, Natalia Komarova, University of California, Irvine
Friendship and Natural Selection, James H. Fowler, University of California, San Diego
Reputation and Punishment, Michihiro Kandori, University of Tokyo

II. Social Dynamics

The Replicator Equation and Other Game Dynamics, Ross Cressman, Wilfrid Laurier University
Payoff-Based Learning Dynamics, Alvin Roth, Harvard University
Strategic Learning Dynamics, David K. Levine, Washington University
Cultural Evolution, Marcus W. Feldman, Stanford University

Keynote Address:  Public Goods: Competition, Cooperation, and Spite, Simon A. Levin, Princeton University

III. Special Sciences

Evolutionary Demography, Kenneth W. Wachter, University of California, Berkeley
Folklore of the Elite and Biological Evolution, Barry O’Neill, University of California, Los Angeles
Economics, Ted Bergstrom, University of California, Santa Barbara
Psychology, Dale Purves, Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School

IV. Applications

Evolutionary Implementation in Mechanism Design, Éva Tardos, Cornell University
Some Dynamics of Signaling, Brian Skyrms, University of California, Irvine
The Rate of Innovation Diffusion in Social Networks, H. Peyton Young, Oxford University
Homophily, Culture, and Coordinating Behaviors, Matthew O. Jackson, Stanford University

Black markets and black market prices

A website call Havocscope (subtitle: Global Black Market Information) compiles information from news stories and other public sources about black markets and reported transaction prices around the world, from counterfeit goods of various sorts (from pharma to tech to food), to repugnant markets from narcotics to contract killing.

Here's their take on prices in the black markets for kidneys for transplantation.

When you click on the prices they indicate, you find their source, often a newspaper story that may only contain an anecdotal report of a transaction, so I don't think they make strong claims for the accuracy of their data, but it makes for interesting reading.

Video of market design talk at USF

Not long ago I gave a talk at the University of San Francisco. My host was Professor Ludwig Chincarini, and he has posted this video of my lecture:

Celebrating experimental economics (and being celebrated for it) at the University of Amsterdam, January 8

The University of Amsterdam (UvA) is the home of one of Europe's important centers of experimental economics at Creed:

On January 8 I'll be helping celebrate CREED when I receive an honorary doctorate at UvA, along with the legal scholar James Crawford. The announcement says this about me, and my professional connection to the focus of CREED's work:
"He is also one of the pioneers of experimental economics, regarded as one of the Big Four (along with Charles Plott, Reinhard Selten and Vernon Smith) responsible for putting this field on the map in the latter half of the 20th century.
Prof. Arthur Schram, professor of Experimental Economics, has been designated honorary supervisor."

I'll also get a chance to talk to students: Room for Discussion ontvangt Nobelprijswinnaar Alvin Roth, or maybe with more English here
*************
update: here's the video, see at 1:11:41)

D47. Market Design is now officially a field of study

I returned last night from Philadelphia where the American Economic Association’s annual meeting was held. While I was there, my Pittsburgh colleague Asatoshi Maeshiro informed me that Market Design has arrived. In particular, the AEA publishes the Journal of Economic Literature, which classifies articles according to what field they are in. And the newest JEL Classification Codes include market design, under the overall heading of Market Structure and Pricing.  We’re D47.

•        D4          Market Structure and Pricing

•        D40        General

•        D41        Perfect Competition

•        D42        Monopoly

•        D43        Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection

•        D44        Auctions

•        D45        Rationing; Licensing

•        D46        Value Theory

•        D47 Market Design

•        D49        Other

When you click on microeconomics, followed by market structure, followed by market design on the JEL classification webpage, you get to this description of the new field, with example (which are clickable on the web page, but don't seem to be when I copy them...:

D470 Market Design

Guideline: Covers studies concerning the design and evolution of economic institutions, the design of mechanisms for economic transactions (such as price determination and dispute resolution), and the interplay between a market�s size and complexity and the information available to agents in such an environment.

Keywords: Markets, Microeconomic Engineering, Price Formation, Quasi-markets

Caveats: Purely theoretical studies concerning mechanism design should be classified in D82. Purely empirical studies concerning market structure should be classified in the appropriate category under L1.

Examples:

• Investment Incentives and Electricity Market Design: The British Experience
• The Economist as Engineer: Game Theory, Experimentation, and Computation as Tools for Design Economics
• Unraveling Reduces Mobility in a Labor Market: Gastroenterology with and without a Centralized Match

Market design today in Philadelphia

Two sessions I'll be attending at today's AEA meetings...


Jan 05, 2014 8:00 am, Pennsylvania Convention Center, 204-C 
American Economic Association

Frontiers of Market Design (D4)

Presiding: ALVIN ROTH (Stanford University)

The High-Frequency Trading Arms Race: Frequent Batch Auctions as a Market Design Response

ERIC BUDISH (University of Chicago)

PETER CRAMTON (University of Maryland)

JOHN SHIM (University of Chicago)

[View Abstract]

Organ Donation Loopholes Undermine Warm Glow Giving: An Experiment Motivated By Priority Loopholes in Israel

ALVIN E. ROTH (Stanford University)

JUDD KESSLER (University of Pennsylvania)

[View Abstract]

Mechanism Design in Large Games: Incentives and Privacy

MICHAEL KEARNS (University of Pennsylvania)

MALLESH PAI (University of Pennsylvania)

AARON ROTH (University of Pennsylvania)

JONATHAN ULLMAN (Harvard University)

[View Abstract]

Strategy-Proofness, Investment Efficiency, and Marginal Returns: An Equivalence

JOHN WILLIAM HATFIELD (Stanford University)

FUHITO KOJIMA (Stanford University)

SCOTT DUKE KOMINERS (University of Chicago)

[View Abstract]

Discussants:

MICHAEL OSTROVSKY (Stanford University)

JAMES ANDREONI (University of California-San Diego)

ILYA SEGAL (Stanford University)

LARRY SAMUELSON (Yale University)

Jan 05, 2014 10:15 am, Pennsylvania Convention Center, 204-A 
American Economic Association

Market Design for Auction Markets (D7)

Presiding: PAUL MILGROM (Stanford University)

The VCG Auction in Theory and in Practice

HAL VARIAN (Google)

CHRIS HARRIS (Google)

[View Abstract]

Market Design and the Evolution of the Combinatorial Clock Auction

LAWRENCE AUSUBEL (University of Maryland)

OLEG BARANOV (University of Colorado)

[View Abstract]

The Continuous Combinatorial Ascending Price Auction

CHARLES R. PLOTT (California Institute of Technology)

[View Abstract]

Deferred Acceptance Heuristic Auctions and United States Spectrum Repurposing

PAUL MILGROM (Stanford University)

ILYA SEGAL (Stanford University)

[View Abstract]

Discussants:

ALVIN E. ROTH (Stanford University)

TAYFUN SONMEZ (Boston College)

Paul Milgrom and Roger Myerson on matching and market design at lunch today

I gather that Lloyd Shapley won't be making the trip to Philadelphia, so I'll be standing in for the two of us.

Jan 04, 2014 12:30 pm, Philadelphia Marriott, Grand Ballroom - Salons G & H 
American Economic Association

Nobel Laureate Luncheon

Presiding: WILLIAM NORDHAUS (Yale University)

PAUL MILGROM (Stanford University)

ROGER MYERSON (University of Chicago)

Market design experiments today in Philadelphia

Jan 03, 2014 10:15 am, Philadelphia Marriott, Meeting Room 307 
Economic Science Association

Market Design Experiments (C9)

Presiding: JACOB GOEREE (University of Zurich)

From Boston to Chinese Parallel to Deferred Acceptance: Theory and Experiments on a Family of School Choice Mechanisms

YAN CHEN (University of Michigan)

ONUR KESTEN (Carnegie Mellon University)

[View Abstract]

Opt-In versus Mandated Choice for Deceased Organ Donation: An Experimental Study of Actual Organ Donation Decisions

ALVIN E. Roth (Stanford University)

JUDD KESSLER (University of Pennsylvania)

[View Abstract]

Ascending Prices and Package Bidding: Further Experimental Analysis

JOHN H. KAGEL (Ohio State University)

YUANCHUAN LIEN (Hong Kong University of Science & Technology)

PAUL MILGROM (Stanford University)

[View Abstract] [Download Preview]

Spectrum Auction Design: Simple Auctions for Complex Sales

MARTIN BICHLER (Technical University Munich)

JACOB K. GOEREE (University of Zurich)

STEFAN MAYER (Technical University Munich)

PASHA SHABALIN (Technical University Munich)

[View Abstract] [Download Preview]

Discussants:

SCOTT DUKE KOMINERS (University of Chicago)

ERIC GLEN WEYL (University of Chicago)

CARY DECK (University of Arkansas)

TOM WILKENING (University of Melbourne)

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

Later in the day there will be another experimental session sponsored by the ESA, and another tomorrow...:

Jan 03, 2014 2:30 pm, Philadelphia Marriott, Meeting Room 307
Economic Science Association
Experiments in Economic Development
Presiding: PAULINE GROSJEAN (University of New South Wales)

Institutional Quality, Culture, and Norms of Cooperation: Evidence from a Behavioral Field Experiment
PAULINE GROSJEAN (University of New South Wales)
ALESSANDRA CASSAR (University of San Francisco)
GIOVANNA D'ADDA (University of Birmingham)

Trust and Social Collateral: Empirical Evidence
TANYA S. ROSENBLAT (Iowa State University)
DEAN KARLAN (Yale University)
MARKUS M. MOBIUS (Iowa State University, NBER and Microsoft Research)
ADAM SZEIDL (Central European University)

Health Providers and Patients in Kenya: An Evaluation of Motivations, Interactions and Reports on Sub-Par Behaviors
DANILA SERRA (Southern Methodist University)
ISAAC MBITI (Southern Methodist University)
 ********

Jan 04, 2014 8:00 am, Philadelphia Marriott, Meeting Room 307
Economic Science Association
Identifying Time Preferences from Lab and Field Data
Presiding: CHARLES SPRENGER (Stanford University)

A Perspective on Measuring Discounting and Present Bias
JAMES ANDREONI (University of California-San Diego)

Recent Developments in the Measurement of Time Preferences
GLENN W. HARRISON (Georgia State University)

Identifying Self Control in Field Data
SENDHIL MULLANAITHAN (Harvard University)
SUPREET KAUR (Columbia University)
MICHAEL KREMER (Harvard University)

Markets for blood, milk, and sperm (new book)

Here's the announcement of a forthcoming book from Harvard University Press (by Professor Kara Swanson, whose earlier papers include The Birth of the Sperm Bank):

Banking on the Body

The Market in Blood, Milk, and Sperm in Modern America

Kara W. Swanson

Not yet available

Book Details

HARDCOVER

$35.00 • £25.95 • €31.50

ISBN 9780674281431

Publication: May 2014

Available 05/05/2014

* Academic Trade

310 pages

6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches

10 halftones

World

Related Subjects

• MEDICAL: History
• HISTORY: United States: 20th Century
• LAW: Property
• MEDICAL: Health Policy
• SOCIAL SCIENCE: Sociology: General

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• About This Book
• About the Authors
• Table of Contents

Scientific advances and economic forces have converged to create something unthinkable for much of human history: a robust market in human body products. Every year, countless Americans supply blood, sperm, and breast milk to “banks” that store these products for later use by strangers in routine medical procedures. These exchanges entail complicated questions. Which body products are donated and which sold? Who gives and who receives? And, in the end, who profits? In this eye-opening study, Kara Swanson traces the history of body banks from the nineteenth-century experiments that discovered therapeutic uses for body products to twenty-first-century websites that facilitate a thriving global exchange.

More than a metaphor, the “bank” has shaped ongoing controversies over body products as either marketable commodities or gifts donated to help others. A physician, Dr. Bernard Fantus, proposed a “bank” in 1937 to make blood available to all patients. Yet the bank metaphor labeled blood as something to be commercially bought and sold, not communally shared. As blood banks became a fixture of medicine after World War II, American doctors made them a frontline in their war against socialized medicine. The profit-making connotations of the “bank” reinforced a market-based understanding of supply and distribution, with unexpected consequences for all body products, from human eggs to kidneys.

Ultimately, the bank metaphor straitjacketed legal codes and reinforced inequalities in medical care. By exploring its past, Banking on the Body charts the path to a more efficient and less exploitative distribution of the human body’s life-giving potential.

Here's the table of contents:

• Introduction: Banking for Love and for Money
• 1. Bankable Bodies and the Professional Donor
• 2. Banks That Take Donations
• 3. Blood Battles in the Cold War
• 4. Market Backlash
• 5. Feminine Banks and the Milk of Human Kindness
• 6. Buying Dad from the Sperm Bank
• Conclusion: Beyond the Body Bank

Cornes and Neto celebrate Gale and Shapley, and the practical value of good theory

Here's a paper that points out that there's nothing more practical--even for policy--than good theory, and that it might be hard to guess where that will come from.

I was struck not just by the title of the paper, but by the parenthetical comment in the first sentence of the abstract...

Is Policy Too Important to be Left to Empiricists? Lessons of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economics
Richard Cornes and José A. Rodrigues-Neto

Abstract
Fifty years ago, a paper entitled ‘College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage’was published in a somewhat obscure journal, the American Mathematical Monthly (currently a ‘B’ journal, according to the Australian Business Deans Council). The research program and policy developments that have flowed from that abstract and apparently slight seven-page paper recently led to the award of  the 2012 Nobel Prize for Economics to one of its authors, Lloyd Shapley. (Shapley’s co-author, David Gale, died in 2008.) Shapley shared the Nobel Prize ‘for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design’ with US economist Alvin Roth, who has been responsible for much of the applied work that has built on Gale and Shapley’s insights. The history of the path leading from the abstract Gale/Shapley insights to the design of resource allocation mechanisms in 2012 is a fascinating and instructive one for many reasons. This article tries to give the reader an idea of what this literature is about, and of the many ways in which Matching Theory has led to real improvements in the design of operational resource-allocation mechanisms.
**************

The article makes some points about how funny sounding theory can turn into practical institutions that were also made in the recent Golden Goose awards (see this post and this one).

Iguassu falls, by night and day

A recent trip to the Iguassu falls, where the full moon made a lunar rainbow in the permanent mist around the falls, was a bookend to a remarkable year.

Exeter Prize: Congratulations to Dan Friedman and Ryan Oprea

Congrats to Dan Friedman and Ryan Oprea, for the news that came this morning about their 2012 AER paper A continuous dilemma. Here's the email:

"Dear colleagues,

We are happy to announce the winner of the 2013 Exeter Prize for the best paper published in the previous calendar year in a peer-reviewed journal in the fields of Experimental Economics, Behavioural Economics and Decision Theory.
The winner is Daniel Friedman and Ryan Opera for their paper “A Continuous Dilemma” by published in American Economic Review.
This paper is an excellent complementary use of theory and experiments that significantly adds to our understanding of one of the fundamental problems in game theory. It is an important study that will stand the test of time.
The winning paper was selected by the panel of Glenn Harrison (Georgia State University), Izhak Gilboa (Tel Aviv University) and Shmuel Zamir (Hebrew University and the University of Exeter).

The winners receive 3000 pounds. In addition, a representative of them will be visiting the University of Exeter in May to receive the award and give a lecture.

This year was exceptionally competitive with a large number of excellent nominations. As stated above the best paper was awarded from the following fields: Experimental Economics, Behavioural Economics and Decision Theory and papers qualified under one of the following categories:

1. Any paper that involves either lab or field experiments. 

2. Any purely theoretical paper that involves "behavioral" theory

(for example, non-expected utility).

3. Any empirical work that shows evidence for behavioral models (that

fit under 2) or tests/rejects models (that fit under 2).

Miguel Fonseca

Todd Kaplan

Eva Poen"

Two countries divided by a common language: translating English into American

The article (by Tim Parks) Learning to Speak American, about copyediting an English writer's English for an American audience, has some hidden lessons about friction in international trade.

Here's his first paragraph:
"In 1993 I translated all 450 pages of Roberto Calasso’s The Marriage of Cadmus & Harmony without ever using the past participle of the verb “get.” The book was to be published simultaneously by Knopf in New York and Jonathan Cape in London; to save money both editions were to be printed from the same galleys; so it would be important, I was told, to avoid any usages that might strike American readers as distractingly English or English readers as distractingly American. To my English ear “gotten” yells America and alters the whole feel of a sentence. I presumed it would be the same the other way round for Americans."

And this:
"Despite my hailing from England—a country that still uses miles—I had expressed distances in meters and kilometers and it seemed odd now to find my Italian characters speaking to each other about yards and miles and, of course, Fahrenheit, which they never would. Or saying AM and PM, rather than using the twenty-four-hour clock as they mostly do, even in ordinary conversation. Slowly, as well as being concerned that some sentences were now feeling clunky and odd, I began to wonder if American readers really needed or demanded this level of protection. Wouldn’t they soon figure out, if I said “the temperature was up in the sizzling thirties,” that I was talking Celsius? Or at least that in another part of the world people had another system for measuring temperature where thirty was considered warm? Mightn’t it be fascinating for them to be reminded that the twenty-four-hour clock, which Americans usually associate with military operations, has long been in standard civilian usage in Europe? Italy introduced it as early as 1893."
...
"America is very much a net exporter of literature. Its novels are read and translated worldwide, where readers generally accept miles and Fahrenheit, pounds and ounces, AM and PM and indeed have grown accustomed to these old-fashioned, American oddities (when it comes to doing science, of course, Americans use the more practical European systems). In Germany, for example, where around fifty percent of novels are foreign works in translation, Roth’s and Franzen’s characters are not obliged to discuss distances in kilometers.

Conversely, America imports very little—only three to four percent of novels published in the States are translations—and what it does import it tends to transform as far as possible into its own formulas and notations, in much the same way that Disney has turned every fable and myth worldwide into a version of Mickey Mouse. "

Alternatives to the NBA draft?

Scott Cunningham points me to this proposal to change the way professional basketball teams acquire new players. The present system rewards teams for poor performance by giving teams that lose lots of games a higher probability of very early draft choices. Early draft choices are important, because basketball is a game in which a single player can have a very big influence on team performance, and a small number of players are very good while still very young. So there may be an incentive, for a team having a poor season, to "tank" and try to be the worst team in order to have the highest probability of the first draft pick. The proposal would be to make draft choices independent of performance, and instead to alternate draft choices in a fixed schedule: The NBA's Possible Solution for Tanking: Good-bye to the Lottery, Hello to the Wheel
************

For more about the current draft system and how it is connected to player salaries, see Alicia Jessop on The Structure of NBA Rookie Contracts

Repugnance as a constraint on markets in Spanish

La repugnancia como limitación de los mercados (a translation of my 2007 JEP article)

Dendra Médica. Revista de Humanidades 2013; 12(1):80-105

Topology lesson from the school of hard knocks (rhymes with bicycle locks)

I noticed this as I carefully locked up my bike the other day: all that remained of the bike next to mine was the connected component (the lock went through the spokes, but not even around the rim and tire of the front wheel).

Forthcoming book on the Iranian kidney transplant market

Carolina Academic Press is advertising a forthcoming book,

The Kidney Sellers

A Journey of Discovery in Iran

by Sigrid Fry-Revere

Their blurb:
Rarely does an adventure story carry such social significance as in this groundbreaking ethnographic research book. Dr. Fry-Revere’s exploration of the medical ethics of compensating organ donors takes us deep inside Iranian culture to provide insight and understanding into how Iran has solved its kidney shortage. The Kidney Sellers: A Journey of Discovery in Iran addresses the question: How it is possible that in Iran there is a waiting list to be a donor, while in the United States hundreds of thousands of people have died­ for lack of a kidney?

Kidney Exchange at Alliance for Paired Donation nominated for Edelman Prize in OR

Here's the press release, which states in part:

CATONSVILLE, MD, December 17, 2013 – The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®) proudly announces the six finalist organizations that will compete for the 2014 INFORMS Franz Edelman Prize. The Prize is the world’s most prestigious recognition for excellence in applying advanced analytics to benefit business and humanitarian outcomes. 

This year’s finalists are:

1. Twitter, with Stanford University, for “The ‘Who to Follow’ System at Twitter: Strategy, Algorithms, and Revenue Impact.”
2. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with Kid Risk, Inc.,for “Using Integrated Analytical Models to Support Global Health Policies to Manage Vaccine Preventable Diseases: Polio Eradication and Beyond.”
3. The Energy Authority for “Hydroelectric Generation and Water Routing Optimizer.”
4. Grady Memorial Hospital, with the Georgia Institute of Technology,for “Modeling and Optimizing Emergency Department Workflow.”
5. Kidney Exchange at the Alliance for Paired Donation, with Stanford and MIT,for “Kidney Exchange.”
6. NBN Company, with Biarri, for “Fiber Optic Network Optimization at NBN Co.”

Now in its 43rd year, the INFORMS Franz Edelman Prize competition recognizes outstanding examples of analytics and operations research projects that transform companies, entire industries and people’s lives. Using innovative advanced analytical methods, the teams were instrumental in helping their respective institutions make better decisions, providing a disciplined way by which management can improve organizational performance in a wide variety of situations and across both public and private organizations.  

INFORMS Franz Edelman finalist teams have contributed over $200 billion in benefits to business and the public interest. The 2014 INFORMS Franz Edelman Prize finalists were chosen after a rigorous review by accomplished verifiers, all of whom have led successful analytics projects. The verifiers come from IBM, BNSF, Bank of America, Verizon Wireless, HP, Eastman Chemical, Columbia University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Chicago, the University of Chile, and other noted organizations. Finalists are chosen on the merits of how analytics methodologies were applied to solve problems, reduce costs, or otherwise improve results in real-world environments. 

Update: note that the press release mistakenly omits Boston College from the institutions associated with kidney exchange.

A Royal Pardon for Alan Turing takes effect today

Here's a chilling story from the BBC about the great Alan Turing, who effective today is pardoned in Britain from his 1952 conviction for homosexuality. The ghost of Christmas past reminds us that what is regarded as repugnant can reverse itself over time.

Royal pardon for codebreaker Alan Turing

"Computer pioneer and codebreaker Alan Turing has been given a posthumous royal pardon.

"It overturns his 1952 conviction for homosexuality for which he was punished by being chemically castrated.

"The conviction meant he lost his security clearance and had to stop the code-cracking work that proved critical to the Allies in World War II.

"The pardon was granted under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy after a request by Justice Minister Chris Grayling.

...
"Turing's work helped accelerate Allied efforts to read German Naval messages enciphered with the Enigma machine. He also contributed some more fundamental work on codebreaking that was only released to public scrutiny in April 2012.

"His later life was overshadowed by his conviction for homosexual activity, a sentence we would now consider unjust and discriminatory and which has now been repealed," said Mr Grayling.

"Turing deserves to be remembered and recognised for his fantastic contribution to the war effort and his legacy to science. A pardon from the Queen is a fitting tribute to an exceptional man."

The pardon comes into effect on 24 December."