Montreal conference on matching ( l’appariement), March 21-22

Here's the preliminary program...

Colloque CIREQ Montréal sur l’appariement

Programme préliminaire
 

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VENDREDI, le 21 mars 2014
9:00 – 10:30	SESSION I – Président : Umut DUR (North Carolina State University) Peter Coles (ebay Research Labs), Yannai Gonczarowski (Hebrew University),Ran SHORRER (Harvard University) Strategic Behavior in Unbalanced Matching Markets Timo MENNLE (University of Zurich), Sven Seuken (University of Zurich) An Axiomatic Approach to Characterizing and Relaxing Strategyproofness of One-sided Matching Mechanisms Umut DUR (North Carolina State University), Onur Kesten (Carnegie Mellon University) Sequential versus Simultaneous Assignment Problems and Two Applications
10:30 – 11:00	Pause
11:00 – 12:30	SESSION II - Président : Utku UNVER (Boston College) Lars Ehlers (Université de Montréal, CIREQ), Alexander WESTKAMP (Maastricht University) Strategy-Proof Tie-Breaking David Cantala (El Colegio de México), Szilvia PAPAI (Concordia University, CIREQ) Reasonably and Securely Stable Matching Marek Pycia (UCLA), Utku UNVER (Boston College) Incentive Compatible Allocation and Exchange of Indivisible Resources
12:30 – 14:00	Lunch
14:00 – 16:00	SESSION III - Présidente : Bettina KLAUS (University of Lausanne) Shuhei Morimoto (Kobe University), Shigehiro SERIZAWA (Osaka University) Strategy-proofness and Efficiency with Non-quasi-linear Preferences : A Characterization of Minimum Price Walrasian Rule Jens GUDMUNDSSON, Helga Habis (Lund University) Assignment Games with Externalities Tomoya KAZUMURA, Shigehiro Serizawa (Osaka University) An Impossibility of Allocating Objects among Agents with Non-Quasi-Linear Preferences Bettina KLAUS (University of Lausanne), Jonathan Newton (University of Sydney) Stochastic Stability in Assignment Problems
16:00 – 16:30	Pause
16:30 – 17:45	KEYNOTE LECTURE : Tayfun SÖNMEZ (Boston College) Kidney Exchange : Past, Present, and Potential Future
19:00	Dîner de conférence (sur invitation seulement)Restaurant Laloux, 250, Pine Avenue East

SAMEDI, le 22 mars 2014
9:00 – 10:30	SESSION IV – Président : Jan Christoph SCHLEGEL (Université de Lausanne) Madhav RAGHAVAN (Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi) Fair Assignment with Capacity Constraints Takashi AKAHOSHI (Waseda University) Singleton Core in Many-to-One Matching Problems Jan Christoph SCHLEGEL (Université de Lausanne) Contracts versus Salaries in Matching : A General Result
10:30 – 11:00	Pause
11:00 – 12:30	SESSION V – Président : Panos TOULIS (Harvard University) M. Bumin Yenmez (Carnegie Mellon University), Federico ECHENIQUE (California Institute of Technology) How to Control Controlled School Choice Péter Biró (Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Elena IÑARRA (University of the Basque Country), Elena Molis (University of Granada) Solutions Concepts for Unsolvable Roommate Problems David C. Parkes (SEAS, Harvard University), Panos TOULIS (Harvard University) A Random Graph Model of Multi-Hospital Kidney Exchanges
12:30 – 14:00	Lunch
14:00 – 16:00	SESSION VI – Président : Vikram MANJUNATH (Université de Montréal, CIREQ) * Chaque présentation de cette session sera de 20 minutes.   Ville KORPELA (Turku School of Economics) Nash Implementation of Stable Solutions in Many-to-One Matching Problems : The Case with No Complementarities Samson ALVA (University of Texas at San Antonio) Pairwise Stability and Complementarity in Many-to-One Matching Mustafa Oğuz Afacan (Sabanci University), Bertan TURHAN (Boston College) Assignment Maximization Lars EHLERS (Université de Montréal, CIREQ) TBA Alexander TEYTELBOYM (MIT) Stability and Competitive Equilibrium in Networks with Bilateral Contracts Vikram MANJUNATH (Université de Montréal, CIREQ), Bertan Turhan (Boston College) When Two Should Be One but Aren’t : Milwaukee Public Schools and the Voucher System
16:00 – 16:30	Pause
16:30 – 18:00	SESSION VII – Président : Nizar ALLOUCH (Queen Mary University of London) Claudia HERRESTHAL (Oxford University) Mobility, Learning and School Choice Albin Erlanson (Lund University), Karol SZWAGRZAK (University of Southern Denmark) Strategy-proof Package Assignment Nizar ALLOUCH (Queen Mary University of London) The Cost of Segregation in Social Networks
18:00	Réception de clôtureColloque CIREQ Montréal sur l’appariement

I speak to Stanford alums in LA this evening: Market Design as Economic Engineering

Event Details

Register

Date/Time:

Wed, March 19, 2014
06:30PM - 09:00PM

Venue:

Skirball Cultural Center

Location:

2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90049
Map address

Registration Period:

01/29/2014-03/13/2014

Contact:

Kelly Lanter

klanter@stanford.edu

650-724-3549

Join us for an evening with Nobel Prize winner and Stanford Professor Alvin Roth at Skirball on Wednesday, March 19.

Professor Roth will be speaking on Market Design as Economic Engineering: Using Economics to Assign Doctors, Get Kids Into High School and Save Lives

Alvin Roth is a pioneer in game theory and experimental economics and in their application to the design of new economic institutions. His work on the theory of matching markets includes redesigning mechanisms for selecting medical residents; multistep kidney exchanges; and school choice in New York City, Boston, Denver and New Orleans. Professor Roth shared the 2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work on market design. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society, and a member of the National Academy of Science. He has also been a Guggenheim and Sloan fellow.

Schedule of Events
6:30 -7:30 p.m.: Reception with cash bar
7:30 -9:30 p.m.: Presentation and Q&A

Registration will open on Tuesday, February 4. This event includes light hors d'oeuvres, non-alcoholic beverages and a cash bar.

In the event this event does't sell-out prior to registration closing on March 13, registrations will be available at the door for the increased cost of $30 general admission and $20 young alumni (undergrads '04-'13, grads '09-'13).

Event Activities

Professor Roth at Skirball 
Wednesday, March 19, 2014 @ 6:30 PM

Lacetera, Macis and Stith on removing financial barriers to bone marrow donation

Removing financial barriers to organ and bone marrow donation: The effect of leave and tax legislation in the US

Lacetera, Nicola ; Macis, Mario; Stith, Sarah S.

JOURNAL OF HEALTH ECONOMICS

Volume: 33, Jan 2014, 43-56

Many U.S. states have passed legislation providing leave to organ and bone marrow donors and/or tax benefits for live and deceased organ and bone marrow donations and to employers of donors. We exploit cross-state variation in the timing of such legislation to analyze its impact on organ donations by living and deceased persons, on measures of the quality of the transplants, and on the number of bone marrow donations. We find that these provisions do not have a significant impact on the quantity of organs donated. The leave laws, however, do have a positive impact on bone marrow donations, and the effect increases with the size of the population of beneficiaries and with the generosity of the legislative provisions. Our results suggest that this legislation works for moderately invasive procedures such as bone marrow donation, but these incentives may be too low for organ donation, which is riskier and more burdensome. 

I speak about market design in Santa Barbara tomorrow

If you're in town, and particularly if you're a Stanford alum, here's a chance to relive sitting in a lecture hall:)

Event Details

Register

Sorry, cannot attend

Date/Time:

Tue, March 18, 2014
05:00PM - 07:30PM

Venue:

Cabrillo Pavilion

Location:

1118 E. Cabrillo Boulevard, Santa Barbara, CA 93103 
Map address

Registration Period:

01/29/2014-03/18/2014

Contact:

Kim Bluitt, '92

1kimbluitt@gmail.com

Nobel Laureate and Stanford professor Alvin Roth applied market design to improve the residency matching process for doctors in the United States, the admissions process for New York City, Boston, Denver, and New Orleans public high schools, and the matching process for multistep kidney exchanges. Join fellow Stanford alumni and friends as Professor Roth shares how he brought together theory, evidence and design in an innovative fashion to turn his research into practical value.

Our schedule:
Reception from 5:00 p.m.-5:45 p.m.
Presentation and Q&A beginning at 5:45 p.m.

House debates support for NSF, social science

The Chronicle of Higher Ed has the (gated) story: House GOP Allows Some Compromise in Bid to Focus NSF on Economic Value

"... in a sign of future compromise before the bill reaches the Democratic-controlled Senate, the Republican majority on the House Science Subcommittee on Research and Technology accepted nine separate Democratic amendments, including a partial retreat from plans to severely cut the NSF’s budget for social-science research.
...
"[Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois, the top Democrat on the subcommittee] listed economically valuable products of social-science research, including studies that help the police anticipate crime patterns and analyses that more efficiently match kidney donors and recipients. Reaching inside the NSF to set directorate-by-directorate budget limits—a practice that Congress already employs with the National Institutes of Health—"may open the door for partisan meddling from either side of the aisle," he said."

The IGM panel of economists speaks (in many voices) on paying for kidneys

The Initiative on Global Markets is an opinion poll of leading academic economists on a large variety of public policy questions, which they can answer on a range from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree," along with "uncertain" or "no opinion". They are also asked to assess their confidence in their answer A recent question was
Supplying Kidneys: A market that allows payment for human kidneys should be established on a trial basis to help extend the lives of patients with kidney disease.

Here's a histogram of replies

Some answers were accompanied by comments, and I include all of those below...

David Autor	MIT	No Opinion		Not enough info to answer. Not in favor of a kidney market that sells to highest bidder. Other ideas maybe. Question is not actionable.	Bio/Vote History
Abhijit Banerjee	MIT	Disagree	8	That would mean valuing people's lives by their incomes. We already do that but moving further in that direction seems wrong.	Bio/Vote H

Markus Brunnermeier

Princeton

Agree

6

It is important that the market is "well regulated" in order to avoid abuse and exploitation of the vulnerables.

Judith Chevalier

Yale

Strongly Agree

9

This certainly may have unintended consequences but it is hard to fault attempting to create more supply.

Darrell Duffie	Stanford	Agree	3	Under strong governance that mitigates exploitation, this market may save lives on mutually consenting terms.	Bio/Vote History
Aaron Edlin	Berkeley	Uncertain	7	Dangerous ground, but a well-regulated experiment could be beneficial. Payments to fill out donor cards might increase supply, for example	Bio/Vote History
Barry Eichengreen	Berkeley	Uncertain	1	A market with or without subsidies for low income patients?

Robert Hall	Stanford	Uncertain	9	Hard to know because we don't have much of an understanding of why people make organ gifts.	Bio/Vote History
Oliver Hart	Harvard	Agree	8	I'd like to see it but I'm not sure the public is ready. Also would insurance cover this? Would people be able to top up (presumably)?

Caroline Hoxby

Stanford

Uncertain

8

Would improve allocative efficiency but means- and health-conditioned vouchers would presumably have to be used to address ethical concerns.

Kenneth Judd

Stanford

Strongly Agree

10

There is no reason to block this voluntary exchange. There may be unique challenges in applying laws against fraud, but nothing too hard.

William Nordhaus

Yale

Agree

5

Perhaps experiments in different regimes better idea.

Larry Samuelson

Yale

Disagree

6

We need to rationalize our organ allocation mechanism, but a market is not the only way, and is not obviously the best way.

Richard Schmalensee

MIT

Uncertain

7

How to deal with donors who don't understand risks, increased incentives to steal & import, perceived inequities...? Not simple.

Carl Shapiro	Berkeley	Agree	8	Experiments seem valuable here, using health outcomes as our metric. Matching donors and recipients based in part on payment may be helpful.	Bio/Vote History
Robert Shimer	Chicago	Strongly Agree	7	The biggest impact would be to increase kidney supply, so few obvious losers from this policy	Bio/Vote History
Nancy Stokey	Chicago	Uncertain	1	It would surely save lives of those with kidney disease. It would probably have unintended consequences as well.	Bio/Vote History
Richard Thaler	Chicago	Uncertain	5	How should we incorporate the fact that nearly all non-economists hate this idea? Do we declare them wrong and proceed?	Bio/Vote History
Christopher Udry	Yale	Strongly Agree	1	As an economist, I strongly agree that there would be tremendous gains. But I'm uncertain of the appropriate bounds on market transactions. -see background information here -see background information here

1000 kidney exchange transplants by NKR

Here's the announcement: National Kidney Registry Facilitates 1000th Transplant


"BABYLON, NY--(Marketwired - Mar 12, 2014) -  The National Kidney Registry announced the successful completion of their 1,000th paired exchange transplant. The 1,000th transplant, completed today at the University of Cincinnati, is part of a chain of 10 transplants. These transplants are taking place at other centers across the country including, UCSF Medical Center, Cleveland Clinic, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, Lahey Clinic, Loyola University Medical Center, University of Minnesota Medical Center, Froedtert Hospital, and VCU Medical Center.

The NKR organized its first exchange transplants just over 6 years ago, in February of 2008, at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Commenting on the past six years, Dr. Sandi Kapur, Chief of Transplant Surgery and Director of the Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and the Surgical Director of NKR, said, "These 1,000 transplants would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of the transplant professionals at the 70 NKR member centers and the many altruistic donors who have given the gift of life to those suffering from kidney failure. Our program at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell has been able to transplant over 100 patients with incompatible donors during this time period including many highly sensitized patients."

Dr. Jeffrey Veale, the Director of the UCLA Exchange Program, remarked, "We have seen the widespread adoption of paired exchange over the past six years which has allowed many patients with incompatible donors to receive a lifesaving transplant. We are thrilled that UCLA has been able to transplant over 100 patients with incompatible donors over the past six years and we look forward to working with the other NKR Member Centers to quickly surpass the 2,000 transplant milestone."

Dr. E. Steve Woodle, Director of the Division of Transplantation, holder of the William Altemeier Chair in Surgery at the University of Cincinnati, and a founder of one of the first multi-center kidney exchange programs in the United States, said, "When we first published the ethical and scientific foundations for kidney exchange programs in 1997, we hoped that someday we would have kidney exchange programs like the NKR. This accomplishment by the NKR exemplifies what dedicated leadership and membership can accomplish with kidney exchange. Our hats are off to those who built the NKR."

The goal of the NKR is to facilitate 1,000 transplants annually by 2020. Above is the history of NKR transplants.

About the National Kidney Registry

National Kidney Registry (www.kidneyregistry.org) is a nonprofit organization with the mission to save and improve the lives of people facing kidney failure by increasing the quality, speed, and number of living donor transplants. "
******************

Other posts about NKR

Legal brothels in Germany

The Telegraph has the story: Welcome to Paradise (Paradise is the name of a brothel in Stuttgart.). It's an unusually good article, so here is an unusually long set of excerpts.  One of the reasons I follow this kind of debate is because of the similar, ongoing debate about whether the sale of kidneys should be legal.


"When Germany legalised prostitution in 2002 it triggered an apparently unstoppable growth in the country’s sex industry. It’s now worth 15 billion euros a year and embraces everything from 12-storey mega-brothels to outdoor sex boxes. Nisha Lilia Diu visits some of them to find out who won and who lost...
...
"Paradise is a chain, like Primark or Pizza Hut, with five branches and three more on the way.
...
"People think Amsterdam is the prostitution capital of Europe but Germany has more prostitutes per capita than any other country in the continent, more even than Thailand: 400,000 at the last count, serving 1.2 million men every day. Those figures were released a decade ago, soon after Germany made buying sex, selling sex, pimping and brothel-keeping legal in 2002. Two years later, prostitution in Germany was thought to be worth 6 billion euros – roughly the same as Porsche or Adidas that year. It’s now estimated to be 15 billion euros.
...
"The idea of the law, passed by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s Social Democrat-Green coalition, was to recognise prostitution as a job like any other. Sex workers could now enter into employment contracts, sue for payment and register for health insurance, pension plans and other benefits. Exploiting prostitutes was still criminal but everything else was now above board. Two female politicians and a Berlin madam were pictured clinking their champagne glasses in celebration.

"It didn’t work. “Nobody employs prostitutes in Germany,” says Beretin. None of the authorities I spoke to had ever heard of a prostitute suing for payment, either. And only 44 prostitutes have registered for benefits.

"What did happen was the opening of Europe’s biggest brothel – the 12-storey, neon-wrapped Pascha in Cologne. Not to mention a rash of FKK, or “naked”, clubs where men can spend the evening drifting between the sauna, the bar and the bedrooms. Bargain-hunters might try the “flat rate” brothels, where an entry fee of between 50-100 euros buys you unlimited sex with as many women as you want, or cruise the caravans at motorway truck stops, or the drive-through “sex boxes” in the street-walking zones. (They look like stables and are known as “verrichtungsboxen” - “getting things done boxes”.)

"The Netherlands legalised prostitution two years before Germany, just after Sweden had gone the other way and made the purchase of sex a criminal offence. Norway adopted the Swedish model - in which selling sex is permitted but anyone caught buying it is fined or imprisoned - in 2009. Iceland has followed suit, and France and Ireland look set to do the same.

"The Home Office insists Britain’s byzantine prostitution laws (in brief: you can buy and sell sex indoors under certain circumstances) are not up for review. But that might not be the case for long.

"Mary Honeyball, the Labour MEP, has been leading the charge to have the Swedish model adopted across Europe. Her bill was voted through by the European Parliament on 26 February, formally establishing the EU’s position on the issue. A few days later, on Monday, a cross-party report in Britain also recommended the model.

"Pressure to review prostitution laws is coming from an EU anti-trafficking directive that obliges member states to “reduce demand” for human trafficking. Given that at least 70 per cent of trafficking in Europe is into forced prostitution, a lot of people are arguing that the best way to reduce demand for trafficking is to reduce demand for prostitution. And one way to do that is to criminalise the buyer.
...
"More than 55,000 men come to Paradise every year. Everyone – punter and prostitute – pays a 79 euro entry fee. That includes food (there is a buffet right by the Jacuzzi into which a naked middle-aged man is lowering himself) but the sex is extra. That’s negotiated between the men and the women and all of the money from that activity is kept by her. The going rate at Paradise is about 50 euros for half an hour, slightly cheaper than the hammam – another extra – which is offered at 53 euros for 30 minutes.
...
"The law leaves [Saarbrücken’s mayor, Charlotte] Britz with her hands tied. “It’s easier to open a brothel in Germany than a chip shop,” she says. That’s actually true: while premises serving food need special licences there are no restrictions on brothels. That’s because all they do, technically, is rent rooms. The prostitutes are their customers just as much as the punters are. Sometimes, more so.
...
"Most [prostitutes] are in a similar situation to Suzi: her family has no idea what she’s doing and she has no desire to have an official record of her years in prostitution. “This work is not for a long time,” she says. “Very soon I will stop.” Once she’s saved up enough money, she plans to get a job in a hotel or a restaurant. Kristina Marlen, a tantric dominatrix in Berlin and a spokeswoman for Germany’s Trade Association for Erotic and Sexual Services, agrees. “A lot of people just do it for a short period in their lives. They don’t want to have in their CV, ‘I was a whore from 2007 to 2009’.”
...
"“People don’t employ prostitutes in Germany because it’s complicated,” says Beretin...
"Actually, says Knop, managing prostitutes is completely legal. The problem is making sure you don’t cross the line between “managing” them and “exploiting” them.
...
"Forced prostitution comes in many guises. Some women are kidnapped, others are tricked with the promise of jobs as nannies or waitresses. Others choose to work as prostitutes but have no idea of the conditions that await them. Often, a woman’s pimps or traffickers are people from her own town. They know where her family lives and aren’t afraid of harming them in order to control her. Sometimes it’s the families who pressure girls into prostitution in the first place - unable, or unwilling, to think of another way for a woman to earn a living.
...
"All the sex workers I spoke to, in Britain and in Germany, told me it’s “not for everyone.” Kristina Marlen, the Berlin dominatrix, sees her work in terms of “celebrating the sexual part of the person” (though “sometimes people come in and I am like ‘Ew’. But I can work with them.”) She’s bisexual and currently in an open relationship with a woman. She thinks of prostitution as its own kind of “sexual orientation”.

"But, she says, “there are some people working in the sex industry who shouldn’t be there.” Sex workers can find themselves in “very precarious positions and not all the women can articulate themselves as I can.” Even she has had “moments in which it wasn’t clear to me how to communicate boundaries.” You need to be thick-skinned and good at negotiating with strong boundaries and high self-esteem. There isn’t much of what’s been called “willing supply”.

Prostitution in America

Yesterday's NY Times writes about a report from the Urban Institute, funded by the Department of Justice, on prostitution in eight U.S. cities.

Here's the NY Times article: In-Depth Report Details Economics of Sex Trade

Here's the full (pdf) paper: Estimating the Size and Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy in Eight Major US Cities 

Here's an abstract of the paper on the Urban Institute web site:
Estimating the Size and Structure of the Underground Commercial Sex Economy in Eight Major US Cities
Meredith Dank, Bilal Khan, P. Mitchell Downey, Cybele Kotonias, Debbie Mayer, Colleen Owens, Laura Pacifici, Lilly Yu

"Abstract
The underground commercial sex economy (UCSE) generates millions of dollars annually, yet investigation and data collection remain under resourced. Our study aimed to unveil the scale of the UCSE in eight major US cities: Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, Miami, Seattle, San Diego, and Washington, DC. Across cities, the UCSE's worth was estimated between $39.9 and $290 million in 2007, but decreased since 2003 in all but two cities. Interviews with pimps, traffickers, sex workers, child pornographers, and law enforcement revealed the dynamics central to the underground commercial sex trade?and shaped the policy suggestions to combat it.

Underground Commercial Sex Economy Key Findings

"Sex sells" does little to explain the multimillion-dollar profits generated by the underground commercial sex economy. From high-end escort services to high school "sneaker pimps," the sex trade leaves no demographic unrepresented and circuits almost every major US city. What we know about the underground commercial sex economy is likely just the tip of the iceberg, but our study attempts to unveil its size and structure while documenting the experiences of offenders and law enforcement.

Our study focused on eight US cities— Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, Miami, Seattle, San Diego, and Washington, DC. Across cities, the 2007 underground sex economy’s worth was estimated between $39.9 and $290 million. While almost all types of commercial sex venues—massage parlors, brothels, escort services, and street- and internet-based prostitution—existed in each city, regional and demographic differences influenced their markets.

Pimps and traffickers interviewed for the study took home between $5,000 and $32,833 a week. These actors form a notoriously difficult population to reach because of the criminal nature of their work. Our study presents data from interviews with 73 individuals charged and convicted for crimes including compelling prostitution, human trafficking and engaging in a business relationship with sex workers.

Pimps claimed inaccuracy in media portrayals. 
Most pimps believed that the media portrayals exaggerated violence. Some even saw the term "pimp" as derogatory, despite admitting to occasional use of physical abuse for punishment. Although pimps may have underreported the use of physical violence, they did cite frequent use of psychological coercion to maintain control over their employees.

Pimps manipulate women into sex work. 
From discouraging "having sex for free" to feigning romantic interest, pimps used a variety of tactics to recruit and retain employees. Some even credited their entry into pimping with a natural capacity for manipulation. Rarely, however, were pimps the sole influence for an individual’s entry into the sex trade.

Women, family, and friends facilitate entry into sex work. 
Female sex workers sometimes solicited protection from friends and acquaintances, eventually asking them to act as pimps. Some pimps and sex workers had family members or friends who exposed them to the sex trade at a young age, normalizing their decision to participate. Their involvement in the underground commercial sex economy, then extends the network of those co-engaged in the market even further.

Unexpected parties benefit from the commercial sex economy. 
Pimps, brothels, and escort services often employed drivers, secretaries, nannies, and other non-sex workers to keep operations running smoothly. Hotel managers and law enforcement agents sometimes helped offenders evade prosecution in exchange for money or services. Law enforcement in one city reported that erotic Asian massage parlors would purchase the names of licensed acupuncturists to fake legitimacy. Even feuding gang members occasionally joined forces in the sex trade, prioritizing profit over turf wars. The most valuable network in the underground sex economy, however, may be the Internet.

The Internet is changing the limitations of the trade.
Prostitution is decreasing on the street, but thriving online. Pimps and sex workers advertise on social media and sites like Craigslist.com and Backpage.com to attract customers and new employees, and to gauge business opportunities in other cities. An increasing online presence makes it both easier for law enforcement to track activity in the underground sex economy and for an offender to promote and provide access to the trade.

Child pornography is escalating.
Explicit content of younger victims is becoming increasingly available and graphic. Online child pornography communities frequently trade content for free and reinforce behavior. Offenders often consider their participation a "victimless crime."

The underground sex economy is perceived as low risk.
Pimps, traffickers, and child pornography offenders believed that their crimes were low-risk despite some fears of prosecution. Those who got caught for child pornography generally had low technological know-how, and multiple pimp offenders expressed that "no one actually gets locked up for pimping," despite their own incarcerations.

Policy and practice changes can help combat trafficking and prostitution.

• Cross-train drug, sex, and weapons trade investigators to better understand circuits and overlaps.
• Continue using federal and local partnerships to disrupt travel circuits and identify pimps.
• Offer law enforcement trainings for both victim and offender interview techniques, including identifying signs of psychological manipulation.
• Increase awareness among school officials and the general public about the realities of sex trafficking to deter victimization and entry.
• Consistently enforce the laws for offenders to diminish low-risk perception.
• Impose more fines for ad host websites."

Vocabulary in the fertility business

Over at Bill of Health, Dov Fox starts a post on some tax litigation with some linguistic notes from the field:
Can you be taxed for selling your eggs?

"Those who deal in alternative ways of making families use euphemisms that obscure the market mechanisms at work when individuals ‘‘donate’’ their eggs or sperm, couples ‘‘contribute’’ their embryos, surrogates ‘‘offer’’ their wombs, and orphans are ‘‘matched’’ to adoptive parents. Make no mistake, family formation is big business. "

Recommender dating site

As is the case with used cars, it may be desirable to buy from someone you know. http://www.jessmeetken.com/ is an internet dating site that works on that principle.

Here's the come-on: 

"Women are in control.

Men are posted by women. If a guy’s here, it’s only because a woman like you thinks he’s boyfriend material.

(Ask your girlfriends to post their best guys.)"

HT: Stephanie Hurder

Society for Mutual Autopsy: Nineteenth Century solution to the cadaver shortage for anatomy studies

Michael Webster directs my attention to this post about The Society of Mutual Autopsy, a society formed to supply cadavers for more, and more scientific, autopsies.(At different times and places, cadavers have been in short supply: see these previous posts.)

Here's what Wikipedia has to say:
"The Society of Mutual Autopsy (or French: la Société d'autopsie mutuelle) was established on 19 October 1876 by members of the Society of Anthropology of Paris in Paris, France.

"Its purpose was to facilitate research on any links between personality, ability and brain morphology by creating a system whereby members' bodies, upon death, would be donated to the organization for study.
Its primary tool to organize these donations was a sort of living will which accomplished two main tasks. The first was to make clear the intention of the donor to have his or her body delivered to the organization upon death. The second was to present to the organization a description of the donor: the donor's personality, skills, habits, faults, etc. to allow for more complete research by the organization on the connection between these and brain morphology."

Apparently it was active from 1876 until World War I, and conducted quite a few autopsies.

I guess that willing your body to a scientific society is logistically a lot easier for your next of kin to carry out than is willing your organs to be donated to members of a club. As of this writing, the similarly constituted Lifesharers organization (about which I have posted here) has yet to make a single donation:

Q. How many LifeSharers members have died and donated organs?
A. We have not yet had a member die in circumstances that would have permitted recovery of his or her organs.

Surrogacy law in Israel

Apparently it is legal for heterosexual couples to pay surrogate mothers in Israel, but not for same sex couples, and there is legislation being proposed to change this. As usual, it's complicated.
Ministers will vote on surrogacy for gay couples

"The new surrogacy bill is up for vote: The Knesset Ministerial Committee on Legislative Affairs will discuss Health Minister Yael German's (Yesh Atid) bill Monday, allowing gay couples to use surrogacy services in Israel.
...
It is still unclear whether there will be a majority to pass the bill..
...
"According to the existing "surrogacy law", only heterosexual couples can have access to paid surrogacy. Two years ago the Mor-Yosef committee was asked to decide on the matter and ruled that gay couples should be allowed to use surrogacy under the condition that the surrogate mother is not paid.

"According to the new bill, Health Minister German supplements what she considers a "revolution," allowing gay couples paid surrogacy – much like heterosexual couples.

"This move – which is expected to bring great demand for surrogacy – is not free of limitations. Couples will be allowed to undergoing only two surrogacy procedures, the couples' mothers and grandmothers will not be allowed to be surrogates; however the possibility of having a family member as surrogate does expand to sisters and cousins.

"In addition the bill limits the age of men turning to surrogacy to 54 and not without limitation of age as it has been until now. On the other hand, the allowed surrogacy age has gone up to 38, two years more than what the existing law permits.

Utku Unver and Tayfun Sonmez talk about kidney exchange--video

Tayfun Sonmez and Utku Unver have a video on Boston College's YouTube channel:

"Published on Feb 23, 2014
Groundbreaking research by Boston College economists Tayfun Sönmez and Utku Ünver sparks hope for patients with kidney disease while advancing the University's philosophy of "men and women for others."
 Video Produced by Sean Casey "

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Update, 8 June 2016: Here's a video from Turkish TV of Utku Ünver being interviewed about kidney exchange. It's all in Turkish, but clips from the video above are included, so I'm guessing it's in the same spirit...
Türkiye'nin Bilim Öncüleri Haber Dizisi. Prof. Utku Ünver Abd'li Alvin Roth 'Un Nobel Ödülü Almasında Önemli Rol Oynadı. Nobel Ödüllü John Nash'in Oyun Teorisinden, Böbrek Takası Projesini Hayata Geçirdi.  (Google Translate: Professor Utku Unver Americans Alvin Roth of Play Important Role in Getting the Nobel Prize. Nobel Laureate John Nash in Game Theory, Passes Kidney Swap Project to life. )

Good summary of 15 minute talk on market design and experimental economics at Pitt

At the University of Pittsburgh, where I'm now an alum, I gave a 15 minute talk without slides, and it was covered in this news story by Kimberly Barlow, which I thought did a pretty good job of summarizing it.

Computer-assisted smart markets, at UC Davis

I'll be speaking today at UC Davis:

Alvin Roth Lecture: Computer-Assisted Smart Markets

March 06, 2014
3:00 pm to 5:00 pm 

Department of Computer Science Distinguished Lecture Series
Alvin Roth (Nobel Prize in Economics)
Computer-Assisted Smart Markets: From Labor Markets to Kidney Exchange

Thursday March 6, 2014, 3:10 p.m.
Student Community Center Multi-Purpose Room

Reception and refreshments 2:30 p.m.

More and more modern marketplaces are mediated by computers, and this opens up some new possibilities for market design, and new areas of intersection between economics and computer science. I will give examples from the design of the labor market clearinghouses for American doctors (“the Match”) through which most doctors in the U.S. get their first jobs, and from the design of kidney exchange clearinghouses that help match patients with compatible living kidney donors.

Alvin Roth is the Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He is also the Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard University. He works in the areas of game theory, experimental economics and market design. He shared the 2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.

Host: Dan Gusfield, Department of Computer Science

Co-hosted by Department of Economics, UC Davis

Levine Family Series: Alvin Roth (Stanford University)

"Computer-Assisted Smart Markets: From Labor Markets to Kidney Exchange"

When	Mar 06, 2014 from 03:00 PM to 05:00 PM
Where	Student Community Center Multi-Purpose Room

More on industrial farming

Are some farming transactions repugnant? The NY Times runs a story under the headline Wishing They All Could Be California Hens

"Hens in California are living the good life. Many can now lay their eggs in oversize enclosures roomy enough to stand up, lie down — even extend their wings fully without touching another bird.

Hens in most other states don’t have it so good. Their conditions, as the head of California’s egg trade group explained, are “like you sitting in an airplane seat in the economy section all your life.”

So if you’re a hen, you want to live in California. Short of that, you want California-size leg room. And that’s precisely what lawmakers in California are demanding of out-of-state farmers who sell eggs in California — setting off a feud over interstate commerce that has spilled over into the farmyard at large.

The Missouri attorney general has filed a lawsuit to block the California egg rules, and at least three other states are considering doing the same. The beef and pork lobbies are also lining up against the California rules in an effort to prevent any new restrictions on raising livestock."
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Here are my previous posts on food, most of them also related to repugnance...

Insider trading 2.0

The WSJ reports on the increasingly repugnant practice of selling access to news earlier to some customers than others:
Firm Stops Giving High-Speed Traders Direct Access to Releases--Warren Buffett Involved in Berkshire Unit Business Wire's Decision to End Practice

"[New York Attorney General Eric]  Schneiderman has begun cracking down on practices that provide high-speed traders with opportunities to act first on market-moving information, referring to such access as "Insider Trading 2.0."
...
"Traders engaged in this so-called race to zero, a measure of the difference between the pace of order transmissions and the speed of light, are constantly pushing to get news and market data a fraction of a second before their competitors.

"We see the AG action and the Business Wire story highlighting a deeper problem" with the stock market, said Eric Budish, an economics professor at the University of Chicago who has studied high-speed markets.

"The problem, Mr. Budish said, is that markets in which the first trader to enter an order wins the race give too much of an advantage to traders with the fastest technology.

"Instead, he says, markets should favor investors who offer the best price, even if that order comes in a fraction of a second after a speedier trader."
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Mr Budish and his recent paper on high speed trading have been getting some other press lately as well, see
Declawing Speed Traders Is Goal of Stock Market Revamp Proposal

"In the paper written with Peter Cramton of the University of Maryland and John Shim at Booth School, Budish showed the opportunities that exist for speedy traders by looking at the trading patterns of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY:US) and futures on the S&P 500. They found that the price of E-mini contracts often jumps before the ETF, creating the chance for fast traders to make money from buying the fund before the market reacts. While the time shrank from a median of 97 milliseconds in 2005 to 7 milliseconds in 2011, the arbitrage opportunity still exists, the authors said."

Paul Klemperer on the product mix auction, and market design (video)

How geometry came to the rescue during the banking crisis - video

"Economist Paul Klemperer of Oxford University describes how he invented an auction based on a new kind of geometry to help the Bank of England as the financial crisis took hold in 2007. The auction got money to the banks and building societies that needed it most urgently. The then governor Mervyn King later called it 'a marvelous application of theoretical economics to a practical problem of vital importance'. Klemperer describes how similar auctions can help other government departments allocate resources.  The video featured as the Editor's Choice on the Guardian on 12th July 2013."

Organize: to end the organ shortage

I don't know much about this (relatively new) organization, Organize.org,  but I like their slogan: It's hard enough to survive a transplant, people shouldn't have to survive the waiting list too.

And Judd Kessler is their resident economist, so they're off to a good start.

They say: "Organize and its partners are doing whatever we can to register more donors, and are trying to build a system that makes it as easy as possible to do so."

"Organize is committing to fix this.  Here’s how:

• Streamlining the registration process to make it easier to enroll as a donor.
• Creating more entry points to enroll as a donor.
• Building tech solutions for state-registries to share information more easily.
•  Supporting academic research around the registration process, and learning best practices for different audiences.
• Empowering patients and their families to take part of the registration process."

Abdulkadiroglu, Angrist and Pathak on exam schools

In Econometrica;

January 2014 - Volume 82 Issue 1 Page 137 - 196

p.137

The Elite Illusion: Achievement Effects at Boston and New York Exam Schools Atila Abdulkadiroğlu Joshua Angrist Parag Pathak Abstract Parents gauge school quality in part by the level of student achievement and a school's racial and socioeconomic mix. The importance of school characteristics in the housing market can be seen in the jump in house prices at school district boundaries where peer characteristics change. The question of whether schools with more attractive peers are really better in a value-added sense remains open, however. This paper uses a fuzzy regression-discontinuity design to evaluate the causal effects of peer characteristics. Our design exploits admissions cutoffs at Boston and New York City's heavily over-subscribed exam schools. Successful applicants near admissions cutoffs for the least selective of these schools move from schools with scores near the bottom of the state SAT score distribution to schools with scores near the median. Successful applicants near admissions cutoffs for the most selective of these schools move from above-average schools to schools with students whose scores fall in the extreme upper tail. Exam school students can also expect to study with fewer nonwhite classmates than unsuccessful applicants. Our estimates suggest that the marked changes in peer characteristics at exam school admissions cutoffs have little causal effect on test scores or college quality.