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

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

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

and

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

and

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

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

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

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Abstract Details

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

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

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

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Abstract Details

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

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

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

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

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

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Abstract Details

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

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I'd also be glad to hear

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

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

Update on the OPTN/UNOS kidney paired donation pilot program through October 2015

Here's a brief update on the UNOS KPD pilot program:
Kidney paired donation pilot program: Five years of lifesaving service, OCT 26, 2015 |

The program "has arranged 155 kidney transplants since its beginning on October 27, 2010. Several more transplants are scheduled to take place over the next several weeks."

That reflects a growing rate of transplants through the UNOS program, which has not yet achieved the volume of other programs, and now accounts for just over 4% of the 3,648 "Paired donation" transplants recorded by the OPTN database. (I'm not sure if those data capture all the kidney exchange chains.)  The majority of kidney exchange transplants in the U.S.  are accomplished through the other multi-hospital kidney exchange networks (NKR and APD), and, increasingly, through exchanges conducted internally by active transplant centers.   

Repugnant Markets and Forbidden Transactions at the WZB (video)

Here's a video of my recent talk at the WZB in Berlin. Dorothea Kubler introduces me.
My talk goes to 55:15  minutes, and then there is a discussion by Stephan Gosepath, followed by my brief reply and then a general discussion with the audience.

At around minute 44 I talk for almost ten minutes about the exciting experimental work of Sandro Ambuehl (here it's a little too bad that the video doesn't include my slides, but you can get the idea). He's on the market this year (you could hire him), and his job market paper reports experiments designed to investigate the intuition, widely held by non-economists, that high payments may constitute "undue inducements" that can potentially harm the recipient.

Paying for (imported) blood products in Britain

Yesterday's post about paying for blood plasma in Canada reminded me of this story that The Guardian ran earlier in the year:
Blood money: is it wrong to pay donors?
"In some countries, people get paid for giving blood. And in the UK, we have to buy in plasma. But is safety compromised when money changes hands?"

"A recent black-and-white documentary, Blood, about a mobile blood collection unit in rural Russia, shows scenes familiar to many: dusty halls, anxious donors queuing to register, the occasional struggle to find a vein. Cups of tea, too, albeit just for the team.

Then there are the differences. Donors sit upright on uncomfortable, hard chairs. Some have just come off night shift; others have no money for food. Staff are concerned about how many units will test positive for blood-borne viruses. Potential donors worry about being accepted. A woman without an up-to-date residency certificate is turned away. A man insists he should be allowed to donate; he is broke and desperate for the 850 roubles (£8.85) payment. It is clear that most donors come for the money: for some, it is a lifeline.

Russia isn’t alone in paying donors – the US, China and Germany do, too. In Britain, however, we donate 2m units a year, with no payment – following the World Health Organisation recommendation that blood donation be voluntary. This is not only for altruistic reasons, but also for safety. “The safest blood donors are voluntary, non-remunerated donors from low-risk populations,” says the WHO.

...

"Nevertheless, thousands of NHS patients receive blood plasma from paid donors. This contains clotting factors and antibodies. Thousands of individual donations go into each dose of clotting factors – used to treat haemophiliacs who are bleeding – or immunoglobulins (antibodies) used to treat people with autoimmune diseases, severely damaged immune systems, or some serious infections.

After the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), known as mad cow disease, some recipients of UK plasma products developed the fatal brain disease variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob-disease (vCJD). As there is as yet no adequate screening test for this, British plasma has not been used since 2002, when we began to import it from the US."

**********

HT Alex Nichifor

Bleeding for Canada: plasma exports from the US to Canada

In the HuffPo:, Peter Jaworski begins his rant about the blood supply with a good line about food:  Commodifying Blood Donation Could Solve Canada's Shortfall

"Many people think blood is special in a way that means it shouldn't be "commodified," or bought and sold on a market. It is a basic human need. It's not like the latest gadget or a pair of shoes; it is to be revered, not remunerated.

"I'm glad we don't think food is special in this way. If we did, imagine how many people would die of starvation, or would suffer from hunger.

This past December, the Ontario legislature preserved the sanctity of the exchange of blood through Bill 21, entitled the "Safeguarding Health Care Integrity Act." Schedule 1 included provisions from Bill 178, the Voluntary Blood Donations Act", which prohibits paying and receiving payment for blood, either directly or indirectly. With this bill, the legislature has made the giving and receiving of blood a sacrament.

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

Of course Canadians don't have to pay other Canadians for blood plasma. If you look at the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) administered by the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC), you find that HTS number 3002100210 stands for Human Blood Plasma, and in 2013 Canada had imports $29,274,584 worth from the U.S., where of course we compensate plasma donors.

HT: Josh Penrod

Chapter 4 of Who Gets What and Why, in the Milken Institute Review (with art work...)

The Milken Institute Review, Fourth Quarter 2015, has published an excerpt--Chapter 4--of Who Gets What and Why.  It comes with illustrations, which aren't in the original. The chapter is mostly about unraveling, and includes discussion of college football bowls, the market for law school graduates, and medical fellowships...and why Oklahomans are called "Sooners," and fraternity and sorority recruitment is called "rush."

Book Excerpt--Who Gets What and Why

Here's the introduction to the excerpt, by Peter Passell

"Alvin Roth, the author of this excerpt from Who Gets What – and Why,* won a Nobel in economics in 2012 for his work on the “the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design.” I know, I know: that’s hardly an intro likely to induce you to dive right in. Most Nobels in economics, after all, are awarded for accomplishments that are too arcane for mere mortals to comprehend. And even the prize winners who do have something pressing to say to the public can rarely write their way out of that proverbial paper bag.

" But Roth and this book are spectacular exceptions. While he was really trained as a mathematician (his PhD is in a discipline called operations research), Roth’s vision has never strayed far from the practical. And he’s a natural-born writer to boot.

"Roth designs “matching markets,” where price alone can’t balance supply and demand – think of markets for everything from marriage to college admissions. Indeed, he’s even saved lives by helping to design an ingenious way to match more donated kidneys to needy patients.

"The chapter excerpted here will give you a taste of his fine mind and formidable ability to make complicated ideas comprehensible. — Peter Passell"
***********
See this earlier post with a video of the conversation about the book that Peter and I had in June: Peter Passell interviews me at the Milken Institute on Who Gets What — and Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design


The rest of the book can be found at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Who-Gets-What-Why-Matchmaking/dp/0544291131 

An interview about market design, in Polish

Google translate seems to work less well in Polish than in some other languages I've been interviewed in, but if you already read Polish, maybe this will be clear:
Alvin Roth. Ekonomista, który leczy nerki

Why most kidney exchange chains have patients receive a kidney before their donor donates one

A "how could things go wrong" story from Canada, when a donor donates before her recipient receives a kidney (due to a last minute glitch):
Organ exchange program slow to deliver on promise to man in need of a kidney, family says
Canadian Blood Services says overall, the kidney exchange program has been successful

"A national program that matches living kidney donors with recipients hasn't delivered on a promise after a woman donated a kidney to a stranger so her ailing son-in-law could get a much-needed transplant, the family says.

"Estella Jamieson agreed to donate one of her kidneys, only after being assured her son-in-law would soon get a transplant. She says she decided to contact Go Public because he is still waiting.

"I know I helped somebody and I'm glad that family is going good, but I just feel if I would have waited I could have helped my own family more," a teary Jamieson says. 

"Jamieson and her son-in-law, Jeff Pike, signed up for the Living Kidney Donor Paired Exchange Program a couple of years ago. It's run by Canadian Blood Services along with provincial transplant programs. 

...

"Jamieson gave her kidney to a stranger, so Pike could get one from another donor. 

"We did our half. My mother-in-law has helped improve someone's life but the return of her doing that, is someone would in turn help me at the same time — not some time down the road when the stars align. I can't help but feel like there are options out there that could speed things up," Pike says. 

"The surgeries were scheduled for February, but the day before Pike's procedure, he developed shingles and couldn't go through with the transplant. Jamieson donated a kidney anyway, on the promise her son-in-law would get a kidney when his health improved. Pike was medically cleared less than a month later but is still waiting. 

"I was assured Jeff would be top priority if I went through with the surgery. It's seven months later and he still doesn't have a kidney. Even if he had date ... but there's no date, there's nothing," Jamieson says.

"While Pike waits, he can't work full-time and is physically weak. He also requires dialysis twice a day. 

...

"Despite all that's happened, Estella Jamieson says she would still recommend the program to others, with one caveat. 

"Don't get me wrong. I think it is a very good program and anyone with a loved one that wants to go into it, I'd say yes to go ahead. But make sure your loved one is getting a kidney when you give yours." 

Support from the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF), and from the National Science Foundation (NSF)

The current newsletter of the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation has taken note of the early support that Ido Erev and I received from them, and I'm very happy to acknowledge it. I wonder how widespread are binational science foundations?

Alvin Roth's New Book and NPR Interview

"Roth is a pioneer in the field of game theory and experimental economics and in their application to the design of new economic institutions. Early in his career, he and Prof. Ido Erev from the Technion received BSF funding on three different occasions for their work on how reinforcement learning can make useful predictions in experimental games."

They also quote me in an NPR interview, about kidney exchange, saying
“I kind of think of economists as being helpers here,” he said. “We have some ideas, but we don't do any of the surgeries.”
*************

The NSF also takes note of the support it has given to Nobel laureates, and I am certainly grateful for the support I received:
NSF-funded Nobel Prize winners in science through 2015

ECONOMICS
1970 – Paul A. Samuelson*
1972 – Kenneth J. Arrow*
1973 – Wassily Leontief
1975 – Tjalling C. Koopmans
1978 – Herbert A. Simon
1980 – Lawrence R. Klein
1981 – James Tobin
1982 – George J. Stigler
1983 – Gerard Debreu
1985 – Franco Modigliani
1986 – James M. Buchanan Jr.
1987 – Robert M. Solow
1992 – Gary S. Becker
1993 – Robert W. Fogel, Douglass C. North
1994 – John C. Harsanyi, John F. Nash*
1995 – Robert E. Lucas
1997 – Robert C. Merton
1998 – Amartya Sen
1999 – Robert A. Mundell
2000 – James J. Heckman, Daniel L. McFadden
2001 – George Akerlof, Michael Spence, Joseph Stiglitz
2002 – Daniel Kahneman, Vernon Smith
2003 – Robert C. Engle, Clive W. Granger
2004 - Finn E. Kydland, Edward C. Prescott
2005 – Robert J. Aumann, Thomas C. Schelling
2006 – Edmund S. Phelps
2007 – Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson
2008 – Paul Krugman
2009 – Elinor Ostrom, Oliver E. Williamson
2010 – Peter A. Diamond, Dale Mortensen
2011 – Thomas J. Sargent, Christopher A. Sims
2012 – Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley
2013 – Eugene F. Fama, Lars Peter Hansen, Robert J. Shiller
2014 – Jean Tirole
2015 – Angus Deaton

* Received NSF support after receiving Nobel Prize.

Market design conference at Microsoft Research New England, Oct 24-25

Immediately following the NBER market design conference is another, at Microsoft Research New England: Designing the Digital Economy, October 24-25, 2015

Saturday, October 24 

12:30pm - 2:00	Registration and Lunch
2:00 - 2:15	Welcome by Glen Weyl
2:15 - 3:15	Title TBD by Eric Budish, discussed by Joshua Mollner
3:15 - 3:30	Coffee Break
3:30 - 4:30	“Cheap Talk, Round Numbers, and the Economics of Negotiation” presented by Matt Backus (joint work with Thomas Blake and Steven Tadelis), discussed by Susan Athey  Can sellers credibly signal their private information to reduce frictions in negotiations? Guided by a simple cheap-talk model, we posit that impatient sellers use round numbers to signal their willingness to cut prices in order to sell faster, and test its implications using millions of online bargaining interactions. Items listed at multiples of $100 receive offers that are 5%–8% lower but that arrive 6–11 days sooner than listings at neighboring “precise” values, and are 3%–5% more likely to sell. Similar patterns in real estate transactions suggest that round-number signaling plays a broader role in negotiations.
4:30 - 5:00	Coffee Break
5:00 - 6:00	“Adverse Selection and Auction Design for Internet Display Advertising” presented by Paul Milgrom (joint work with Nick Arnosti and Marissa Beck), discussed by Bobby Kleinberg  We model an online display advertising environment with brand advertisers and better-informed performance advertisers, and seek an auction mechanism that is strategy-proof, anonymous and insulates brand advertisers from adverse selection. We find that the only such mechanism that is also false-name proof assigns the item to the highest bidding performance advertiser only when the ratio of the highest bid to the second highest bid is sufficiently large. For fat-tailed match-value distributions, this new mechanism captures most of the gains from good matching and improves match values substantially compared to the common practice of setting aside impressions in advance.
7:00 - late	Dinner at Area Four

Sunday, October 25

8:30am - 9:00	Breakfast
9:00 - 10:00	“Mixed Pricing in Online Marketplaces” presented by Michael Sinkinson (joint work with Katja Seim), discussed by Bruno Strulovici.  A rich theory literature predicts mixed pricing in various settings due to standard price discrimination, search frictions, and various other rationales. While typically interpreted as implying occasional sales or price dispersion, online marketplaces enable a firm to truly use randomization as a tool in pricing. We investigate a case of mixed pricing across a large subset of products on a major e-commerce website. We first test for randomizing behavior, before constructing a model of price discrimination that would generate such behavior as optimizing behavior. We estimate the model and use it to assess pricing effects of a proposed merger in the industry.
10:00 - 10:15	Coffee Break
10:15 - 11:15	“Real Time Pricing and Labor Supply in the Sharing Economy" by Chris Nosko, discussed by Ricardo Perez-Truglia
11:15 - 11:30	Coffee Break
11:30 - 12:30	"Surveillance and System Avoidance: Criminal Justice Contact and Institutional Attachment" by Sarah Brayne, discussed by Parag Pathak The degree and scope of criminal justice surveillance increased dramatically in the United States over the past four decades. Recent qualitative research suggests the rise in surveillance may be met with a concomitant increase in efforts to evade it. To date, however, there has been no quantitative empirical test of this theory. In this article, I introduce the concept of “system avoidance,” whereby individuals who have had contact with the criminal justice system avoid surveilling institutions that keep formal records. Using data from Add Health (n = 15,170) and the NLSY97 (n = 8,894), I find that individuals who have been stopped by police, arrested, convicted, or incarcerated are less likely to interact with surveilling institutions, including medical, financial, labor market, and educational institutions, than their counterparts who have not had criminal justice contact. By contrast, individuals with criminal justice contact are no less likely to participate in civic or religious institutions. Because criminal justice contact is disproportionately distributed, this study suggests system avoidance is a potential mechanism through which the criminal justice system contributes to social stratification: it severs an already marginalized subpopulation from institutions that are pivotal to desistance from crime and their own integration into broader society.
12:30 - 1:30	Lunch
1:30 - 2:30	Overview of Empirical Economics program, led by Susan Athey, but also featuring Greg Lewis, Markus Mobius, Denis Nekipelov and Justin Rao
2:30 - 3:30	"Consensus Expectations and Conventions" presented by Ben Golub (joint work with Stephen Morris), discussed by Muhamet Yildiz.   Players have uncertainty over both an external random variable -- such as a security price -- and over each other's beliefs. We study agents' subjective expectations of the weighted average of others' subjective expectations...of the weighted average of others' subjective expectations of the external random variable. The weights involved can be viewed as a network. By relating these iterated average expectations to a Markov chain, we characterize their limit properties, generalizing prior results on games with common priors and complete-information network games. We then apply the conclusions to study coordination games, over-the-counter financial markets, the possibility of rationalizable trade, and the robustness of equilibrium.
3:30 - 3:45	Coffee Break
3:45 - 4:45	"Sales Mechanisms in Online Markets: What Happened to Internet Auctions?" presented by Liran Einav, discussed by Justin Rao. Consumer auctions were very popular in the early days of internet commerce, but today online sellers mostly use posted prices. Data from eBay shows that compositional shifts in the items being sold, or the sellers offering these items, cannot account for this evolution. Instead, the returns to sellers using auctions have diminished. We develop a model to distinguish two hypotheses: a shift in buyer demand away from auctions, and general narrowing of seller margins that favors posted prices. Our estimates suggest that the former is more important. We also provide evidence on where auctions still are used, and on why some sellers may continue to use both auctions and posted prices.
4:45 - 5:00	Closing remarks by Greg Lewis

Organizing committee

Greg Lewis (Microsoft)
Glen Weyl (Microsoft and Chicago)

Honoring Hugo Sonnenschein, University of Chicago October 23–24, 2015

I'm in Berlin today, heading to Chicago to help celebrate Hugo Sonnenschein:

Conference Honoring Hugo Sonnenschein, University of Chicago
October 23–24, 2015

ORGANIZERS: PHILIP J. RENY, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
VIJAY KRISHNA, PENN STATE UNIVERSITY
Friday, October 23

"The University of Chicago Department of Economics and the Becker Friedman Institute are pleased to host the Conference Honoring Hugo Sonnenschein. This conference will bring together friends and colleagues to honor Hugo Sonnenschein’s scholarship, to celebrate his new status as “Charles L. Hutchinson Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus,” and to recognize the exciting work in economic theory that is being carried out today.

Hugo Sonnenschein is an economic theorist whose most important scholarly work concerns the mathematical structure of market demand functions. His fundamental contributions on this topic, which he pioneered, have had a lasting effect on the field of general equilibrium, including the computation of equilibrium prices, and have greatly influenced and continue to influence the development of the theory of the household and of other group decision-making units. He has also made fundamental contributions to demand theory, social choice, imperfect competition, information economics, and game theory. Hugo's thesis supervision history is legendary in the profession. He has supervised the theses of many of the most prominent economic theorists of our generation, thereby ensuring the continued application of mathematical rigor to problems of importance in economics for years to come.

In 2009, he shared the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Laureate in Economics, Finance and Management with Andreu Mas-Colell “for extending the reach and applicability of general equilibrium analysis and for establishing the modern theory of aggregate demand.” Hugo’s recognitions also include Member, National Academy of Sciences, 1990; President, Econometric Society, 1989; Editor, Econometrica, 1977-1984; Distinguished Fellow, American Economic Association, 2005."

Repugnant transactions and forbidden markets at the WZB in Berlin

Yesterday I gave the Harnack Lecture to the Max Planck Society, and today I speak at the WZB...
Repugnant Markets and Forbidden Transactions
WZB Distinguished Lecture in Social Sciences by Alvin E. Roth

The lecture will be followed by a discussion by Stefan Gosepath who is Professor of Practical Philosophy at Freie Universität Berlin.

Organisiert von: Dorothea Kübler

Donnerstag, 22. Oktober 2015

Beginn: 17:00 Uhr

Ort: WZB, Reichpietschufer 50, 10785 Berlin, Raum A 300

Market Design conference at the NBER, Oct 23-24

I'll be elsewhere, but this looks like fun:

Market Design Working Group Meeting

Michael Ostrovsky and Parag Pathak, Organizers

October 23-24, 2015

NBER 2nd Floor Conference Room 1050 Massachusetts Avenue  Cambridge, MA

PROGRAM

PROGRAM

Participant List

Friday, October 23
8:00 AM	Shuttle leaves Royal Sonesta Hotel for NBER
8:30 AM	Shuttle leaves Royal Sonesta Hotel for NBER
8:30 AM	Continental Breakfast
9:00 AM	Tayfun Sonmez, Boston College Utku Unver, Boston College Ozgur Yilmaz, Koç University How (not) to Integrate Blood Subtyping Technology to Kidney Exchange Mehmet Ekmekci, Boston College M. Bumin Yenmez, Carnegie Mellon University Integrating Schools for Centralized Admissions
10:30 AM	Break
11:00 AM	Atila Abdulkadiroğlu, Duke University Joshua Angrist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER Yusuke Narita, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Parag Pathak, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER Research Design meets Market Design: Using Centralized Assignment for Impact Evaluation
	Shuchi Chawla, University of Wisconsin Jason Hartline, Northwestern University Denis Nekipelov, University of Virginia Mechanism Design for Data Science
12:30 PM	Lunch
2:00 PM	John Hatfield, University of Texas at Austin Scott Duke Kominers, Harvard University Alexandru Nichifor, University of St Andrews Michael Ostrovsky, Stanford University and NBER Alexander Westkamp, University of Bonn Full Substitutability
	Thanh Nguyen, Purdue University Rakesh Vohra, University of Pennsylvania Near Feasible Stable Matchings with Complementarities
3:30 PM	Break
4:00 PM	Ali Hortaçsu, University of Chicago and NBER Jakub Kastl, Princeton University and NBER Allen Zhang, Department of the Treasury Bid Shading and Bidder Surplus in the U.S. Treasury Auction System Jonathan Levin, Stanford University and NBER Andrzej Skrzypacz, Stanford University Are Dynamic Vickrey Auctions Practical? Properties of the Combinatorial Clock Auction
5:30 PM	Adjourn
5:30 PM	Shuttle leaves NBER for Royal Sonesta Hotel
6:30 PM	Dinner – Dante Restaurant at the Royal Sonesta Hotel
Saturday, October 24
8:00 AM	Shuttle leaves Royal Sonesta Hotel for NBER
8:30 AM	Shuttle leaves Royal Sonesta Hotel for NBER
8:30 AM	Continental Breakfast
9:00 AM	Nick Arnosti, Stanford University Marissa Beck, Stanford University Paul Milgrom, Stanford University Adverse Selection and Auction Design for Internet Display Advertising
	Daniela Saban, Stanford University Gabriel Weintraub, Columbia University Procurement Mechanisms for Differentiated Products
10:30 AM	Break
11:00 AM	Steven Lalley, University of Chicago Glen Weyl, Microsoft Corporation Quadratic Voting Canice Prendergast, University of Chicago The Allocation of Food to Food Banks
12:30 PM	Adjourn

Is it unethical to pay more than $10,000 for human egg donation? (An antitrust suit...)

The NY Times has the story: Egg Donors Challenge Pay Rates, Saying They Shortchange Women

"In a federal lawsuit, a group of women are challenging industry guidelines that say it is “inappropriate” to pay a woman more than $10,000 for her eggs. The women say the $10,000 limit amounts to illegal price-fixing, and point out that there is no price restriction on the sale of human sperm. A federal judge has certified the claim as a class action, which will most likely go to trial next year.
...
"While many other countries limit egg donation and the compensation that is allowed, egg donation is essentially unregulated in the United States. But in 2000, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine established the guidelines for how much women should be paid. They say that compensation over $5,000 requires “justification,” and that more than $10,000 is “beyond what is appropriate.” The amounts have never been adjusted.

The society argues that capping the price ensures that low-income young women are not drawn to donate by a huge payout without considering how it may affect their lives.

“If the compensation became too high, there is a concern that it might be incentive for donors to lie about their medical history,” said Tripp Monts, a lawyer representing the society. “And it could induce young women to donate without thinking too far down the road.”

“Coping with difficult decisions: An Experimental Economics perspective” in Dusseldorf

I'm arriving in Dusseldorf today, for a workshop marking the end of a years-long project originally organized by Reinhard Selten:

Closing workshop of the Academy Research Center

“Rationality in the Light of Experimental Economics”

Coping with difficult decisions: An Experimental Economics perspective

Part I: Mini-School on complex experiments

10:00 – 11:00    Introductory lecture on complex experiments

Sabine Pittnauer (Univ. Bonn): Procedural rationality in complex decision problems

11:00 – 12:00   Presentations by young researchers (Part I)

Sven Nolte (Finance Center Muenster): An Experimental Analysis of Annuity Aversion

David Schindler (Univ. Munich LMU): Risk, Time Pressure, & Selection Effects

Ori Plonsky (Technion): Reliance on small samples, the wavy recency effect and similarity-based learning

Annika Herr (Univ. Düsseldorf): Organ donation in the lab: Preferences and votes on the priority rule

12:00 – 12:30 Coffee Break

12:30 – 13:30     Presentations by young researchers (Part II)

Josue Ortega (Univ. Glasgow): Rational Inattention in Online Dating

Katharina Momsen (Univ. Mannheim): Buying Goods of Unknown Value - An Experiment

Efrat Aharonov (Technion): On the imitation of mistakes

Volker Benndorf (Univ. Düsseldorf): Voluntary Disclosure of Information and Unraveling

13:30 – 15:00     Lunch research seminars

Group Prof. Ido Erev

Mira Fischer (Univ Köln): Investment in Learning and Beliefs about Knowledge and Talent: Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Two Dimensions of Confidence

Stephan Germer (Univ. Hannover): tba

Claudia Möllers (Univ. Düsseldorf): tba

Anja Rey (Univ. Düsseldorf): Representing and Solving Hedonic Games with Ordinal Preferences and Thresholds

Rebecca Schmitt (TU Kaiserslautern): Bridging the Attitude-Preference-Gap: A Cognitive Approach To Preference Formation

Nadja Wolf (Univ. Hannover): Mental Accounting in Tax Evasion Decisions – An Experiment on Underreporting and Overdeducting

Group Prof. Uri Gneezy

Anna Brandt (Univ Bern):  Personality correlates of willingness to compete

Marianne Carson (Royal Veterinary College): Behavioural adaptations of poultry production stakeholders to disease outbreaks and different control policies in Bangladesh

Henning Cordes (Finance Center Muenster): Perceiving the Real Value: How Inflation Communication Affects the Attractiveness of Delayed Consumption

Judith Schneider (Finance Center Muenster): tba

Lisa Spantig (Univ. Munich LMU): High-Stakes Non-Monetary Decision under Risk

Valentin Wagner (Univ. Düsseldorf): Shying Away from Demanding Tasks? Experimental Evidence
on Gender Differences in Multiple-Choice Tests

15:00 – 16:00     Poster session

Part II: Plenary talks and panel discussion on coping with difficult decisions

16:00 – 16:15     Welcome address

16:15 – 17:00     Professor Uri Gneezy: Lying Costs and Incentives

17:00 – 17:45     Professor Ido Erev: On maximization, complexity, and the effect of economic incentives

17:45 – 18:15     Coffee break

18:15 – 19:00     Professor Alvin E. Roth: Repugnant transactions and forbidden markets

19:00 – 20:00     Panel discussion: “Coping with difficult decisions: What do we know about how difficult decisions are made and how they can be improved?”

                              Moderation by Professor Martin Weber

20:00                    Closing remarks and supper