Here (and below) is the video of the public lecture I gave in October, and an accompanying interview, as part of the Centennial celebration at the University of Illinois College of Business, where I had my first academic job in 1974.
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Monday, January 11, 2016
Abstract
Full Text
ReferencesSunday, January 10, 2016
Who Gets What and Why? Roth at Rotman (video snippet)
Here's 4 minutes (edited and patched together) of snippets from an event at the Rotman School at the University of Toronto, where I spoke about my book Who Gets What and Why, and was interviewed by Joshua Gans, who suggests that market designers might be more arrogant even than other economists. (This snippet also captures me talking about my friend and collaborator Elliott Peranson, whose firm National Matching Services is headquartered in Toronto...and about the Iron Law of Marriage:)
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Coming soon in German: Wer kriegt was - und warum? Bildung, Jobs und Partnerwahl: Wie Märkte funktionieren
The German translation of my book, Who Gets What -- and Why? is coming out in March.
The subtitle of the book changes with each translation. In the U.S. edition, the subtitle is The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design.
The subtitle of the book changes with each translation. In the U.S. edition, the subtitle is The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design.
In the U.K. edition it is The Hidden World of Matchmaking and Market Design.
Google translate renders the German subtitle , Bildung, Jobs und Partnerwahl: Wie Märkte funktionieren, as "Education, Jobs and mate selection: Markets Work"
Friday, January 8, 2016
Baby booms and marriage squeezes
What is the consequence of a baby boom on marriage prospects, in societies in which husbands are customarily a few years older than their wives? It's a 'marriage squeeze'. Here's a recent interesting article from Time, focusing on marriages among observant Mormons and Jews (to others of the same religion, that is...), and, among Jews, the slightly different marriage patterns amongYeshivish Orthodox and Hasidic Jews (apparently Hasidic husbands and wives are often the same age).
What Two Religions Tell Us About the Modern Dating Crisis by Jon Birger
"The imbalance in the Orthodox marriage market boils down to a demographic quirk: The Orthodox community has an extremely high birth rate, and a high birth rate means there will be more 18-year-olds than 19-year-olds, more 19-year-olds than 20-year-olds, and so on and so on. Couple the increasing number of children born every year with the traditional age gap at marriage—the typical marriage age for Orthodox Jews is 19 for women and 22 for men, according to Michael Salamon, a psychologist who works with the Orthodox community and wrote a book on the Shidduch Crisis—and you wind up with a marriage market with more 19-year-old women than 22-year-old men.
"There is no U.S. Census data on religion. But Joshua Comenetz, chief of the Census Bureau’s Geographic Studies Branch, studied the demographics of Orthodox Jews back in his college professor days at University of Florida. Based on his academic research, Comenetz contended that each one-year age cohort in the Orthodox community has 4 percent more members than the one preceding it. What this means is that for every 100 22-year-old men in the Orthodox dating pool, there are 112 19-year-old women—12 percent more women than men."
...
"Both Yeshivish and Hasidic Jews are extremely pious and socially conservative. They live in tight-knit communities. They are known for having large families. And both groups use matchmakers to pair their young people for marriage.
"There is, however, one major cultural difference between the two groups: Hasidic men marry women their own age, whereas Yeshivish men typically marry women a three or four years their junior.
“In the Hasidic world, it would be very weird for a man to marry a woman two years younger than him,” said Alexander Rapaport, a Hasidic father of six and the executive director of Masbia, a kosher soup kitchen in Brooklyn. Both Rapaport and his wife were 36 when I interviewed him.
When I asked Rapaport about the Shidduch Crisis, he seemed perplexed. “I’ve heard of it,” he said, “but I’m not sure I understand what it’s all about.”
In fact, there is no Shidduch Crisis in the Hasidic community. “When I mention the term to Hasidim, they don’t know what I’m talking about,” said Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology and Jewish studies at City University of New York and an expert on Hasidic Jews."
**************
Here's an earlier post on the shidduchim crisis:
and here's a link to an earlier article by Mr Birger:
HT: Scott Kominers
What Two Religions Tell Us About the Modern Dating Crisis by Jon Birger
"The imbalance in the Orthodox marriage market boils down to a demographic quirk: The Orthodox community has an extremely high birth rate, and a high birth rate means there will be more 18-year-olds than 19-year-olds, more 19-year-olds than 20-year-olds, and so on and so on. Couple the increasing number of children born every year with the traditional age gap at marriage—the typical marriage age for Orthodox Jews is 19 for women and 22 for men, according to Michael Salamon, a psychologist who works with the Orthodox community and wrote a book on the Shidduch Crisis—and you wind up with a marriage market with more 19-year-old women than 22-year-old men.
"There is no U.S. Census data on religion. But Joshua Comenetz, chief of the Census Bureau’s Geographic Studies Branch, studied the demographics of Orthodox Jews back in his college professor days at University of Florida. Based on his academic research, Comenetz contended that each one-year age cohort in the Orthodox community has 4 percent more members than the one preceding it. What this means is that for every 100 22-year-old men in the Orthodox dating pool, there are 112 19-year-old women—12 percent more women than men."
...
"Both Yeshivish and Hasidic Jews are extremely pious and socially conservative. They live in tight-knit communities. They are known for having large families. And both groups use matchmakers to pair their young people for marriage.
"There is, however, one major cultural difference between the two groups: Hasidic men marry women their own age, whereas Yeshivish men typically marry women a three or four years their junior.
“In the Hasidic world, it would be very weird for a man to marry a woman two years younger than him,” said Alexander Rapaport, a Hasidic father of six and the executive director of Masbia, a kosher soup kitchen in Brooklyn. Both Rapaport and his wife were 36 when I interviewed him.
When I asked Rapaport about the Shidduch Crisis, he seemed perplexed. “I’ve heard of it,” he said, “but I’m not sure I understand what it’s all about.”
In fact, there is no Shidduch Crisis in the Hasidic community. “When I mention the term to Hasidim, they don’t know what I’m talking about,” said Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology and Jewish studies at City University of New York and an expert on Hasidic Jews."
**************
Here's an earlier post on the shidduchim crisis:
When assortative matching on age can interfere with matching
and here's a link to an earlier article by Mr Birger:
Unequal Gender Ratios at Colleges Are Driving Hookup Culture
HT: Scott Kominers
Thursday, January 7, 2016
School Vouchers and Student Achievement: some sobering news from Abdulkadiroglu, Pathak, and Walters
School Vouchers and Student Achievement: First-Year Evidence from the Louisiana Scholarship Program
Atila Abdulkadiroglu, Parag A. Pathak, Christopher R. Walters
We evaluate the Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP), a prominent school voucher plan. The LSP provides public funds for disadvantaged students at low-performing Louisiana public schools to attend private schools of their choice. LSP vouchers are allocated by random lottery at schools with more eligible applicants than available seats. We estimate causal effects of voucher receipt by comparing outcomes for lottery winners and losers in the first year after the program expanded statewide. This comparison reveals that LSP participation substantially reduces academic achievement. Attendance at an LSP-eligible private school lowers math scores by 0.4 standard deviations and increases the likelihood of a failing score by 50 percent. Voucher effects for reading, science and social studies are also negative and large. The negative impacts of vouchers are consistent across income groups, geographic areas, and private school characteristics, and are larger for younger children. These effects are not explained by the quality of fallback public schools for LSP applicants: students lotteried out of the program attend public schools with scores below the Louisiana average. Survey data show that LSP-eligible private schools experience rapid enrollment declines prior to entering the program, indicating that the LSP may attract private schools struggling to maintain enrollment. These results suggest caution in the design of voucher systems aimed at expanding school choice for disadvantaged students.
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
Microeconomic Insights: a new website for economists
I've just added this new website to my newsfeed:
Microeconomic Insights: distilling research for public debate
Ariel Pakes writes:
"We are starting a new website entitled Microeconomic Insights. We intend it to be a home for accessible summaries of high quality microeconomic research which informs the public about microeconomic issues relevant to the public debate. Its goal is to bridge the gap between academic research and the public’s knowledge, thereby informing the public’s conversation on microeconomic issues. Microeconomic Insights’ intellectual content will be determined by an editorial board whose sole goal is to disseminate the insights from the very best research in microeconomics, irrespective of its political or ideological viewpoint. ... The editors will work with the authors of the selected papers – forthcoming or recently published peer-reviewed journal articles – to write short 1,500-2,000 non-technical summaries of the key insights for a public policy audience. The preparation of the final text of these articles will be done by a team of independent editors with extensive experience of writing for the public."
Microeconomic Insights: distilling research for public debate
Ariel Pakes writes:
"We are starting a new website entitled Microeconomic Insights. We intend it to be a home for accessible summaries of high quality microeconomic research which informs the public about microeconomic issues relevant to the public debate. Its goal is to bridge the gap between academic research and the public’s knowledge, thereby informing the public’s conversation on microeconomic issues. Microeconomic Insights’ intellectual content will be determined by an editorial board whose sole goal is to disseminate the insights from the very best research in microeconomics, irrespective of its political or ideological viewpoint. ... The editors will work with the authors of the selected papers – forthcoming or recently published peer-reviewed journal articles – to write short 1,500-2,000 non-technical summaries of the key insights for a public policy audience. The preparation of the final text of these articles will be done by a team of independent editors with extensive experience of writing for the public."
Compensation for kidney donors? The comments on the Washington Post discussion are now complete...
I've updated my earlier post
It’s time to treat organ donors with the respect they deserve: Josh Morrison is a kidney donor and the executive director of WaitList Zero, a nonprofit devoted to representing living donors and supporting living donation.
Scott Carney disagrees, on practical grounds (he thinks that a legal US market would foster badly regulated overseas markets): If you’re willing to buy a kidney, you’re willing to exploit the poor: Legalizing the sale of kidneys in America would lead to a booming black market everywhere else.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, who has spoken to many black market kidney sellers, thinks that legal markets couldn't funcion much differently: The market for human organs is destroying lives We don't have "spare" kidneys. They shouldn't be up for sale.
The Washington Post discusses compensation for organ donors
to reflect the subsequent discussions, below. (See the original post for whole discussion, which now seems to be complete)
Sally Satel is first: Generosity won’t fix our shortage of organs for transplants
Taking the opposite point of view (but arguing that we should do more to reduce financial disincentives to donating, by paying for donor expenses): Francis Delmonico and Alexander Capron December 29, Our body parts shouldn’t be for sale
Scott Sumner's headline and sub-headline also speaks for itself: The moral case for paying kidney donors: We can save lives and cut costs with one change in policy.
Will lab-grown kidneys fix our transplant waiting lists?: Benjamin Humphreys is optimistic that they will, eventually.It’s time to treat organ donors with the respect they deserve: Josh Morrison is a kidney donor and the executive director of WaitList Zero, a nonprofit devoted to representing living donors and supporting living donation.
Scott Carney disagrees, on practical grounds (he thinks that a legal US market would foster badly regulated overseas markets): If you’re willing to buy a kidney, you’re willing to exploit the poor: Legalizing the sale of kidneys in America would lead to a booming black market everywhere else.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, who has spoken to many black market kidney sellers, thinks that legal markets couldn't funcion much differently: The market for human organs is destroying lives We don't have "spare" kidneys. They shouldn't be up for sale.
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
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