Repugnance and state elections...right to die, and marijuana

Several repugnant transactions became less so (at least they moved from illegal to legal) along with the other results of last Tuesday's elections.

After Colorado, right-to-die movement eyes new battlegrounds

"By an overwhelming vote Tuesday, Coloradans approved a ballot initiative allowing physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to mentally fit, terminally ill adults who want to end their lives. Colorado is the sixth state to allow the practice, following Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont and California. Washington, D.C., is poised to approve similar legislation as soon as this month.

Colorado’s ballot initiative proposal met resistance from religious groups with moral objections and disability advocates leery of abuse of power. Opponents raised over $2.6 million, the bulk of which came from the Archdiocese of Denver. Supporters, who argued that terminally ill patients deserve the option to “die with dignity,” raised over $5.4 million, mostly from the Compassion & Choices Action Network."

**********
 Arizona rejected marijuana legalization, and in Maine it passed by a hair, with a 50.2 percent majority finally counted on Thursday. Marijuana is now legal in some form in many more American states, with perhaps a quarter of the population. The Guardian notes the results of Tuesday's ballots...

"Approved: California voters approved recreational marijuana, a huge victory in the fight for cannabis legalization, paving the way for the largest commercial pot market in the US.

Approved: Massachusetts also voted for recreational pot, extending legal weed from coast to coast.

Approved: Nevada became the third state to approve a recreational cannabis law, making the west an even stronger region for marijuana sales.

Approved: Earlier in the night, Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment to legalize medical marijuana, the first victory in a string of high-profile cannabis measures on Tuesday’s state ballots.

Approved: North Dakota was the second state to approve medical weed, with the approval of Measure 5, which approves the use of marijuana to treat a number of diseases, including cancer, Aids, epilepsy and hepatitis C.

Approved: Arkansas also passed a medical cannabis measure that would allow patients with specific conditions to buy medicine from dispensaries licensed by the government.

Rejected: Arizona was the first state to vote against its marijuana measure, with the news early on Wednesday morning that voters have rejected Proposition 205. The measure would have legalized recreational pot.

Approved: Montana residents voted to expand the state’s medical marijuana system with the passage of Initiative 182, which removes limits on the number of patients providers can serve. Proponents of the measure argued that the existing restrictions blocked patients from accessing care.

Advocates and opponents agree that California’s Proposition 64 is the most important cannabis measure America has seen and could be an international game-changer for marijuana policy in the US.

California, which recently overtook the UK to have the fifth largest economy in the world, is expected to have a recreational marijuana market greater than Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska combined, said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

“When I talk to everybody from allies to government officials in Mexico and I ask them what’s it going to take to transform the debate,” he said, “the response to me is when California legalizes marijuana.”

Too close to call: As of Wednesday afternoon, a recreational measure in Maine was still too close to call.

Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012, paving the way for Oregon, and Alaska to follow suit.

As medical and retail cannabis operations have spread across the US, legal marijuana has become the fastest-growing industry in the US, with some analysts projecting sales to reach $22bn by 2020."

Designing privacy (differential privacy) at the Institute for Advanced Study

Differential Privacy Symposium

Differential privacy disentangles learning about a dataset as a whole from learning about an individual data contributor. Just now entering practice on a global scale, the demand for advanced differential privacy techniques and knowledge of basic skills is pressing. This symposium will provide an in-depth look at the current context for privacy-preserving statistical data analysis and an agenda for future research. This event is organized by Cynthia Dwork, of Microsoft Research, with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Speakers include:

Helen Nissenbaum, Cornell Tech and NYU
Aaron Roth, University of Pennsylvania
Guy Rothblum, Weizmann Institute
Kunal Talwar, Google Brain
Jonathan Ullman, Northeastern University

2017 CSWEP Junior Mentoring Breakfasts at the Chicago AEA meetings in January

 The American Economic Association's Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP) is pleased to announce the 5^th Annual Mentoring Breakfasts for Junior Faculty to be held at the 2017 AEA/ASSA Meetings in Chicago. At these informal meet and greet events, senior economists (predominately senior women) will be on hand to provide mentoring and networking opportunities.  Junior economists are invited to drop in with questions on topics such as publishing, research, teaching, grant writing, networking, job search, career paths, work-life balance and the tenure process. Rotation of mentees throughout the event is encouraged so that they may have the opportunity to connect with the greatest number of mentors.  This mentoring experience is intended for junior economists who have completed their PhD in the past 6 years or graduate students who are on the job market.  The event is open to both males and females.  A light continental breakfast will be provided.

CSWEP will host two sessions. Please see below for registration details.

Friday, Jan. 6, 2017, 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Hyatt Regency Chicago, Regency B
Session I Registration

Sunday, Jan. 8, 2017, 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Hyatt Regency Chicago, Regency B
Session II Registration

Senior economists who are interested in serving as mentors are asked to send an email to cswep@econ.ucsb.edu indicating the date(s) they are able to attend.

We hope to see you there!

And in other election news...marijuana

What can I say? It looks like we may need it...
Californians Legalize Marijuana in Vote That Could Echo Nationally

"California, Massachusetts and Nevada legalized marijuana on Tuesday in what advocates said was a reflection of the country’s changing attitude toward the drug.

Leading up to the election, recreational marijuana use was legal in four states: Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington, along with Washington, D.C.

With the addition of California, Massachusetts and Nevada, the percentage of Americans living in states where marijuana use is legal for adults rose above 20 percent, from 5 percent."

What is Happening in Game Theory? in the JEP

The Fall 2016 Journal of Economic Perspectives contains a

Symposium: What is Happening in Game Theory?

Game Theory in Economics and Beyond (#6) Larry Samuelson

Full-Text Access (Complimentary) | Supplementary Materials

New Directions for Modelling Strategic Behavior: Game-Theoretic Models of Communication, Coordination, and Cooperation in Economic Relationships (#7) Vincent P. Crawford

Full-Text Access (Complimentary) | Supplementary Materials

Whither Game Theory? Towards a Theory of Learning in Games (#8) Drew Fudenberg and David K. Levine

Full-Text Access (Complimentary) | Supplementary Materials

Sociology of high frequency trading

The Journal Economy and Society has a special issue on Cultures of High-Frequency Trading, which includes the following articles:

Cultures of high-frequency trading: mapping the landscape of algorithmic developments in contemporary financial markets Ann-Christina Lange, Marc Lenglet & Robert Seyfert Pages: 149-165 Published online: 20 Sep 2016

Article Where do electronic markets come from? Regulation and the transformation of financial exchanges Michael Castelle, Yuval Millo, Daniel Beunza & David C. Lubin Pages: 166-200 Published online: 26 Sep 2016

Article Squaring the speed of light? Regulating market access in algorithmic finance Marc Lenglet & Joeri Mol Pages: 201-229 Published online: 20 Sep 2016

Article Organizational ignorance: an ethnographic study of high-frequency trading Ann-Christina Lange Pages: 230-250 Published online: 20 Sep 2016

Article Bugs, predations or manipulations? Incompatible epistemic regimes of high-frequency trading Robert Seyfert Pages: 251-277 Published online: 20 Sep 2016

Article What is an algorithm? Financial regulation in the era of high-frequency trading Nathan Coombs Pages: 278-302 Published online: 20 Sep 2016

*************
A related working paper I enjoyed reading, on Donald MacKenzie's website:

How Algorithms Interact: Goffman’s ‘Interaction Order’ in Automated Trading
Donald MacKenzie
April 2016

A seller's guide to the U.S. market for sperm

The NY Times has some advice for potential sellers...

10 Things to Know About Being a Sperm Donor

"Your odds of getting into Harvard or Stanford are higher than your chances of being accepted as a donor at the major sperm banks.

California Cryobank and Fairfax Cryobank, the nation’s two largest sperm banks, take only about one in 100 applicants. Some deal-breakers: a low sperm count, an iffy health history or sperm that don’t do well after freezing.

If you’re short, forget about it.

...

You’ll never know how many children you have fathered.

There’s no legal limit, but the biggest sperm banks have policies that one donor’s sperm will not be allowed to sire children for more than 25 to 30 different “family units.” But some families may have two or three children with the donor’s sperm, and others may not report a birth, so they would not be counted in that limit. Some men who have joined the Donor Sibling Registry, a site where donors and their children can connect, have been surprised and disturbed to discover that they have dozens of offspring.

You may or may not get to meet them.

Sperm donors usually have the option to remain anonymous, or to agree that the children can get in touch when they turn 18. There has been a growing recognition of children’s rights to know their genetic parents — and recently a trend toward donor willingness to be identified. Even anonymous donors are increasingly being identified by curious children as genetic testing becomes cheaper and more common."

In Britain, National Sperm Bank stops recruiting donors

The Telegraph has the story: National Sperm Bank stops recruiting donors after just two years

"The National Sperm Bank (NSB) was a joint project run by the National Gamete Donation Trust (NGDT) and the Birmingham Women’s Fertility Centre and launched in October 2014 with a £77,000 grant from the Department of Health.

It was hoped the service would plug the gap in the shortage of donors and prevent couples being forced to look for sperm from overseas.

The bank hoped to be self-sufficient within a year but because the full donor process takes up to 18 months they were unable to generate enough income to keep going.

Although they only managed to recruit seven viable donors, experts said it was the business model that proved their ultimate downfall.

...

"“For every 100 men who enquire about being a donor, only 4 or 5 are ultimately accepted.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority estimate that 2,000 children are born every year in the UK using donated eggs, sperm or embryos and there are around licensed UK clinics performing sperm donor insemination.

But the majority of clinics are based in London and the south-east of England and treatment can be expensive. The cost of donor sperm from the UK's largest sperm bank, the London Sperm Bank, is currently £950. In contrast the National Sperm bank was proposing to charge £300 per insemination.

...

"The bank has also suffered because since 2005 the children of donors have a right to learn the identity of their fathers when they turn 18. The numbers of men willing to donate sperm has fallen dramatically since their anonymity was removed."

Como Funcionam Os Mercados (Portuguese edition of Who Gets What and Why)...

The Portuguese edition of Who Gets What and Why comes out this week:

COMO FUNCIONAM OS MERCADOS

Alvin E. Roth

Tradução: Isa Mara Lando
Mauro Lando 

 http://www.companhiadasletras.com.br/detalhe.php?codigo=75014to previsto para 25/10/2016

Here's an interview about the book in the newspaper Valor Economico, conducted by Diego Viana (gated and in Portuguese): O desenho do mercado 
Here's the intro:

Roth, Alvin E. Como funcionam os mercados: A nova economia das combinações e do desenho de mercado. Portfolio-Penguin, 2016.

La maga de riñones: The kidney conjurer (a poem about kidney exchange by Marisol Robles)

In kidney exchange, surgeons (and even economists) are important, but transplant coordinators are the hidden heroes and heroines. Here's a poem by the Mexican poet Marisol Robles (who last week received a kidney in a global kidney exchange chain organized by the Alliance for Paired Donation) in honor of Susan Rees, the APD's transplant coordinator.  The Spanish poem is translated by her husband Cuauhtémoc.

La maga de riñones, by Marisol Robles

 You can follow Marisol Robles on her blog Diario de la sed (Diary of thirst), which recounts her progress. (Google translate does a pretty good job on most of her posts...Kidney patients on dialysis are thirsty, since they have to time their drinking to their dialysis sessions...)

P.S. Susan Rees, the nurse transplant coordinator celebrated in the poem, is also the wife of Mike Rees, the founder of the APD, who organized the very first non-simultaneous kidney exchange chain.

A (first) three way kidney exchange in New Zealand

Minister welcomes NZ's first three way kidney exchange
RACHEL CLAYTON AND LAURA WALTERS, October 24 2016


"A three-way kidney transplant exchange has been carried out in New Zealand for the first time.

The process involved taking three incompatible donor and recipient pairings and matching them with each other to allow a transplant to take place.

The transplants took place in Canterbury and Auckland earlier this month "



"Organ donation in New Zealand has risen over the past 10 years, from 29 dead organ donors in 2005 to 53 in 2015.

A Catholic priest in Kerala India helps organize kidney transplant chains

Business of Kidneys: Kerala priest facilitates domino transplants for over fifty patients

"Nephrologists at New Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences estimate that five lakh people live with failed kidneys in India at a time. A Lancet study revealed that just 10 per cent of patients suffering from kidney failure have access to dialysis, and 70 per cent of those starting dialysis die or discontinue treatment within the first three months due to the high cost of the treatment.
"The Catholic priest in Kerala's Thrissur district mooted a chain of kidney exchanges with a voluntary donor offering a kidney to a needy person, and a relative of this recipient in turn donating his/her kidney to another person, and so on. This system is known as 'Domino Transplant'. In the last five years, 56 people have been part of such kidney exchange chains, linking disparate people from industrialists to truck drivers in a chain. Two hundred others have pledged to join the chains when compatible donor-recipient pairings are established. Fr Davis Chiramel says the numbers could have been higher but for the poor medical infrastructure it could not."

Public appeals for organ donors by patients in Canada

The Ottawa Sun has the story: After Eugene Melnyk, transplant surgeons OK public appeals for living organ donors

"Eighteen months after a donated liver from a stranger saved the life of Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk, his case has helped prompt Canadian transplant officials to accept that public pleas for living organ donors are ethical, legal and even beneficial, under the right circumstances.

Melnyk was one of two high profile cases in 2015 (the other was the family of twin girls from Eastern Ontario, the Wagners) in which public pleas were made for a liver donor. Hundreds of people answered the call to donate parts of their livers to save Melnyk’s life. His eventual transplant was a success and both Melnyk and his anonymous donor — who was described only as a Senator’s fan — recovered. Little Binh Wagner also recovered from a successful liver transplanted from an anonymous donor (her twin sister received part of their father’s liver).

The cases raised ethical questions about the fairness of public pleas that tend to favour those with more compelling stories over others legitimately waiting for an organ transplant. They also highlighted the fact that there is no national policy on organ solicitation, a gap the Canadian Society of Transplantation, the Canadian National Transplant Research Program and the Canadian Blood Services hope to close with guidelines released this week.

The guidelines acknowledge that ethical questions remain, but note that the gap between supply and demand of organs and the availability of public platforms to easily make such pleas means those questions are going to continue.

Dr. Atul Humar, medical director of transplant at the University Health Networks in Toronto where Melnyk’s and Binh Wagner’s transplants were performed, said public solicitations are increasing, mainly because of easy access to social media and a shortage of organs to transplant. Earlier this year, Gianna-Lynn Favilla, an eight-year-old Russell girl, received a life-saving liver transplant after the family made a desperate public plea on her behalf. The donor was a neighbour and the father of Gianna-Lynn’s best friend.

At the end of 2014, 4,514 patients (3,473 for a kidney and 507 for a liver) were waiting for an organ in Canada. During the same year, 2,356 transplant procedures were performed and 278 patients died while on the waiting list."
...
"The issue has caused some soul searching among transplant officials in Canada and around the world. Some institutions have refused to transplant organs obtained from public solicitation and the practice is banned in Australia. Recently, European transplant officials came to a similar conclusion as the Canadian guidelines: “As long as donor shortage persists, we should not condemn patients, who do not have a live kidney donor, or only have a very slim chance of finding a suitable donor when they decide to publicly solicit for a live donor.”

Tissue transplants and tissue banks

Solid organ donation gets more press, but tissue transplants and medical devices made from human tissue are big business. Here's a profile of a Virginia organ and tissue bank:
Hearts, lungs and kidneys recovered by LifeNet Health get the most attention, but tissue is the larger player, By Elizabeth Simpson, The Virginian-Pilot

"[Tissues] are used in a wide variety of ways: to reconstruct breasts after cancer treatment. To repair joints in knees and ankles. To treat wounds of diabetics suffering from foot ulcers. To bridge bones in spinal fusion surgeries.

Douglas Wilson, LifeNet Health’s executive vice president, puts it into perspective this way: In one month, LifeNet provides solid organs for 40 to 60 patients, most of whom live in Virginia. But in terms of tissue transplants, some 40,000 patients a month across the globe receive LifeNet bioimplants.

That branch powers the growth of LifeNet, a nonprofit in the burgeoning Princess Anne bioscience corridor with operating revenue that topped $200 million last year. Solid organ recoveries went from 385 in 2011 to 467 last year, and tissue transplants from 389,000 to 462,000.

LifeNet is one of 58 organ procurement organizations in the country, and one of more than 100 accredited tissue banks. By law, companies can’t sell human tissue, but they can charge fees for recovery, processing, storing and distributing tissue.

And LifeNet fiercely guards its techniques. In 2014, the organization took a rival tissue transplant company to court, saying it used LifeNet’s patented technology to preserve tissue grafts and bone.

A federal jury awarded nearly $35 million to LifeNet, a finding that was appealed by the New Jersey-based LifeCell Corp., but upheld by a federal appeals court last month.

Wilson expects the growth in the tissue transplant field – which includes both for-profits and nonprofits – to continue, considering a few trends:

More older people will experience worn-out knees, hips, tendons and spinal discs. Obesity rates will fuel more diabetes cases with ulcers that require tissue transplants. And there’s the explosive field of regenerative medicine, which focuses on replacing and regenerating human cells.

“We’re sending tissue to every state and 30 countries,” Wilson said. “Allografts are used in almost every hospital in the U.S.”

When technical specialist Craig Wolf came to work at LifeNet 28 years ago, he was one of 44 employees. The number now? Nearly 900. The company has 600 products, 60 patents and branch offices in Washington and Florida."

Organ donation in Wales (where registration is now opt out)

Here's an early, optimistic report:
Organ donation rates have risen since the 'opt-out' system was introduced in Wales

"There has been a rise in the number of organs being donated by people in Wales since the new “opt out” law was put in place last year.

New figures from the Organ Donation Annual Report 2016 have revealed a 7% increase in the number of deceased donors donating in Welsh hospitals, up from 60 in 2014-15 to 64 in 2015-16.

Similarly, the number of donors after brain death increased by 13% to 36, while the number of donors after circulatory death remained the same at 28."
*********
I can't actually find the full year figures through the end of their fiscal year, but here is
Organ Donation and Transplantation Activity Data: WALESAnnual data for financial years 2011/12 to 2014/15 and data for 2015/16 - first 3 quartersDate published: January 2016

NBER Market Design meeting at Stanford: Oct 28-9

Market Design Working Group Meeting

Michael Ostrovsky and Parag Pathak, Organizers

October 28-29, 2016

SIEPR Koret-Taube Conference Center Stanford University 366 Galvez Street Stanford, CA

Program

Participant List

 

Friday, October 28
8:30 am	Continental Breakfast
9:00 am	Darrell Duffie, Stanford University and NBER Haoxiang Zhu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER Size Discovery
	Ahmad Peivandi, Georgia State University Participation and Unbiased Pricing in CDS Settlement Mechanisms
10:30 am	Break
11:00 am	Laura Doval, Yale University A Theory of Stability in Dynamic Matching Markets
	Hugo Hopenhayn, University of California at Los Angeles and NBER Maryam Saeedi, Carnegie Mellon University Bidding Dynamics in Auctions
12:30 pm	Lunch
2:00 pm	Christina Aperjis, Power Auctions LLC Lawrence Ausubel, University of Maryland Oleg Baranov, University of Colorado Boulder Thayer Morrill, North Carolina State University Efficient Procurement Auctions with Increasing Returns
	Tibor Heumann, Princeton University Ascending Auctions with Multidimensional Signals
3:30 pm	Break
4:00 pm	John Hatfield, University of Texas at Austin Scott Duke Kominers, Harvard University Hidden Substitutes
	Paul Milgrom, Stanford University Deferred Acceptance Auctions Without Substitutes
5:30 pm	Adjourn
6:30 pm	Dinner Il Fornaio Restaurant 520 Cowper Street Palo Alto, CA
Saturday, October 29
8:30 am	Continental Breakfast
9:00 am	Gabriel Carroll, Stanford University Ilya Segal, Stanford University Robustly Optimal Auctions with Unknown Resale Opportunities
	Songzi Du, Simon Fraser University Robust Mechanisms Under Common Valuation
10:30 am	Break
11:00 am	Shengwu Li, Stanford University Obviously Strategy-Proof Mechanisms
	Marek Pycia, University of California at Los Angeles Peter Troyan, University of Virginia Obvious Dominance and Random Priority
12:30 pm	Lunch
2:00 pm	Benjamin Roth, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ran Shorrer, Pennsylvania State University Making it Safe to Use Centralized Markets: Epsilon-Dominant Individual Rationality and Applications to Market Design
	Michal Feldman, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Nicole Immorlica, Northwestern University Brendan Lucier, Microsoft Research Tim Roughgarden, Stanford University Vasilis Syrgkanis, Microsoft Research Efficiency Guarantees in Large Markets
3:30 pm	Break
4:00 pm	David Delacretaz, University of Melbourne Scott Duke Kominers, Harvard University Alexander Teytelboym, University of Oxford Refugee Resettlement
	Tommy Andersson, Lund University Lars Ehlers, Université de Montréal Assigning Refugees to Landlords in Sweden: Stable Maximum Matchings
5:30 pm	Adjourn

Re-auction of Kenneth Wilson's, 1982 Nobel medal for Physics

The Nobel Prize medal awarded to physicist Kenneth G. Wilson in 1982 is up for auction, again. (Apparently its hard to pick an appropriate reservation price...)

Here's the current auction page:
Nobel Prize Awarded to Physicist Kenneth G. Wilson in 1982 -- One of the Kingpins of Quantum Physics, OCTOBER 2016 AUCTION ENDS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27TH, 5PM PACIFIC
Minimum Bid:$95,000


Here's the previous auction (from the same auction house), which apparently didn't draw any bids:
MAY 2016 AUCTION ENDS THURSDAY, MAY 26TH, 5PM PACIFIC

Minimum Bid:	$450,000
Final prices include buyers premium.:	$0
Number Bids:	0

****************
Update: this auction apparently didn't draw any bids either:

Current Bidding
Minimum Bid:	$220,000
Final prices include buyers premium.:	$0
Number Bids:	0

Auction closed on Thursday, October 27, 2016.

Matching patients to clinical trials

There are lots of clinical trials that a patient might be eligible for, but with many constraints on eligibility it isn't trivial to match patients to trials.
Modernhealthcare.com has a story:
 Providers turn to technology to match patients to clinical trials

"Clinical trial recruitment has long been one of the most challenging areas of drug development, with the potential to add significant costs and delays. And as the medical field gains a greater understanding of cancer pathways and genomics, finding patients for these trials has become only more complex.

Now a number of technology companies are aiming to solve that problem by helping providers identify clinical trials for patients who might qualify.

...

"At any given time, there are as many as 180,000 ongoing clinical trials, each with its own specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. Meanwhile, physicians have only 15 minutes, in many cases, to explore these options with a patient"

HT: Itai Ashlagi

Los Altos High School STEM Week. Oct 25-27

Here's the program for the Los Altos High School STEM week.
I'll be speaking Wednesday morning.

New York City high school admissions, signaling 'demonstrated interest,' in The Atlantic

High school admissions in NYC may end with a (well designed) deferred acceptance algorithm, but the process starts long before students and some schools submit their preference lists. The Atlantic writes about how it is hard to form preferences over high schools, and to signal them to the schools through 'demonstrated interest'...

Broken Promise of New York City's High-School Admissions System
Its high-school fair is designed to give attendees a leg up in the application process—but that’s not always the case
(The URL is more informative than the headline:  http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/10/the-broken-promise-of-demonstrated-interest/503168/ )

Raj Chetty at the LSE: How Can We Improve Economic Opportunities for Low-Income Children?

Lionel Robbins Memorial Lecture Series

How Can We Improve Economic Opportunities for Low-Income Children?

Date: Monday 24th, Tuesday 25th and Wednesday 26th October 2016
Time: 18:30 - 20:00
Venue: LSE Old Theatre
Speaker: Professor Raj Chetty

In this series of lectures, Raj Chetty will discuss findings from the Equality of Opportunity Project, which uses big data to develop new answers to this important and timely policy question. The presentation will show how children's opportunities to climb the income ladder vary substantially depending upon where they grow up.It will then identify factors that contribute to this geographic variation in opportunities for upward mobility. The talks will conclude by offering policy lessons for how social mobility and economic opportunity can be increased in the next generation.

Lecture 1: The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility
(Chair: Prof. Steve Machin, CEP Director)
Lecture 2: Policies to Improve Upward Mobility
(Chair: Prof. Robin Burgess, IGC & STICERD, LSE)
Lecture 3: Upward Mobility, Innovation, and Economic Growth
(Chair: Prof. Henrik Kleven, CEP, IGC & STICERD, LSE)

About the speaker: Raj Chetty is a Professor of Economics at Stanford University. His research combines empirical evidence and economic theory to help design more effective government policies. His work on tax policy, unemployment insurance, and education has been widely cited in media outlets and Congressional testimony.

This event is free and open to all with no ticket or pre-registration required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis

For more information on how to attend, please visit the LSE Events office webpage at:

Monday:http://www.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2016/10/20161024t1830vOT.aspx
Tuesday:http://www.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2016/10/20161025t1830vOT.aspx
Wednesday:http://www.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2016/10/20161026t1830vOT.aspx

Airbnb faces regulatory headwinds in NY

The FT has the story:
Airbnb faces fight for survival in New York City
Governor set to sign legislation likely to end start-up’s business in Big Apple


"The online service, which connects owners of homes and flats with tourists and other renters in cities around the world, has often clashed with regulators which accuse the company of facilitating illegal hotel businesses and reducing affordable housing stock.

In New York, hotel unions and New York City officials have been particularly vociferous on the company’s failure to comply with a 2010 accommodation law that banned short-term rentals in Manhattan, but which is rarely enforced.

On Wednesday, Airbnb said that it wanted to pay taxes in New York, estimating that it could generate about $90m a year in the state under its new registration scheme. The company also proposed a new “three strikes” rule that would permanently ban hosts who broke the 2010 law more than three times.

The company has already reached agreements on collecting and remitting taxes with many other cities, including Paris, its largest market. In New York City, Airbnb hosts 46,000 flats and homes.

Like other such Silicon Valley start-ups that have disrupted traditional business models, Airbnb has been forced, often through confrontation, to become more responsive to local regulators and interest groups as it expands."
*********

And, after the governor signed the bill,
Airbnb Sues Over New Law Regulating New York Rentals
"Hours after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York signed a bill that would impose steep fines on Airbnb hosts who break local housing regulations, Airbnb filed a federal lawsuit contending the new law would cause it “irreparable harm.”

The heightened battle in New York follows lawsuits that Airbnb has filed against its hometown San Francisco and in Santa Monica, Calif., which have both moved to fine the company for illegal listings.

The company, which operates in a regulatory gray area around the globe, is also fighting tough battles in Amsterdam and Barcelona, Spain, which penalizes hosts who list illegal rentals, and in Berlin, which has banned most short-term rentals."

Soros on refugee resettlement as a matching problem

 George Soros on refugees, earlier this summer:
This is Europe’s Last Chance to Fix Its Refugee Policy
Foreign Policy Magazine, Jul 19, 2016

"Fifth, once refugees have been recognized, there needs to be a mechanism for relocating them within Europe in an agreed way. It will be crucial for the EU to fundamentally rethink the implementation of its stillborn resettlement and relocation programs; a tentative step in this direction was taken last week in new proposals put forth by the European Commission. The union cannot coerce either member states or refugees to participate in these programs. They must be voluntary; a matching scheme could elicit preferences from both refugees and receiving communities so that people end up where they want to be and where they are welcome. EASO has begun to develop such a matching scheme."

A somewhat shorter summary of his whole argument is here:
Saving Refugees to Save Europe

China, transplants, and executed prisoners: is the situation getting clearer?

A recent meeting in China cautiously suggests that there may be some concrete change in the practice of transplanting organs from executed prisoners:
Doctors hail China’s pledge to stop harvesting inmate organs

"Doctors from the World Health Organization and the Montreal-based Transplantation Society who were invited to the conference by China praised Chinese officials for reforms they have made in the transplant system, including a ban put in place last year on using organs from executed inmates.

"Doubts persist that China is accurately reporting figures or meeting its pledge given its severe shortage of organ donors and China’s long-standing black-market organ trade. By its own figures, China has one of the lowest rates of organ donation in the world, and even the system’s advocates say it needs hundreds of additional hospitals and doctors.

"While China suppresses most discussions about human rights, government officials and state media have publicly talked about their commitment to ending a practice opposed by doctors and human rights groups due to fears that it promotes executions and coercion.
...
"Others offered praise for Chinese officials, but stopped short of saying whether they could confirm China had stopped using executed inmates’ organs.

“It’s not a matter for us to prove to you that it’s zero,” said Dr. Francis Delmonico, a longtime surgeon and a professor at Harvard Medical School. “It’s a matter for the government to fulfill what is the law, just as it is in the other countries of the world that we go to.”

"China is believed to perform more executions than any other country, though the government does not disclose how many.

"The former vice minister of health, Dr. Huang Jiefu, publicly acknowledged in 2005 that China harvested executed inmates’ organs for transplant, and a paper he coauthored six years later reported that as many as 90 percent of Chinese transplant surgeries using organs from dead people came from those put to death.

"Huang has also responded to a report earlier this year that a Canadian patient apparently received a kidney from an executed inmate by announcing that the doctor and the hospital in question were suspended from performing more transplants."