The article focuses on contributions by market designers Peng Shi, Parag Pathak, and Tayfun Sonmez.
The School Committee is scheduled to vote on this tonight.
The School Committee is scheduled to vote on this tonight.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Boston reconsiders districts for its school choice system
Boston Public Schools divides schools into districts, and families can rank schools in their district. They have been debating changing the districts by redrawing the map. But drawing maps is hard. They are now considering a proposal for essentially defining a different district for each child, based on the idea of giving each child potential access to schools of different quality. The NY Times has the story today: No Division Required in This School Problem.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Horse meat in Europe, continuing...
The European scandal over mis-labeled horse meat also reveals something about the cultural variation concerning horses as food, which plays into discussions about the common market...: Recipe for Divided Europe: Add Horse, Then Stir
"the horse meat scandal has brought into the open the deep divisions, cultural and otherwise, that bedevil the European Union. A meat that nearly all Britons consider revolting, for example, is cherished as a protein-rich delight by a small but loyal minority in places like Belgium, the home of the European Union’s Brussels bureaucracy and Europe’s biggest per capita consumer of horse meat. (Italy, with its larger population, eats the most horse over all.)
"For a surging camp of so-called Euroskeptics in Britain, the fact that horse meat has entered the food chain through a host of middlemen and factories scattered across the Continent stands as proof of unbridgeable cultural chasms that, in their view, make the European Union unworkable."
...
"It has also led a growing number of European food producers and stores to seek shelter in patriotism by assuring consumers that their meat comes entirely from within their own country’s borders. ...
"Growing calls for mandatory “country of origin” labeling on all processed meats sold in Europe have stirred concern in Brussels about a surge in what Mr. Borg, the health and consumer affairs commissioner, has called “veiled protectionism.” Until now, only unprocessed meat had to identify its place of origin.
“The Germans are saying we are only going to eat German products. The French are saying the same for French products. What happened to the common market? This is really serious,” said Françoise Grossetête, a French member of the European Parliament."
"the horse meat scandal has brought into the open the deep divisions, cultural and otherwise, that bedevil the European Union. A meat that nearly all Britons consider revolting, for example, is cherished as a protein-rich delight by a small but loyal minority in places like Belgium, the home of the European Union’s Brussels bureaucracy and Europe’s biggest per capita consumer of horse meat. (Italy, with its larger population, eats the most horse over all.)
"For a surging camp of so-called Euroskeptics in Britain, the fact that horse meat has entered the food chain through a host of middlemen and factories scattered across the Continent stands as proof of unbridgeable cultural chasms that, in their view, make the European Union unworkable."
...
"It has also led a growing number of European food producers and stores to seek shelter in patriotism by assuring consumers that their meat comes entirely from within their own country’s borders. ...
"Growing calls for mandatory “country of origin” labeling on all processed meats sold in Europe have stirred concern in Brussels about a surge in what Mr. Borg, the health and consumer affairs commissioner, has called “veiled protectionism.” Until now, only unprocessed meat had to identify its place of origin.
“The Germans are saying we are only going to eat German products. The French are saying the same for French products. What happened to the common market? This is really serious,” said Françoise Grossetête, a French member of the European Parliament."
Monday, March 11, 2013
Marriage markets in China
Brook Larmer writes in the NY Times about the changing marriage market: The Price of Marriage in China (I like the URL better than the headline: it refers to business/in-a-changing-china-new-matchmaking-markets.) Her story (well worth reading in its entirety) follows two marriage markets, one an expensive matchmaking service for wealthy men, one an open air market in a park where mothers seek spouses for their children.
"Ms. Yang, 28, is one of China’s premier love hunters, a new breed of matchmaker that has proliferated in the country’s economic boom. The company she works for, Diamond Love and Marriage, caters to China’s nouveaux riches: men, and occasionally women, willing to pay tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars to outsource the search for their ideal spouse.
...
"When the woman walked into H & M, Ms. Yang intercepted her in the sweater aisle. “I’m so sorry to bother you,” she said with a honeyed smile. “I’m a love hunter. Are you looking for love?”
Three miles away, in a Beijing park near the Temple of Heaven, a woman named Yu Jia jostled for space under a grove of elms. A widowed 67-year-old pensioner, she was clearing a spot on the ground for a sign she had scrawled for her son. “Seeking Marriage,” read the wrinkled sheet of paper, which Ms. Yu held in place with a few fragments of brick and stone. “Male. Single. Born 1972. Height 172 cm. High school education. Job in Beijing.”
Ms. Yu is another kind of love hunter: a parent seeking a spouse for an adult child in the so-called marriage markets that have popped up in parks across the city. Long rows of graying men and women sat in front of signs listing their children’s qualifications. Hundreds of others trudged by, stopping occasionally to make an inquiry.
Ms. Yu’s crude sign had no flourishes: no photograph, no blood type, no zodiac sign, no line about income or assets. Unlike the millionaire’s wish list, the sign didn’t even specify what sort of wife her son wanted. “We don’t have much choice,” she explained. “At this point, we can’t rule anybody out.”
In the four years she has been seeking a wife for her son, Zhao Yong, there have been only a handful of prospects. Even so, when a woman in a green plastic visor paused to scan her sign that day, Ms. Yu put on a bright smile and told of her son’s fine character and good looks. The woman asked: “Does he own an apartment in Beijing?” Ms. Yu’s smile wilted, and the woman moved on.
...
"As many as 300 million rural Chinese have moved to cities in the last three decades. Uprooted and without nearby relatives to help arrange meetings with potential partners, these migrants are often lost in the swell of the big city.
"Demographic changes, too, are creating complications. Not only are many more Chinese women postponing marriage to pursue careers, but China’s gender gap — 118 boys are born for every 100 girls — has become one of the world’s widest, fueled in large part by the government’s restrictive one-child policy. By the end of this decade, Chinese researchers estimate, the country will have a surplus of 24 million unmarried men.
"Without traditional family or social networks, many men and women have taken their searches online, where thousands of dating and marriage Web sites have sprung up in an industry that analysts predict will soon surpass $300 million annually. These sites cater mainly to China’s millions of white-collar workers. But intense competition, along with mistrust of potential mates’ online claims, has spurred a growing number of singles — rich and poor — to turn to more hands-on matchmaking services.
...
"Dozens of high-end matchmaking services have sprung up in China in the last five years, charging big fees to find and to vet prospective spouses for wealthy clients. Their methods can turn into gaudy spectacle. One firm transported 200 would-be trophy wives to a resort town in southwestern China for the perusal of one powerful magnate. Another organized a caravan of BMWs for rich businessmen to find young wives in Sichuan Province. Diamond Love, among the largest love-hunting services, sponsored a matchmaking event in 2009 where 21 men each paid a $15,000 entrance fee.
...
"The company’s wealthiest, highest-paying clients — 90 percent of whom are men — show little interest in lectures or databases. They want exclusive access to what Ms. Fei coolly refers to as “fresh resources”: young women who haven’t yet been exposed to other suitors online. It’s the love hunters’ job to find them.
"Besides giving clients a vastly expanded pool of marriage prospects, these campaigns offer a sense of security. Rigorous background checks screen out what Ms. Fei calls “gold diggers, liars and people of loose morals.” Depending on a campaign’s size, Diamond Love charges from $50,000 to more than $1 million. Ms. Fei makes no apologies for the high fees.
“Why shouldn’t they pay more to find the perfect wife?” she asked me. “This is the most important investment in their lives.”
...
"One afternoon when we met, the normally animated Ms. Yang slumped onto the sofa, exhausted. She had just spent an hour with a rich Chinese businesswoman in her late 30s. The woman proposed spending $100,000 on a campaign to find a husband who matched her status.
“I had to tell her we couldn’t take her case,” Ms. Yang said. “No wealthy Chinese man would ever marry her. They always want somebody younger, with less power.”
"We sat in silence a minute before Ms. Yang spoke again. “It’s depressing to think about these ‘leftover women,’ ” she said. “Do you have them in America, too?”
...
"The marriage candidates on offer in the parks, she discovered, were often a mismatch of shengnu (“leftover women”) and shengnan (“leftover men”), two groups from opposite ends of the social scale. Shengnan, like her son, are mostly poor rural men left behind as female counterparts marry up in age and social status. The phenomenon is exacerbated by China’s warped demographics, as the bubble of excess men starts to reach marrying age.
Finding a Chinese spouse can be even more challenging for so-called leftover women, even if they often have precisely what the shengnan lack: money, education and social and professional standing. One day in the Temple of Heaven park, I met a 70-year-old pensioner from Anhui Province who was seeking a husband for his eldest daughter, a 36-year-old economics professor in Beijing.
“My daughter is an outstanding girl,” he said, pulling from his satchel an academic book she had published. “She’s been introduced to about 15 men over the past two years, but they all rejected her because her degree is too high.”
...
"Even in the countryside, where men’s families pay bride prices, inflation is rampant. Ms. Yu’s family paid about $3,500 when Mr. Zhao’s older brother married 10 years ago in rural Heilongjiang. Today, she said, brides’ families ask for $30,000, even $50,000. An apartment, the urban equivalent of the bride price, is even further out of reach. At Mr. Zhao’s current income, it would take a decade or two before he could afford a small Beijing apartment, which he said would start at about $100,000. “I’ll be an old man by then,” he said with a rueful smile.
...
"Not long after our conversation in McDonald’s, Mr. Zhao met the woman at a coffee shop. It was, he told me later, even more awkward than most first dates. A rural migrant and door-to-door salesman, he struggled to find a shared topic of interest with the woman, a 35-year-old entrepreneur and Beijing native who had arrived driving a BMW sedan.
The lack of chemistry didn’t seem to bother the woman, who told him about her profitable photo business and the three Beijing apartments she owned. Mr. Zhao didn’t find her unattractive, but how was he supposed to respond? Then, even before broaching the possibility of a second date, he said, the woman made a proposition: if they married, he wouldn’t have to work again.
...
"in the end, he couldn’t imagine being subordinate to a woman. “If I accepted that situation,” he asked me, “what kind of man would I be?”
...
"The news frustrated Ms. Yu. “Kids these days are way too picky,” she said.
"Ms. Yang, 28, is one of China’s premier love hunters, a new breed of matchmaker that has proliferated in the country’s economic boom. The company she works for, Diamond Love and Marriage, caters to China’s nouveaux riches: men, and occasionally women, willing to pay tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars to outsource the search for their ideal spouse.
...
"When the woman walked into H & M, Ms. Yang intercepted her in the sweater aisle. “I’m so sorry to bother you,” she said with a honeyed smile. “I’m a love hunter. Are you looking for love?”
Three miles away, in a Beijing park near the Temple of Heaven, a woman named Yu Jia jostled for space under a grove of elms. A widowed 67-year-old pensioner, she was clearing a spot on the ground for a sign she had scrawled for her son. “Seeking Marriage,” read the wrinkled sheet of paper, which Ms. Yu held in place with a few fragments of brick and stone. “Male. Single. Born 1972. Height 172 cm. High school education. Job in Beijing.”
Ms. Yu is another kind of love hunter: a parent seeking a spouse for an adult child in the so-called marriage markets that have popped up in parks across the city. Long rows of graying men and women sat in front of signs listing their children’s qualifications. Hundreds of others trudged by, stopping occasionally to make an inquiry.
Ms. Yu’s crude sign had no flourishes: no photograph, no blood type, no zodiac sign, no line about income or assets. Unlike the millionaire’s wish list, the sign didn’t even specify what sort of wife her son wanted. “We don’t have much choice,” she explained. “At this point, we can’t rule anybody out.”
In the four years she has been seeking a wife for her son, Zhao Yong, there have been only a handful of prospects. Even so, when a woman in a green plastic visor paused to scan her sign that day, Ms. Yu put on a bright smile and told of her son’s fine character and good looks. The woman asked: “Does he own an apartment in Beijing?” Ms. Yu’s smile wilted, and the woman moved on.
...
"As many as 300 million rural Chinese have moved to cities in the last three decades. Uprooted and without nearby relatives to help arrange meetings with potential partners, these migrants are often lost in the swell of the big city.
"Demographic changes, too, are creating complications. Not only are many more Chinese women postponing marriage to pursue careers, but China’s gender gap — 118 boys are born for every 100 girls — has become one of the world’s widest, fueled in large part by the government’s restrictive one-child policy. By the end of this decade, Chinese researchers estimate, the country will have a surplus of 24 million unmarried men.
"Without traditional family or social networks, many men and women have taken their searches online, where thousands of dating and marriage Web sites have sprung up in an industry that analysts predict will soon surpass $300 million annually. These sites cater mainly to China’s millions of white-collar workers. But intense competition, along with mistrust of potential mates’ online claims, has spurred a growing number of singles — rich and poor — to turn to more hands-on matchmaking services.
...
"Dozens of high-end matchmaking services have sprung up in China in the last five years, charging big fees to find and to vet prospective spouses for wealthy clients. Their methods can turn into gaudy spectacle. One firm transported 200 would-be trophy wives to a resort town in southwestern China for the perusal of one powerful magnate. Another organized a caravan of BMWs for rich businessmen to find young wives in Sichuan Province. Diamond Love, among the largest love-hunting services, sponsored a matchmaking event in 2009 where 21 men each paid a $15,000 entrance fee.
...
"The company’s wealthiest, highest-paying clients — 90 percent of whom are men — show little interest in lectures or databases. They want exclusive access to what Ms. Fei coolly refers to as “fresh resources”: young women who haven’t yet been exposed to other suitors online. It’s the love hunters’ job to find them.
"Besides giving clients a vastly expanded pool of marriage prospects, these campaigns offer a sense of security. Rigorous background checks screen out what Ms. Fei calls “gold diggers, liars and people of loose morals.” Depending on a campaign’s size, Diamond Love charges from $50,000 to more than $1 million. Ms. Fei makes no apologies for the high fees.
“Why shouldn’t they pay more to find the perfect wife?” she asked me. “This is the most important investment in their lives.”
...
"One afternoon when we met, the normally animated Ms. Yang slumped onto the sofa, exhausted. She had just spent an hour with a rich Chinese businesswoman in her late 30s. The woman proposed spending $100,000 on a campaign to find a husband who matched her status.
“I had to tell her we couldn’t take her case,” Ms. Yang said. “No wealthy Chinese man would ever marry her. They always want somebody younger, with less power.”
"We sat in silence a minute before Ms. Yang spoke again. “It’s depressing to think about these ‘leftover women,’ ” she said. “Do you have them in America, too?”
...
"The marriage candidates on offer in the parks, she discovered, were often a mismatch of shengnu (“leftover women”) and shengnan (“leftover men”), two groups from opposite ends of the social scale. Shengnan, like her son, are mostly poor rural men left behind as female counterparts marry up in age and social status. The phenomenon is exacerbated by China’s warped demographics, as the bubble of excess men starts to reach marrying age.
Finding a Chinese spouse can be even more challenging for so-called leftover women, even if they often have precisely what the shengnan lack: money, education and social and professional standing. One day in the Temple of Heaven park, I met a 70-year-old pensioner from Anhui Province who was seeking a husband for his eldest daughter, a 36-year-old economics professor in Beijing.
“My daughter is an outstanding girl,” he said, pulling from his satchel an academic book she had published. “She’s been introduced to about 15 men over the past two years, but they all rejected her because her degree is too high.”
...
"Even in the countryside, where men’s families pay bride prices, inflation is rampant. Ms. Yu’s family paid about $3,500 when Mr. Zhao’s older brother married 10 years ago in rural Heilongjiang. Today, she said, brides’ families ask for $30,000, even $50,000. An apartment, the urban equivalent of the bride price, is even further out of reach. At Mr. Zhao’s current income, it would take a decade or two before he could afford a small Beijing apartment, which he said would start at about $100,000. “I’ll be an old man by then,” he said with a rueful smile.
...
"Not long after our conversation in McDonald’s, Mr. Zhao met the woman at a coffee shop. It was, he told me later, even more awkward than most first dates. A rural migrant and door-to-door salesman, he struggled to find a shared topic of interest with the woman, a 35-year-old entrepreneur and Beijing native who had arrived driving a BMW sedan.
The lack of chemistry didn’t seem to bother the woman, who told him about her profitable photo business and the three Beijing apartments she owned. Mr. Zhao didn’t find her unattractive, but how was he supposed to respond? Then, even before broaching the possibility of a second date, he said, the woman made a proposition: if they married, he wouldn’t have to work again.
...
"in the end, he couldn’t imagine being subordinate to a woman. “If I accepted that situation,” he asked me, “what kind of man would I be?”
...
"The news frustrated Ms. Yu. “Kids these days are way too picky,” she said.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
B-School Matchmaking: Job matching one at a time
The WSJ has the story of how Business schools are helping their students find jobs even in firms that may just be trying to fill one or two positions: In Job Hunt, B-Schools Play Matchmaker
"Business schools are exploring a new service: matchmaking.
"After relying for years on assembly line-like interview schedules, career-services offices at some top schools are taking a personalized approach to the student job hunt. Some are beefing up one-on-one advising sessions to help students define career goals, while others are making individual introductions to alumni or sending job postings to student clubs.
"The new tack comes as M.B.A.s consider careers in industries like technology and clean energy, where companies tend to hire one or two students at a time, rather than in large numbers like at finance and consulting firms, traditional B-school employers.
"There's been a complete upending of the model," says Pulin Sanghvi, assistant dean and director of the Career Management Center at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He reorganized the 16-person office last year to strengthen individual advising, alumni relations and connections with new employers, particularly private-equity firms, hedge funds and technology startups.
"Around 80% of the companies that hired Stanford M.B.A.s last year took just one student; only 16 hired four or more."
"Business schools are exploring a new service: matchmaking.
"After relying for years on assembly line-like interview schedules, career-services offices at some top schools are taking a personalized approach to the student job hunt. Some are beefing up one-on-one advising sessions to help students define career goals, while others are making individual introductions to alumni or sending job postings to student clubs.
"The new tack comes as M.B.A.s consider careers in industries like technology and clean energy, where companies tend to hire one or two students at a time, rather than in large numbers like at finance and consulting firms, traditional B-school employers.
"There's been a complete upending of the model," says Pulin Sanghvi, assistant dean and director of the Career Management Center at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He reorganized the 16-person office last year to strengthen individual advising, alumni relations and connections with new employers, particularly private-equity firms, hedge funds and technology startups.
"Around 80% of the companies that hired Stanford M.B.A.s last year took just one student; only 16 hired four or more."
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Cooper and Kagel on other regarding preferences
John Kagel writes:
Colleagues,
Here is the url to the revised version of our survey paper
on other regarding preferences intended for the Handbook of Experimental
Economics, vol 2 –
We very much appreciate the input we got from the
experimental community regarding work we overlooked, faulty interpretations,
etc. Unfortunately we could not, or would not, deal with all of the
suggestions/issues raised, otherwise we would never be done. At this
point we would be grateful for any corrections of typos, updated citations,
missing citations, etc.
DJC
JHK
Friday, March 8, 2013
Cadavers for anatomy classes
You may not have thought much recently about cadaver supply, but there's a shortage, at least at current prices.
"By law, bodies cannot be sold, although groups like the association can be paid for processing. Member med schools pay about $1,300 per cadaver; nonmembers pay $2,300.
"Nationwide, there's a shortage of cadavers, in part because of the rise in organ donation. Cadavers without their organs are not suitable for medical education, Mr. Dudek notes. The association needs about 425 bodies a year for its members but missed that mark in 2009 and has barely met it in three of the last six years.
...
"“All our donations are done through referral,” says Donald Greene II, who co-owns the Rosemont-based company, with annual revenue of $680,000.
... Mr. Dudek hopes to develop new products, such as skeletons, which sell for up to $7,000. A lab to convert cadavers to plastic would cost about $45,000, money that isn't in the association's budget.
"The retail price for a plastinated cadaver is as much as $200,000, says Niles Mayrand, administrator of the plastination laboratory at the University of Michigan, one of the oldest in the country. Well-known thanks to the “Body Worlds” exhibit, which has been hosted by the Museum of Science and Industry three times since 2005, plastinated bodies increasingly are being used in education. They are unlikely to replace cadavers completely in med schools because they can't be dissected. Nonetheless, Mr. Dudek says he has to prepare for the future.
“Whether or not we're a nonprofit, we're still a business,” he says. “And like any business, you grow and adapt and evolve, or you disappear.”
"By law, bodies cannot be sold, although groups like the association can be paid for processing. Member med schools pay about $1,300 per cadaver; nonmembers pay $2,300.
"Nationwide, there's a shortage of cadavers, in part because of the rise in organ donation. Cadavers without their organs are not suitable for medical education, Mr. Dudek notes. The association needs about 425 bodies a year for its members but missed that mark in 2009 and has barely met it in three of the last six years.
...
"“All our donations are done through referral,” says Donald Greene II, who co-owns the Rosemont-based company, with annual revenue of $680,000.
... Mr. Dudek hopes to develop new products, such as skeletons, which sell for up to $7,000. A lab to convert cadavers to plastic would cost about $45,000, money that isn't in the association's budget.
"The retail price for a plastinated cadaver is as much as $200,000, says Niles Mayrand, administrator of the plastination laboratory at the University of Michigan, one of the oldest in the country. Well-known thanks to the “Body Worlds” exhibit, which has been hosted by the Museum of Science and Industry three times since 2005, plastinated bodies increasingly are being used in education. They are unlikely to replace cadavers completely in med schools because they can't be dissected. Nonetheless, Mr. Dudek says he has to prepare for the future.
“Whether or not we're a nonprofit, we're still a business,” he says. “And like any business, you grow and adapt and evolve, or you disappear.”
Thursday, March 7, 2013
The market for air space in Manhattan
The real estate market in Manhattan doesn't just scrape the sky, it hovers over shorter buildings too: The Great Air Race
"Air rights are, in actuality, not fluffy chunks of available or orphaned air. They are unused or excess development rights gauged, like building density or lot size, by the square foot and transferable, when zoning permits it, from one buildable lot to another. They have become the reigning currency of the redevelopment realm, major components in the radical vertical transformation of the city’s skyline.
"These days developers don’t just tailor their blueprints to the lot they own: they often annex, for fees that can run into the multimillions, the airspace above and around their property. The process, essentially an invisible merger of building lots that tranlates into taller, heftier towers with increased profitability, is emerging from a minislump dictated by the economy.
“The trading of air rights is more prevalent than it’s ever been before,” said Robert Von Ancken, an air-rights expert and appraiser who is the chairman of Landauer Valuation and Advisory Services, “and it’s why you’re seeing these monster buildings springing up all over town. All of these new supertowers that are changing the look of the city’s horizon, they couldn’t happen without air-rights transfers.”
"Mr. Von Ancken estimates that air rights trade for 50 to 60 percent of what the earth beneath them would sell for. "
"Air rights are, in actuality, not fluffy chunks of available or orphaned air. They are unused or excess development rights gauged, like building density or lot size, by the square foot and transferable, when zoning permits it, from one buildable lot to another. They have become the reigning currency of the redevelopment realm, major components in the radical vertical transformation of the city’s skyline.
"These days developers don’t just tailor their blueprints to the lot they own: they often annex, for fees that can run into the multimillions, the airspace above and around their property. The process, essentially an invisible merger of building lots that tranlates into taller, heftier towers with increased profitability, is emerging from a minislump dictated by the economy.
“The trading of air rights is more prevalent than it’s ever been before,” said Robert Von Ancken, an air-rights expert and appraiser who is the chairman of Landauer Valuation and Advisory Services, “and it’s why you’re seeing these monster buildings springing up all over town. All of these new supertowers that are changing the look of the city’s horizon, they couldn’t happen without air-rights transfers.”
"Mr. Von Ancken estimates that air rights trade for 50 to 60 percent of what the earth beneath them would sell for. "
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Differential Privacy and Economics and the Social Sciences
Differential Privacy and Economics and the Social Sciences
SIMONS FOUNDATION
Thursday, March 7, 2013 from 9:00 AM to 9:30 PM (EST)
New York, NY
A day devoted to Economics and Social Sciences and the Science of Privacy will take place onThursday, March 7th in New York City. This event is funded by the Simons Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Tutorial on Differential Privacy 9:30 - 11:30 AM
LOCATION: Simons Foundation
Speaker: Aaron Roth (Computer Science, University of Pennsylvania).
Privacy and Issues in Mechanism Design 1:15 - 3:45 PM
LOCATION: Simons Foundation
Presentation by Alvin Roth (Economics, Stanford) on privacy issues in market design, a discussion, co-organized by Mallesh Pai (Economics, University of Pennsylvania) and Eric Budish (Booth School of Business, University of Chicago), on the issues raised by Roth.
Talks by by Scott Kominers (Becker Friedman Institute, University of Chicago) and Tim Mulcahy (NORC, University of Chicago
Topic-Specific Talks 4:45 - 5:50 PM
LOCATION: Simons Foundation
Talks by Julia Lane (American Institutes for Research), Ben Handel (Economics, Berkeley), and Hal Salzman (Public Policy, Rutgers) on privacy aspects of their research.
Evening Session 8:00 - 9:30 PM
LOCATION: Simons Foundation
An evening plenary session featuring a presentation by NYU Professor Steven Koonin, Director of the nascent Center for Urban Science and Progress, "a unique public-private research center that uses New York City as its laboratory and classroom to help cities around the world become more productive, liveable, equitable and resilient." Remarks by Micah Altman (MIT and Brookings Institution) and Felix Wu (Benjamin Cardozo School of Law)
Registration is free and open to the public, on a first-come first-served basis. By registering you will confirm your attendance.
LOCATION: Simons Foundation
Speaker: Aaron Roth (Computer Science, University of Pennsylvania).
Privacy and Issues in Mechanism Design 1:15 - 3:45 PM
LOCATION: Simons Foundation
Presentation by Alvin Roth (Economics, Stanford) on privacy issues in market design, a discussion, co-organized by Mallesh Pai (Economics, University of Pennsylvania) and Eric Budish (Booth School of Business, University of Chicago), on the issues raised by Roth.
Talks by by Scott Kominers (Becker Friedman Institute, University of Chicago) and Tim Mulcahy (NORC, University of Chicago
Topic-Specific Talks 4:45 - 5:50 PM
LOCATION: Simons Foundation
Talks by Julia Lane (American Institutes for Research), Ben Handel (Economics, Berkeley), and Hal Salzman (Public Policy, Rutgers) on privacy aspects of their research.
Evening Session 8:00 - 9:30 PM
LOCATION: Simons Foundation
An evening plenary session featuring a presentation by NYU Professor Steven Koonin, Director of the nascent Center for Urban Science and Progress, "a unique public-private research center that uses New York City as its laboratory and classroom to help cities around the world become more productive, liveable, equitable and resilient." Remarks by Micah Altman (MIT and Brookings Institution) and Felix Wu (Benjamin Cardozo School of Law)
Registration is free and open to the public, on a first-come first-served basis. By registering you will confirm your attendance.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Nobel medal and diploma of Francis Crick: available at auction
Francis Crick (1916-2004) won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. His Nobel medal and diploma are for sale at auction.
Here's a news story st in the Christian Science Monitor that includes this estimate:
"The auction house handling the sale, Heritage Auctions, has valued the medal and diploma at $500,000, which is "an educated guestimate," said Sandra Palomino, Heritage Auctions' director of historical manuscripts. Estimates by Heritage's in-house coin experts went as high as $5 million, Palomino said. [See Photos of Crick's Medal & Other Auction Items]"
HT: Muriel Niederle
**************
Update:
Estimated Price USD 400,000.00 - 600,000.00
Actual Price USD 2,270,500.00
Francis H. C. Crick Nobel Prize Medal and Nobel Diploma.
It is lot 50001 at the 2013 April 10 - 11 Historical Manuscripts Signature Auction - New York #6093
Here's a news story st in the Christian Science Monitor that includes this estimate:
"The auction house handling the sale, Heritage Auctions, has valued the medal and diploma at $500,000, which is "an educated guestimate," said Sandra Palomino, Heritage Auctions' director of historical manuscripts. Estimates by Heritage's in-house coin experts went as high as $5 million, Palomino said. [See Photos of Crick's Medal & Other Auction Items]"
HT: Muriel Niederle
**************
Update:
Estimated Price USD 400,000.00 - 600,000.00
Actual Price USD 2,270,500.00
Monday, March 4, 2013
Kinky sex becoming a less repugnant transaction?
The NY Times has the story: A Hush-Hush Topic No More. (The url writer was more explicit than the headline writer: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/fashion/bondage-domination-and-kink-sex-communities-step-into-view.html?hp&_r=0 )
"some real-life kinksters — a few of whom are appropriating the epithet “pervert,” much as gay activists seized control of “queer” — are wondering if they are approaching a time when they, like the L.G.B.T. community before them, can come out and begin living more open, integrated lives.
"But that time, it seems, has not yet arrived. Though the Harvard Munch Club, a social group of around 30 students focusing on kinky interests, was officially recognized by the university in December, its 21-year-old founding president asked that he not be identified. (“I’m interested in politics,” he offered as one reason.) He said that he had “encountered zero negative responses on campus,” and received messages from alumni expressing solidarity and wishing there had been a similar group when they were undergraduates.
"A 20-year-old college student and self-described submissive on Long Island who asked to be referred to only by her middle name, Marie, said that she was disowned by her parents when a partner’s lover outed her as kinky. “They were just beside themselves,” Marie said. “I think they were worried I would get hurt.”
"She saw how telling people could be complicated. “It’s like being gay in that it’s a sexual preference, but it’s not like being gay in the sense that it’s not who you love, it’s how you love,” she said, adding, “The coming out is a little bit different.” Still, she said, “among people my own age, I haven’t found anyone who thinks I’m weird or doesn’t want to be friends.”
"some real-life kinksters — a few of whom are appropriating the epithet “pervert,” much as gay activists seized control of “queer” — are wondering if they are approaching a time when they, like the L.G.B.T. community before them, can come out and begin living more open, integrated lives.
"But that time, it seems, has not yet arrived. Though the Harvard Munch Club, a social group of around 30 students focusing on kinky interests, was officially recognized by the university in December, its 21-year-old founding president asked that he not be identified. (“I’m interested in politics,” he offered as one reason.) He said that he had “encountered zero negative responses on campus,” and received messages from alumni expressing solidarity and wishing there had been a similar group when they were undergraduates.
"A 20-year-old college student and self-described submissive on Long Island who asked to be referred to only by her middle name, Marie, said that she was disowned by her parents when a partner’s lover outed her as kinky. “They were just beside themselves,” Marie said. “I think they were worried I would get hurt.”
"She saw how telling people could be complicated. “It’s like being gay in that it’s a sexual preference, but it’s not like being gay in the sense that it’s not who you love, it’s how you love,” she said, adding, “The coming out is a little bit different.” Still, she said, “among people my own age, I haven’t found anyone who thinks I’m weird or doesn’t want to be friends.”
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Counting people as a repugnant transaction
This week's Torah portion, Ki Tissa (Exodus 30:11-34:35) has some well known parts (the Golden Calf and the civil war that followed when Moses returned; you shouldn't boil a kid in its mother's milk...), but it starts with a census. And the census is described as follows (JTS translation)
"When you take a census of the Israelite people according to their enrollment, each shall pay the Lord a ransom for himself on being enrolled, that no plague may come upon them through their being enrolled."
The "ransom" is described as a half shekel. You could read this as a tax. But the Rabbinical commentaries expand on this in a number of ways, and one of them says that while it's ok to count coins, it isn't ok to count people, since a person can't/shouldn't be reduced to a number.
This makes census taking a very unusual repugnant transaction. Many non-repugnant transactions are rendered repugnant by adding money (think of kidney donation, which is almost universally applauded, versus kidney sales, which are widely illegal). Census taking is one of the rare examples of a repugnant transaction rendered non-repugnant by adding money, and counting the coins.
"When you take a census of the Israelite people according to their enrollment, each shall pay the Lord a ransom for himself on being enrolled, that no plague may come upon them through their being enrolled."
The "ransom" is described as a half shekel. You could read this as a tax. But the Rabbinical commentaries expand on this in a number of ways, and one of them says that while it's ok to count coins, it isn't ok to count people, since a person can't/shouldn't be reduced to a number.
This makes census taking a very unusual repugnant transaction. Many non-repugnant transactions are rendered repugnant by adding money (think of kidney donation, which is almost universally applauded, versus kidney sales, which are widely illegal). Census taking is one of the rare examples of a repugnant transaction rendered non-repugnant by adding money, and counting the coins.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Federal budgets and immunosuppressive drugs for transplant patients
One of the funny things about Medicare is that it pays for dialysis, and for kidney transplants so that patients won't need dialysis, but it only pays for three years of immunosuppressive drugs post-transplant. That's foolish on a number of dimensions.
Here's a proposal for new legislation to fix that:
SENATORS INTRODUCE BIPARTISAN LEGISLATION TO HELP ORGAN TRANSPLANT PATIENTS
"U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Thad Cochran (R-MS) introduced bipartisan legislation to improve the quality of life for people with kidney disease. The Comprehensive Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage for Kidney Transplant Patients Act would assist thousands of Americans under the age of 65 who are being cut off from Medicare after 36 months by extending coverage of immunosuppressive drugs for kidney
transplant recipients"
...
"The effects of the disparity in coverage are evidenced in the hypothetical case of a young woman. For example, a 26 year old woman living with ESRD would have lifelong dialysis covered by Medicare at $77,500/year. Medicare would cover the cost of a transplant at $110,000/transplant. The immunosuppressive drugs she would need to ensure the organ is not rejected by her body are only covered for 36 months and the drugs are far less costly than dialysis at $10,000 to $20,000/year. Without immunosuppressive drugs to keep kidney transplants from being rejected, many patients find themselves right back where they started: in need of a kidney. This circular cycle of care is costing taxpayers a lot of money and putting thousands of lives at risk."
Here's a proposal for new legislation to fix that:
SENATORS INTRODUCE BIPARTISAN LEGISLATION TO HELP ORGAN TRANSPLANT PATIENTS
"U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Thad Cochran (R-MS) introduced bipartisan legislation to improve the quality of life for people with kidney disease. The Comprehensive Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage for Kidney Transplant Patients Act would assist thousands of Americans under the age of 65 who are being cut off from Medicare after 36 months by extending coverage of immunosuppressive drugs for kidney
transplant recipients"
...
"The effects of the disparity in coverage are evidenced in the hypothetical case of a young woman. For example, a 26 year old woman living with ESRD would have lifelong dialysis covered by Medicare at $77,500/year. Medicare would cover the cost of a transplant at $110,000/transplant. The immunosuppressive drugs she would need to ensure the organ is not rejected by her body are only covered for 36 months and the drugs are far less costly than dialysis at $10,000 to $20,000/year. Without immunosuppressive drugs to keep kidney transplants from being rejected, many patients find themselves right back where they started: in need of a kidney. This circular cycle of care is costing taxpayers a lot of money and putting thousands of lives at risk."
Friday, March 1, 2013
Child rearing by queuing
In New York City, many of the good things in life for children are rationed by queue: Born to Wait:
For City Parents, a Waiting List for Nearly Everything
"The first parent lined up at 4 a.m. on a Sunday..
"Twenty minutes later, other parents showed up and a line began to form down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. One father kept a list so that anyone searching for a thawing hot coffee could do so without losing a place in the line. He abandoned that project as more and more people trickled in and the end of the line was no longer visible from the front...
"If waiting in line in the predawn of a January morning for science camp registration sounds crazy, you do not have a New York City child born after 2004. For those children and their parents, especially in the neighborhoods of brownstone Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan and the Upper West Side, not getting into activities, classes, sports teams — and even local schools — has become a way of life.
...
"Havona Madama’s fear of waiting lists led her to start a database to track her 5-year-old daughter’s favorite classes and their registration deadlines. Two years ago, she decided to leave her law practice to turn her research intoKidKlass.com, a hub of information for brownstone Brooklyn about classes, camps and all-important registration dates. The site is still being developed, but she counts 50 to 100 visitors a day who peruse the listings. Still to come, she said, is an “alert” system to let parents know what deadlines they are about to miss.
...
"Technology has fueled the phenomenon. In 2012, the city moved to online registration for its free summer swim classes at its outdoor pools. The number of applicants jumped to 34,134, from 20,393 in 2011, when officials began to introduce the online application. (That year, four pools still required on-site, in-person registration. Most people got in.) Last summer, only 24,532 applications got spots.
"Often, the activities that fill up fastest are the ones that are most affordable and most accessible, like the swim classes. At the Brooklyn Public Library in Bay Ridge, 25 children can be accommodated at the free story-time sessions. Parents and other caregivers routinely show up when the library opens at 10 a.m. to get a ticket for the 10:30 a.m. story times on Mondays and Wednesdays. On a recent Wednesday, tickets were snatched up within five minutes.
"For children, waiting on a list for soccer or missing story time might not be a tragedy, but for parents, winding up on a list can mean having to put life on pause. In the Brooklyn line for science camp, the parents talked about how getting a spot could determine whether they could go to work on particular days, or whether they would have to spend extra money on a baby sitter.
...
'“It’s just a fact of living in the city,” Ms. Flattery said. She has learned not to discuss classes with her children until it is certain they will get in. She also follows a strategy that may add to the waiting lists. “You fill up every class you can, and you drop if you don’t need it. Everyone overschedules — it’s the only route to choice,” she said.
For City Parents, a Waiting List for Nearly Everything
"The first parent lined up at 4 a.m. on a Sunday..
"Twenty minutes later, other parents showed up and a line began to form down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. One father kept a list so that anyone searching for a thawing hot coffee could do so without losing a place in the line. He abandoned that project as more and more people trickled in and the end of the line was no longer visible from the front...
"If waiting in line in the predawn of a January morning for science camp registration sounds crazy, you do not have a New York City child born after 2004. For those children and their parents, especially in the neighborhoods of brownstone Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan and the Upper West Side, not getting into activities, classes, sports teams — and even local schools — has become a way of life.
...
"Havona Madama’s fear of waiting lists led her to start a database to track her 5-year-old daughter’s favorite classes and their registration deadlines. Two years ago, she decided to leave her law practice to turn her research intoKidKlass.com, a hub of information for brownstone Brooklyn about classes, camps and all-important registration dates. The site is still being developed, but she counts 50 to 100 visitors a day who peruse the listings. Still to come, she said, is an “alert” system to let parents know what deadlines they are about to miss.
...
"Technology has fueled the phenomenon. In 2012, the city moved to online registration for its free summer swim classes at its outdoor pools. The number of applicants jumped to 34,134, from 20,393 in 2011, when officials began to introduce the online application. (That year, four pools still required on-site, in-person registration. Most people got in.) Last summer, only 24,532 applications got spots.
"Often, the activities that fill up fastest are the ones that are most affordable and most accessible, like the swim classes. At the Brooklyn Public Library in Bay Ridge, 25 children can be accommodated at the free story-time sessions. Parents and other caregivers routinely show up when the library opens at 10 a.m. to get a ticket for the 10:30 a.m. story times on Mondays and Wednesdays. On a recent Wednesday, tickets were snatched up within five minutes.
"For children, waiting on a list for soccer or missing story time might not be a tragedy, but for parents, winding up on a list can mean having to put life on pause. In the Brooklyn line for science camp, the parents talked about how getting a spot could determine whether they could go to work on particular days, or whether they would have to spend extra money on a baby sitter.
...
'“It’s just a fact of living in the city,” Ms. Flattery said. She has learned not to discuss classes with her children until it is certain they will get in. She also follows a strategy that may add to the waiting lists. “You fill up every class you can, and you drop if you don’t need it. Everyone overschedules — it’s the only route to choice,” she said.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Compensation for kidney donors: once again under discussion
The American Journal of Transplantation published the following article, by a large group of authors called the Working Group on Incentives for Living Donation:
"Incentives for Organ Donation: Proposed Standards for an Internationally Acceptable System"
Volume 12, Issue 2, pages 306–312, February 2012
Some idea of the content of their recommendations can be gotten from the following Table:
The article drew the following replies in the Letters to the Editor
"Incentives for Organ Donation: Proposed Standards for an Internationally Acceptable System"
Volume 12, Issue 2, pages 306–312, February 2012
Some idea of the content of their recommendations can be gotten from the following Table:
| (1) Each country implementing a system of incentives should have a legal and regulatory framework for the process. |
| (2) The entire process must be transparent and subject to government and international oversight. |
| (3) The incentive should be provided by the state or state-recognized third party. Under well-defined, transparent and regulated circumstances, prospective recipients may help fund a charity that supports the program. There is no direct payment from the recipient to the donor and supporting the charity will not result in advancement on the waiting list. |
| (4) Allocation of the organ(s) should be performed according to the single recognized system of that country (similar to UNOS in the United States) using a predefined and transparent algorithm so that everyone on the list has an opportunity to be transplanted. Kidneys would be allocated to the number 1 person on the list (as determined by defined and transparent criteria). |
| (5) There should be a plan for administration and for rigorous oversight to ensure that criteria for evaluation, acceptance, allocation and provision of the incentive to the donor (or donor family) are being followed. |
| (6) The donation should be anonymous and nondirected. |
| (7) No other solid organ donor incentive plan would be legal. |
| (8) There should be legislation to govern wrongdoing and how centers would be censured, including criminal sanctions and fines, if wrongdoing is identified. |
The article drew the following replies in the Letters to the Editor
F. Delmonico, G. Danovitch, A. Capron, A. Levin and J. Chapman, Council,
Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group, Montreal, QUE, Canada
B. Padilla, D. Bayog, N. L. Uy, I. Gueco, L. Nazareno-Rosales, A.
Chua, L. Almazan-Gomez, D. Bonzon, B. Balmores and E. Cabral
"The report on the proposed “international standards” for financial incentives for organ donation in the February issue of the AJT (1), stated that “until there are trials, we have no means of knowing under precisely what circumstances such a proposal would best succeed”. Permit us to report that a regulated system of incentives for living organ donors was already implemented in the Philippines from 2002 to 2008. The program offered a sizable “gratuity package” while mandating systems and procedures for transparency, creation of ethical guidelines, monitoring of transplant facilities and a donor registry, much like what this article proposes. The reality was different from the intended outcomes. The black market was not eliminated and organ brokers continued to be involved (Roberto Tanchanco et al., unpublished cohort study, 2011) (2). A regulation that transplants to foreigners should comprise no more than 10% of total transplants proved unenforceable and transplant tourism flourished (3). Donors were not protected, as there was failure of informed consent, lack of economic improvement in the donors’ lives and poor rate of medical follow-up (Roberto Tanchanco et al., unpublished cohort study, 2011) (2). A study limited to the donors within the government-regulated program reported better economic outcomes, but this was hardly convincing as poor follow-up allowed reporting of data in only 81 of 164 participants (Romina Danguilan et al., unpublished cross-sectional study, 2010).
Thus, our experience leads us to believe that the Matas article underestimates the problems related to the approach they recommend. A system of incentives for living unrelated donors which is difficult to differentiate from a disguised organ market is totally inappropriate for a country like the Philippines, where many patients have a potential related donor but cannot afford to pay for a transplant, where the deceased donor program is still very infantile, where the poor have been exploited in organ trafficking before and a large sector of the population remains vulnerable."
A Realistic Proposal—Incentives MayIncrease Donation—We Need Trials Now!
Thus, our experience leads us to believe that the Matas article underestimates the problems related to the approach they recommend. A system of incentives for living unrelated donors which is difficult to differentiate from a disguised organ market is totally inappropriate for a country like the Philippines, where many patients have a potential related donor but cannot afford to pay for a transplant, where the deceased donor program is still very infantile, where the poor have been exploited in organ trafficking before and a large sector of the population remains vulnerable."
A Realistic Proposal—Incentives MayIncrease Donation—We Need Trials Now!
A. Matas, J.A.E. Ambagtsheer, R. Gaston, T. Gutmann, B. Hippen, S.
Munn, E. T. Ona, J. Radcliffe-Richards, A. Reed, S. Satel, W. Weimar and R.
Danguilan
"To the Editor:
"To the Editor:
The shortage of organs is a critical problem for patients with organ failure, and has led to a polarizing discussion. Some, including us, have suggested that a regulated system of incentives might increase donation and alleviate the crisis (1,2). Others, championed by Chapman, Danovitch, Padilla and Delmonico, have passionately opposed this option (3–6).
Delmonico et al., representing the Declaration of Istanbul [DoI] Custodial Group (DICG) now write that our proposed guidelines for a regulated system are not acceptable (4). Our proposal, as stated in the manuscript, was presented as a basis for discussion (7). Rather than suggesting modifications or improvements, the DICG simply condemns it.
Their condemnation rests on two arguments. First, that others have suggested that “sales,”“brokering” and “organ markets” are wrong, and that we have “departed from the consensus.” Yet we clearly state our opposition to exploitation and unregulated markets, and instead suggest a government-regulated system with explicit limits to prevent the abuses all parties decry. But even the supposition that we have no right to challenge “the consensus” is suspect. When, in moral debate, is majority opinion the final argument? If it were, homosexuals would still be criminals and women still subordinate to their husbands and excluded from public life–both once widely held majority views enshrined by law.
And where does this so-called consensus come from? The DICG refers to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the DoI. Yet, the WHO has updated its Guiding Principles (most recently supporting reimbursement of costs and of emotionally or legally related donors vs. previous stance banning all but genetically related donors and any payment). The draft of the DoI was written by a Steering Committee including Chapman and Delmonico, but no proponent of incentives (8). The summit was by invitation only, and invitees were invited based on their stance on this issue (Danovitch, personal communication). The few proponents of incentives were vastly, and vociferously, outnumbered. Why are these “consensus” documents immune from challenge?
Second, the DICG is incorrect that our proposal is “belied by the reality of markets.” Again, they conflate “unregulated markets” with the government sponsored regulated systems we propose. As we state: (a) each system would be limited (donors and recipients) to citizens of that country, and (b) the organ would be allocated to the #1 person on the list (i.e. not the rich buying from the poor). Each government-regulated system would be based on donor and recipient protection, regulation, transparency and oversight.
Finally, we resent the innuendo in the suggestions that our manuscript was prompted and “funded in part by Filipino organizations that have favored organ sales to foreigners” and that the authors would accept “permitting the poor and vulnerable in any community to part with a kidney for the wealthy sick.” These are cheap shots unworthy of a discussion so important to our patients. It may be that there is no place for a regulated system of incentives. But that decision should be made after dispassionate, reasoned discussion and ideally after being informed by hard data.
In a second letter, Padilla (another member of DICG) et al., suggest that our proposed system would not work in the Philippines (6). We recognize that there have been mixed evaluations of the programs implemented in both the Philippines and Iran (9). However, neither system of incentives meets the guidelines we have proposed. Moreover, the very fact that successes have been reported suggests that the systems could indeed work and should be improved upon rather than abandoned. We did not state that our system would work in every country, but presented guidelines detailing how systems should be designed in order to be acceptable. Each country would need to have appropriate regulation and oversight and to be able to address wrongdoing."
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
(Not so) New discussion of monetary incentives for organ donation
Update: a comment correctly points out that I somehow linked to an old story below:(
I'll follow with some more up to date material tomorrow...
a.r.
NBC news has the story, on the latest, cautious support for amendments to the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act that prohibit even experiments designed to understand the effect of monetary incentives on organ donation:
Docs push for tests of cash rewards for organs: Medical group wants to go beyond altruism to motivate cadaver donors
That’s why the AMA has waded into the controversial waters of offering financial incentives for cadaver organ donations, a proposition that can’t even be examined without modifying the National Organ Transplantation Act.What’s not so clear to the American Medical Association is what kind of incentives — and in what amounts — might encourage potential organ donors and their family members to follow through.
I'll follow with some more up to date material tomorrow...
a.r.
NBC news has the story, on the latest, cautious support for amendments to the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act that prohibit even experiments designed to understand the effect of monetary incentives on organ donation:
Docs push for tests of cash rewards for organs: Medical group wants to go beyond altruism to motivate cadaver donors
Most people who donate organs after death need no reward beyond altruism, but others could use a little nudge, according to the nation’s doctors.
That’s why the AMA has waded into the controversial waters of offering financial incentives for cadaver organ donations, a proposition that can’t even be examined without modifying the National Organ Transplantation Act.What’s not so clear to the American Medical Association is what kind of incentives — and in what amounts — might encourage potential organ donors and their family members to follow through.
That’s the 1984 federal law that prohibits payment or any kind of “valuable consideration” for organ donation.
This month, the AMA voted to move forward with plans to amend the law to allow pilot studies to settle the incentive issue.
“We can speculate, but unless you actually study it, you don’t know,” said Dr. Joseph Annis, an AMA board member. “What’s standing in the way right now is NOTA.”
The federal law is aimed at preventing human organs from becoming a commodity, of course, said Dr. Gerald Wilson, a South Carolina surgeon and member of the AMA delegation that introduced the issue.
“People are concerned about the possibility that we’re buying organs,” Wilson said.
But even some of the harshest critics of payment for living organ donations — a separate hot-bed issue — say that studying incentives for donation after death should be acceptable in a nation where nearly 100,000 people remain on a waiting list for organs and nearly 10 percent die before a transplant becomes available.
Living donations raise most concern “Those of us who worry about financial incentives corrupting organ donations worry most about living donations,” said David Rothman, director of the Center on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University.
“A tightly controlled study that looks strictly at cadaveric donations — you’re getting a qualified, ‘It’s OK.’”
Rothman acknowledged that critics who oppose financial incentives for deceased donation fear that it's the first step on a slippery slope to payment for living organs.
Critics also worry that the prospect of even modest payments could lead patients' families to withhold vital medical information that could lead to rejection of an organ, or to prematurely withdraw care from a patient.
Ideally, the AMA hopes to determine whether cash contributions, payment for funeral expenses or even donations to a charity of the deceased’s choice might motivate family members to allow donation after death.
More than a decade ago, Pennsylvania approved a law to pay $300 toward funeral expenses for families of organ donors, but the rule was never enacted because of the NOTA restrictions.
The number and design of studies and where they might be conducted is not clear, Annis and Wilson said. Wilson, however, noted that the an organ procurement agency in his state, Life Point Inc. of South Carolina, may be interested in conducting a pilot study.
It’s not the first time this issue has been raised. The AMA first argued for studying motivations for cadaveric organ donation in 2002. The issue has been the subject of heated debates since then, both inside and outside the organ donation community.
The United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, the nation’s organ allocation agency, is divided on the issue, said Dr. Benjamin Hippen, a North Carolina kidney transplant specialist.
The United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, the nation’s organ allocation agency, is divided on the issue, said Dr. Benjamin Hippen, a North Carolina kidney transplant specialist.
‘It definitely doesn't go far enough’ Hippen, a member of UNOS ethics committee, believes in incentives for living and deceased donors alike and said the AMA’s intent to study the issue is only a necessary first step.
“It definitely doesn’t go far enough, in my view,” Hippen said.
Efforts to increase cadaver donations actually have succeeded, he said. In the past five years, the percentage of deceased people eligible to donate organs who actually do so has risen from about 50 percent to nearly 70 percent, according to UNOS. In some places, the percentage may be even higher.
“It begs the question: If you’ve only got 20 percent more you get organs from, is it 20 percent who could be swayed? “ Hippen said.
Only well-conducted studies can answer that question. AMA officials said they’re not sure when they’ll begin serious lobbying to change NOTA, certainly not before a new president takes office.
"The politicians have their hands full," Annis said.
Meanwhile, critics like Rothman welcome a cautious approach.
"Would I line up to oppose this bill? No," he said. "Would it worry me? Yes."
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Unraveling in Israel: CPAs and law grads
Ran Shorrer sends me an email about the hiring of CPA's in Israel, in an article (in Hebrew) that also touches on law firm hiring. He writes:
The race to
specialize will only start in CPA third year
The Board of Auditors shall recommend to
the Ministry of Justice about a revolution in the management of specialization:
accounting firms will not recruit interns until the end of their studies,
students can choose to specialize in a greater number of enterprises and public
institutions
Choose
to specialize without academic data
"There is no academic data at this stage, so accounting firms hire testing services that will help them find qualified interns. Proposed regulation will determine to choose only the third year students not only designed to help firms but also for students in their third year and more unified in terms of their aspirations for the profession."
"google translate with modifications (just to make it
readable):
The Board of Auditors shall recommend to
the Ministry of Justice about a revolution in the management of specialization:
accounting firms will not recruit interns until the end of their studies,
students can choose to specialize in a greater number of enterprises and public
institutions
Hadar
Buy
|
the Board of Auditors
decided to make a recommendation to the Minister of Justice correction
accounting regulations regarding the regulation of the interviews and the
acceptance of accounting students in their apprenticeship and the places who
are entitled to receive specialized profession.
the Council auditors
explains that the move is designed to create a uniform date for interns,
similar to the one recently set by the Bar Association.
Choose
to specialize without academic data
In August 2010, the
Minister of Justice Yaakov Neeman signed on an amendment according to which law
firms will not be allowed to interview candidates before March in their
third year of study.
Today, the accounting
industry is not regulated, and specialized ministries begin recruiting the
first year of their studies, making it difficult for firms to learn the
capabilities of each student, and students themselves should decide on a
specialty before managed to find out what interests them in their studies.
Dr. Hadas Glndr, head
of the Department of Accounting at the College of Management, initiated the
initial appeal to the Minister of Justice, said to Calcalist that the appeal to
students in the first year due to the wish of firms to receive the best students
at an early stage because of the competition between them.
"There is no academic data at this stage, so accounting firms hire testing services that will help them find qualified interns. Proposed regulation will determine to choose only the third year students not only designed to help firms but also for students in their third year and more unified in terms of their aspirations for the profession."
If the Minister of
Justice approves the proposal of the Board of Auditors, the regulation will
apply to candidates who began their studies in the school year following
approval of the regulations."
Monday, February 25, 2013
Can prison inmates consent to register as deceased organ donors?
The State of Utah recently made it easier for prisoners to become organ donors: the Salt Lake Tribune has the story. House passes Utah inmate organ-donor legislation
"A bill that would streamline the process for prisoners to sign up as organ donors passed unanimously Wednesday in the Utah House of Representatives.
"Rep. Steve Eliason, R-Sandy, pitched HB26 in response to prisoners who wanted to be donors upon their deaths, but were being rejected. The proposal would allow them to sign up as donors while in the correctional facility.
"A bill that would streamline the process for prisoners to sign up as organ donors passed unanimously Wednesday in the Utah House of Representatives.
"Rep. Steve Eliason, R-Sandy, pitched HB26 in response to prisoners who wanted to be donors upon their deaths, but were being rejected. The proposal would allow them to sign up as donors while in the correctional facility.
"It [would be] completely voluntary," Eliason said."
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Economics in British Airways' magazine
I recently flew to and from Europe on a United/Lufthansa set of flights. Had I flown British Airways (which I haven't done since this incident), I could have seen myself in Tim Harford's article about me and market design and the recent Nobel in their Business Life magazine...
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Rudolf Diesel, Niels Bohr and me ("great minds don’t go out of print; they go online.”)
So says Springer, which published my first book: Springer Book Archives Makes Its Debut:
"Chiarcos points to the value of keeping such titles in this archive alive. Among some of the treasures in the collection are Rudolph Diesel’s work on the diesel engine, Niels Bohr’s Über den Bau der Atome, and the first book by Alvin E. Roth, the 2012 Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences. After Roth won the Nobel Prize, Chiarcos says Springer received many requests to have his 1979 book translated into multiple languages. However, the book had since been out of print. SBA made it possible to gain access to the book and bring the title back into circulation.
In fact, the accomplished works of more than 200 Nobel Prize winners are now part of SBA to ensure that such seminal works are not lost over time, says Chiarcos. For the Springer product development team, the victories come in all sizes: “During our work on the project, we came to realize that great minds don’t go out of print; they go online.”
***********
In the meantime, I long ago made the book available online myself...(although I guess the URL will change as I complete my electronic move to Stanford...):
Roth, Alvin E. Axiomatic Models of Bargaining, , Springer-Verlag, 1979.
http://kuznets.fas.harvard.edu/~aroth/Axiomatic_Models_of_Bargaining.pdf
"Chiarcos points to the value of keeping such titles in this archive alive. Among some of the treasures in the collection are Rudolph Diesel’s work on the diesel engine, Niels Bohr’s Über den Bau der Atome, and the first book by Alvin E. Roth, the 2012 Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences. After Roth won the Nobel Prize, Chiarcos says Springer received many requests to have his 1979 book translated into multiple languages. However, the book had since been out of print. SBA made it possible to gain access to the book and bring the title back into circulation.
In fact, the accomplished works of more than 200 Nobel Prize winners are now part of SBA to ensure that such seminal works are not lost over time, says Chiarcos. For the Springer product development team, the victories come in all sizes: “During our work on the project, we came to realize that great minds don’t go out of print; they go online.”
***********
In the meantime, I long ago made the book available online myself...(although I guess the URL will change as I complete my electronic move to Stanford...):
Roth, Alvin E. Axiomatic Models of Bargaining, , Springer-Verlag, 1979.
http://kuznets.fas.harvard.edu/~aroth/Axiomatic_Models_of_Bargaining.pdf
Friday, February 22, 2013
Virtual greyhound racing: technology meets repugnance
I've written before about how greyhound racing is a transaction that many find repugnant. The Economist reports that technology may be coming to the rescue: it's possible to gamble on computer generated virtual greyhound racing, conducted entirely on a computer screen (much as you could play virtual roulette, but apparently more exciting...)
They note that "the move from real dogs to virtual ones threatens to kill off a working-class pastime." (But note that in the picture there is a virtual crowd in the virtual stadium watching the virtual dogs...)
They note that "the move from real dogs to virtual ones threatens to kill off a working-class pastime." (But note that in the picture there is a virtual crowd in the virtual stadium watching the virtual dogs...)
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