The effects of Israel's new organ transplantation law on family consent for deceased donation

Deceased donor organs are a scarce resource with the property that how they are allocated may influence their scarcity, by influencing the decisions of potential donors and their families.  Recent changes in Israeli law give us a window on this...
Incentivizing Authorization for Deceased Organ Donation With Organ Allocation Priority: The First 5 Years
by A. Stoler, J. B. Kessler, T. Ashkenazi, A. E. Roth, J. Lavee

American Journal of Transplantation, Volume 16, Issue 9, September 2016
Pages 2639–2645

Abstract

The allocation system of donor organs for transplantation may affect their scarcity. In 2008, Israel's Parliament passed the Organ Transplantation Law, which grants priority on waiting lists for transplants to candidates who are first-degree relatives of deceased organ donors or who previously registered as organ donors themselves. Several public campaigns have advertised the existence of the law since November 2010. We evaluated the effect of the law using all deceased donation requests made in Israel during the period 1998–2015. We use logistic regression to compare the authorization rates of the donors’ next of kin in the periods before (1998–2010) and after (2011–2015) the public was made aware of the law. The authorization rate for donation in the period after awareness was substantially higher (55.1% vs. 45.0%, odds ratio [OR] 1.43, p = 0.0003) and reached an all-time high rate of 60.2% in 2015. This increase was mainly due to an increase in the authorization rate of next of kin of unregistered donors (51.1% vs. 42.2%). We also found that the likelihood of next-of-kin authorization for donation was approximately twice as high when the deceased relative was a registered donor rather than unregistered (89.4% vs. 44.6%, OR 14.27, p < 0.0001). We concluded that the priority law is associated with an increased authorization rate for organ donation.

Notes from China 2: Lanzhou

I spoke in Lanzhou on Thursday, in Gansu Province, as part of a festival promoting the revival of the Silk Road as a market for international trade. The sponsors were Time Weekly, Readers Group (a wide circulation, Readers Digest kind of publisher...www.duzhe.com), and the provincial government.

Here's an interview published in China Daily:

诺贝尔经济学奖得主埃尔文·罗斯：中国市场必须由中国经济学家设计
作者：孟肖 来源：时代周刊 2016-09-20

Google translate renders the headline this way: Nobel laureate Erwin Ross: Chinese market must be designed by a Chinese economist

Author: Meng Xiao Source: Times 2016-09-20 

Kwong Sunrise Photo--Al Roth 

The provincial museum is well worth a visit.

And the Yellow River has some beautiful bridges: I took these photos from a riverboat at night.

I recommend the Lanzhou beef noodles, which I had for lunch  The banquet food in Lanzhou is also easy for Americans--fish, lamb, beef and Yak were prominent. (Yak is a kosher animal, by the way...). And toasting goes on throughout, not just in wine but in 100 proof rice liquor...

And in case you were wondering how to spell Erwin Ross in Chinese, I think this is it:

Notes from China 1: Changsha

The first of two stops on my recent trip to China was in Changsha, in Hunan province.  I spoke about market design, following the publication of Who Gets What and Why in Chinese (the Chinese title was changed to The Sharing Economy, but the subtitle was still The New Economic of Matchmaking and Market Design).

Here's a picture I took of the stage, before the talk began:

Here are links to some press coverage, including a visit to ResGreen corporation, a sponsor:

Full coverage

诺奖得主埃尔文-罗斯长沙谈共享经济：核心在于稳定匹配 星辰在线 - ‎Sep 20, 2016‎ 今日，诺贝尔经济学奖获得者埃尔文-罗斯(Alvin E. Roth)携最新的研究成果来到湖南长沙，走进了以绿之韵集团为代表的中国本土企业，与中国的商业巨鳄、学者专家共同探讨共享经济时代下的市场设计话题。 诺贝尔经济学奖得主埃尔文·罗斯：中国市场必须由中国经济学家设计 新浪网 - ‎Sep 19, 2016‎ 罗斯（Alvin E. Roth），罗斯因在博弈论、市场设计和实验经济学领域作出的显著贡献，而于2012年获得诺贝尔经济学奖，目前罗斯在哈佛商学院担任经济及工商管理学教授，他多次访问中国，对目前中国经济的 ... 诺奖得主罗斯走进绿之韵谈共享经济：核心在于稳定匹配 湖南在线 - ‎Sep 21, 2016‎ 埃尔文·罗斯(Alvin E。 Roth)考察湖南企业绿之韵公司. 罗斯此行携最新的研究成果，走进了以绿之韵集团为代表的中国本土企业，与中国的商业巨鳄、学者专家共同探讨共享经济时代下的市场设计话题。出席本 ... 诺贝尔经济学奖得主罗斯考察浏阳经开区企业 红网 - ‎Sep 20, 2016‎ 红网综合讯据浏阳经开区消息9月20日上午，诺贝尔经济学奖获得者埃尔文•罗斯（Alvin E. Roth）一行来到浏阳经开区绿之韵集团考察。浏阳经开区党工委副书记、管委会主任郭力夫，绿之韵集团战略发展顾问、 ...

By the way, the food in Hunan is exotic, here's our lunch menu, which has some unusual items (translated for me by Ms Keny Chen):

Lunch Menu 午宴菜品
Cold Dishes｜冷菜
Chrysanthemum with special sauce 凉拌苦菊
Vinegar walnut kernel 醋泡核桃仁
Preserved duck egg mixed with pepper 擂辣椒皮蛋
Sauced radish peels 萝卜皮
Salty chicken feet 盐焗凤爪
Fennel with special sauce 凉拌茴香
Soup｜汤
海马人参乳鸽汤
Main Dishes｜热菜
Lobster and salmon sashimi 龙虾三文鱼双拼刺身
Roast suckling pig 鸿运烤乳猪
Roasted goose 烧鹅
Braised local tortoise with soy sauce 红烧土乌龟
Stir-fry snake with spicy sauce 香辣蛇
Lactarius deliciosus braised in brown sauce 黄焖寒菌＊
Steamed Leopard Coral Grouper 清蒸蓝东星斑
Steamed scallop with minced garlic and vermicelli 蒜蓉粉丝蒸扇贝
Sautéd razor shell 口味圣子王
Poached domestic chicken 清炖土鸡
Stir-fry snow pea and pleurotus nebrodensis (bailing mushroom) 荷兰豆炒白灵菇
Spiced beef 酱香肉
Steamed ribs with sticky rice and pumpkin 金瓜糯香骨
Stir-fry preserved taro stripe with dried paprika 干椒炒酸芋头丝
Stir-fry diced beef and capsicum 彩椒炒牛仔粒
Stir-fry shrimp with egg white 芙蓉百合
Stir-fry pickles with sliced conch 酸萝卜炒螺片
Stir-fry Chinese edible frog 爆炒田鸡
Stir-fry nostoc commune (agaric) 清炒地木耳
Stir-fry bitter melon with green pepper 清炒苦瓜
Stir-fry Chinese kale (Kai-lan) 清炒芥兰
Staples｜主食
Fried Glutinous Rice Balls with Sesame 大麻果
Potsticker 锅饺

Celebration of David Kreps

I was away and missed the academic festival to mark Dave Kreps' 65th birthday. But here's a nice account of it (after a non-sequitur first paragraph) by David Warsh at Economic Principals:
It Takes (an Invisible) College 

"A celebration last week of the sixty-fifth birthday of David Kreps, of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, marked the scholarly contributions of one of the leading figures in the integration of game theory into economics.  "

School choice in England

Resettlement as a matching problem: Bazzi, Gaduh, Rothenberg, and Wong on Population Resettlement in Indonesia

There's a lot of discussion of how best to resettle refugees internationally, and of course we might be able to learn a lot about that by looking at the resettlement of internally displaced people, and other migrants.  Here's a recent AER paper that looks at the matching component and finds that it matters who goes where.

Skill Transferability, Migration, and Development: Evidence from Population Resettlement in Indonesia
By Samuel Bazzi, Arya Gaduh, Alexander D. Rothenberg, and Maisy Wong

Abstract: We use a natural experiment in Indonesia to provide causal evidence
on the role of location-specific human capital and skill transferability in shaping the spatial distribution of productivity. From 1979–1988, the Transmigration Program relocated two million migrants from rural Java and Bali to new rural settlements in the Outer Islands. Villages assigned migrants from regions with more similar agroclimatic endowments exhibit higher rice productivity and nighttime light intensity one to two decades later. We find some evidence of migrants’ adaptation to agroclimatic change. Overall, our results suggest that
regional productivity differences may overstate the potential gains
from migration.  

Reputation in online marketplaces

Two recent NBER papers tell us about trust, quality, and reputation in online marketplaces.

BUYING REPUTATION AS A SIGNAL OF QUALITY:
EVIDENCE FROM AN ONLINE MARKETPLACE
Lingfang (Ivy) Li, Steven Tadelis, Xiaolan Zhou
Working Paper 22584, http://www.nber.org/papers/w22584

ABSTRACT: Reputation is critical to foster trust in online marketplaces, yet leaving feedback is a public good that can be under-provided unless buyers are rewarded for it. Signaling theory implies that only high quality sellers would reward buyers for truthful feedback. We explore this scope for signaling using Taobao's "reward-for-feedback" mechanism and find that items with rewards
generate sales that are nearly 30% higher and are sold by higher quality sellers. The market design implication is that marketplaces can benefit from allowing sellers to use rewards to build reputations and signal their high quality in the process.

**********

DESIGNING ONLINE MARKETPLACES:

TRUST AND REPUTATION MECHANISMS

Michael Luca

Working Paper 22616, http://www.nber.org/papers/w22616

ABSTRACT: Online marketplaces have proliferated over the past decade, creating new markets where none existed. By reducing transaction costs, online marketplaces facilitate transactions that otherwise would not have occurred and enable easier entry of small sellers. One central challenge faced by designers of online marketplaces is how to build enough trust to facilitate transactions between strangers. This paper provides an economist’s toolkit for designing online marketplaces, focusing on trust and reputation mechanisms.

Repugnance watch: Pokemon Go banned in Iran

Here's the BBC story, which also covers restrictions on the game elsewhere, for various reasons: Pokemon Go banned by Iranian authorities over 'security'

"The decision was taken by the High Council of Virtual Spaces, the official body overseeing online activity.
Iran follows a number of other countries in expressing its worries over security related to the game.
...
"Indonesia has banned police officers from playing the game while on duty, and a French player was arrested last month after straying on to a military base while trying to catch Pokemon.
A leading Saudi cleric said a fatwa (religious ruling) issued against an earlier Pokemon card game also applied to the new mixed-reality app.
The 16-year-old edict said the game contained "forbidden images" and violated an Islamic ban on gambling. But a fatwa's influence might not carry beyond that particular scholar's territory, and is not necessarily applicable to the whole country.
Earlier this week, authorities in New York state said they would ban some 3,000 registered sex offenders from playing Pokemon Go while they are on parole.
The ban is aimed at safeguarding the children who play the game."

Stable matching for university admissions in Vietnam?

Here's a proposal (in Vietnamese) to use a deferred acceptance algorithm to organize university admissions in Vietnam:

Kỳ thi THPT Quốc Gia 2016
Về việc áp dụng thuật toán DAA của Gale-Shapley trong xét tuyển – Đối Thoại Giáo Dục

Google translate renders the headline this way:
"National high school exams in 2016
On application of the algorithm of Gale-Shapley DAA in admissions - Dialogue Education"

Who Gets What and Why, in China

I'll be travelling to China today, to speak in Changsha and Lanzhou, as a guest of the Times Media Group, to talk about the Chinese edition of my book Who Gets What and Why.

Here's a news story...
诺奖得主来华：共享经济时代如何优化资源配置？
Nobel Laureate in China: how to optimize the sharing of economic resources?

Google translate has trouble with my name in Chinese:  here are some variants they produce:
Erwin · E · Ross (Alvin E. Roth)
Elvin Ross

Public schools in Indianapolis advertise for enrollment, in competition with private schools

There's an enrollment contest underway in Indianapolis, and a new law against cash bonuses for referrals.
The Indianapolis Business Journal has the story:
Competition for school kids heats up across Indy

"Most Indianapolis kids went back to class in early August. But across town, billboards, yard signs and mailers put out by schools are making a last-minute pitch to parents: Enroll your child here.

"Public schools—including traditional, district-run schools and charters—are employing ever-more sophisticated advertising and marketing campaigns. The goal is to meet enrollment targets by the time the official state count day rolls around. This year, a school’s attendance on Sept. 16 determines its funding levels for the fall semester.
...
"Carpe Diem Meridian charter school’s 2015 marketing campaign tactic—offering $100 gift cards to anyone who referred a student who enrolled—was later that year made illegal by the Indiana General Assembly.

"The law says that a “school may not offer or give, as an enrollment incentive, any item that has monetary value, including cash or a gift card that may be used at a retail store, grocery store, online store, or other commercial enterprise” to prospective students in exchange for enrolling or to anyone who makes referrals."

Unraveling of apprenticeships in Switzerland

The Neue Zurcher Zeitung has the story: Die heikle Jagd nach den besten Lehrlingen von Hansueli Schöchli
Die Lehrstellen in der Schweiz werden zum Teil «zu früh» vergeben. Absprachen zwischen den Lehrbetrieben wären ein Gegenmittel. Doch solche Absprachen scheitern oft.

Google translate: "The tricky hunt for the best apprentices--The apprenticeships in Switzerland are awarded partly "too early". Agreements between educational establishments would be an antidote. But such agreements often fail."

Decentralized College Admissions by Che and Koh

In the Journal of Political Economy:

Decentralized College Admissions

Yeon-Koo Che

Columbia University

Youngwoo Koh

Hanyang University

ONLINE: Aug 31, 2016

• Abstract
 
• Full Text
 
• Supplemental Material
 
• PDF

Abstract

• Go to

We study decentralized college admissions with uncertain student preferences. Colleges strategically admit students likely to be overlooked by competitors. Highly ranked students may receive fewer admissions or have a higher chance of receiving no admissions than those ranked below. When students’ attributes are multidimensional, colleges avoid head-on competition by placing excessive weight on school-specific attributes such as essays. Restricting the number of applications or wait-listing alleviates enrollment uncertainty, but the outcomes are inefficient and unfair. A centralized matching via Gale and Shapley’s deferred acceptance algorithm attains efficiency and fairness but may make some colleges worse off than under decentralized matching.

The Handbook of Experimental Economics, volume 2, edited by John Kagel and Al Roth (forthcoming Sept 27:)

The Handbook of Experimental Economics, Volume 2 Hardcover –  forthcoming, September 27, 2016
by John H. Kagel (Editor), Alvin E. Roth (Editor)

from Princeton University Press
Table of Contents [PDF] 


from Amazon

From the Back Cover

"This new volume of Kagel and Roth's indispensable handbook covers the latest dramatic developments that have led experimental economics into areas such as market design and neuroeconomics, and also offers fresh insights into more traditional areas. It is all here, and all told in a manner both informative and engaging."--Gary Bolton, University of Texas, Dallas
"Kagel and Roth have done it again. While the first volume of the Handbook showed how experimental economics had reached its maturity as a scientific method, this second volume shows just how wide its reach has become, and how deep these tools can take our understanding of economic theory and human behavior. This book will change the way the world views economics."--James Andreoni, University of California, San Diego
"The contributors provide insights that will be invaluable to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the issues at hand. I know of no other book that covers the same breadth of material in the same way. People will use this as a reference book for many years to come."--Tim Salmon, Southern Methodist University
"A worthy successor to the first volume. This ambitious and well-written book will appeal to a broad economic audience."--Tom Wilkening, University of Melbourne
"I wish every economist and economics graduate student would read this book. Those who are considering running experiments should be forced to; this is a bible in how to run good experiments. Every chapter is amazingly comprehensive and has been written by a true expert in the field. But economists who would never dream about running an experiment can benefit from reading this just as much. The beauty of experiments is that they force theorists to think carefully about their theories."--Richard Thaler, Cornell University
"This Handbook surveys one of the most important developments in economics in the last decade, the flowering of experimental economics. Led by two of the leaders of current economic theory and experimental economics, an impressive group of researchers provides the reader with an excellent up-to-date overview of one of the most fascinating and promising areas of current economic research."--Ariel Rubinstein, Princeton University
"The Handbook is not only a contribution to experimental economics, it is a major contribution to social science. It successfully combines the rigor and clarity of economic analysis with a commitment to open-minded examination of data, and a refreshing willingness to question dogma. Every student of human choice and action will find this text useful."--Daniel Kahneman, The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
"Experimental economics comes of age with this volume. At last the dust begins to clear, and it becomes possible to confront theory with coherent and reliable laboratory data."--Ken Binmore, University College of London

Sally Satel, on how she was lucky twice, and others shouldn't have to be

Sally Satel, the tireless fighter to make kidney transplants more accessible, writes in two recent articles about her good luck in receiving organs from friends, and about how providing greater incentives to donors might work...

This one is in Slate:

A College Tuition Payment for Your Spare Kidney? 
A new bill proposes an alternative way to compensate people for their organ donation. We should try it.
(The URL is as informative as the headline: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2016/09/the_current_kidney_donation_system_is_failing_us.html )

And this one is in Statnews:
 Vouchers and incentives can increase kidney donations and save lives

Quién obtiene qué y por qué. Who gets what and why, in Spanish

Who gets what and why is coming out in Spanish (in October). The publisher is Antoni Bosch, the economist.

Quién obtiene qué y por qué

LA NUEVA ECONOMÍA DEL DISEÑO DE MERCADOS

Alvin E. Roth
2016 (octubre)

Surrogacy repugnance and judicial approval: a strange case from Wisconsin

A surrogacy contract often requires a judge's approval for the birth certificate, and such a case went radically bad in Wisconsin where paid surrogacy is legal, but nevertheless regarded as repugnant in some quarters:
These Two Dads Almost Lost Their Son In A Bizarre Surrogacy Case
Jay Timmons and Rick Olson thought they’d have no legal trouble using a surrogate to birth their son. Then a rogue judge in Wisconsin pulled them into an 11-month legal battle.

"Jay Timmons and Rick Olson, a married gay couple from Virginia, didn’t think they’d have any trouble becoming the legal parents of the baby boy who their surrogate, a Wisconsin woman, delivered for them last year.
They had gotten the frozen embryo that became their son as a gift from straight friends whose in vitro fertilization created more embryos than they could use. They had chosen a Wisconsin surrogate specifically because the state’s Supreme Court had upheld surrogacy, and other same-sex couples had had smooth sailing there. And by just about any measure, the two intended fathers were prime parent material: They both had good jobs, they had been together for 25 years, and they were already raising two daughters from previous surrogacies.
But their careful plans went awry the month before their son, Jacob, was born, when their effort to be named his legal parents landed before a conservative judge who saw surrogacy as a form of human trafficking. Over the next 11 months, the couple’s bizarre legal battle cost more than $400,000 and kept them in constant terror of losing their son.
...
"But the Wisconsin case is likely unprecedented, legal experts say, in that the surrogate, her husband, and the intended parents were all happy with their arrangement. Only the judge was not.
...
"Dane County Circuit Court Judge Jim Troupis, appointed by Gov. Scott Walker last year, opened his March opinion with the statement, “Human trafficking comes in many forms.” And although he went on to describe the two dads as a “spectacular set of parents’’ who would raise the child “in a nurturing environment with unmatched financial resources,’’ he made it clear that he was bothered by the fact that the couple had paid a woman to carry a baby who was not related to them.
“The fundamental fact remains that another couple has provided the child as a gift to the petitioners, and the child has no genetic relationship to the petitioners,’’ Troupis wrote. “In order to bring the child into world, the petitioners have paid a significant amount of money. Without those payments there would be no child.’’
...
"There is no federal law on the subject, and state laws vary enormously. California, for example, where Timmons and Olson hired the surrogates who delivered their two daughters, is the center of the nation’s surrogacy industry, thanks to a friendly state law.
But most states don’t have any surrogacy laws on the books. Some simply refuse to enforce surrogacy contracts. Others, including Virginia, don’t allow surrogacy unless at least one of the intended parents has a genetic connection to the baby. New York and Washington allow only unpaid, or “altruistic” surrogacy, and Michigan has criminal penalties for all types.
...
"Despite the legal limbo, because of the rise of in vitro fertilization — now responsible for nearly 2% of US births — and the legalization of same-sex marriage, demand is also rising for surrogates. And, partly to avoid legal snags, these women are generally “gestational surrogates,” meaning that they carry embryos that are not genetically related to them. According to the CDC, there were 3,432 gestational surrogates in 2013, up from 727 in 1999.
...
"Although the case was in Dane County, the liberal stronghold that contains Madison, Judge Troupis appointed as the child’s legal guardian Mark Knutson, a lawyer 70 miles away whose radio broadcast, The Word on The Law, aims to reconcile God’s word with the law. Knutson, in turn, brought in another lawyer from his firm, Erik Krueger, who had worked with Liberty Counsel, a group that defends public officials like Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
...
"In November, Knutson filed a 45-page report to Judge Troupis, calling for more court oversight of surrogacy cases and arguing that rubber-stamping a gestational surrogacy contract made by two men with no genetic connection to the child would open the way to a dangerous expansion of the concept of parenthood.
Such surrogacy contracts, his report said, broker pregnancy, commodify children, and meet the needs of wealthy intended parents at the expense of the children involved.
...
"In his March decision, Judge Troupis seemed to rely on many of Knutson’s arguments. He terminated the surrogate’s maternal rights and gave the Virginia men only temporary custody, technically leaving Jacob an orphan.
...
"The Troupis decision left Timmons and Olson at a crossroads: They could continue to appeal in Wisconsin, or take a different route, pursuing an adoption in their home state of Virginia. While they weighed these options from their home in Virginia — while caring for Jacob and their young daughters — they had a lucky break: Judge Troupis resigned May 2, to try, unsuccessfully, for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Timmons and Olson had already moved to reopen and reconsider Judge Troupis’s ruling, but with the judge’s resignation, their case was transferred to yet another judge, Peter Anderson, who overturned Judge Troupis’s “faulty’’ opinion, which he criticized for using language that was “unduly harsh and kind of weird.’’
********

HT: Kim Krawiec

Ransom as a (not so) repugnant transaction

The United States is revising some policies regarding dealing with Americans held hostage, e.g. in the middle east.  The NY Times has the story:
In a Shift, U.S. Includes Families in Hostage Rescue Efforts
By ADAM GOLDMANSEPT. 11, 2016

It includes the following observation:
"And while the administration has continued its policy of not paying ransoms, it has now pledged not to criminally charge families if they decide to pay one."

A chat about the design of ad auctions with Gabriel Weintraub

Gabriel Weintraub has just moved to Stanford from Columbia. Here's a recent interview with him about bidding for online advertisements.
A Chat With AppNexus Chief Economist Gabriel Weintraub

"RTBlog: What is market design?

Weintraub: It’s an area of economics that uses tools from game theory, econometrics, and micro-economic theory to understand how marketplaces work. It looks at what the dynamics are, and advertising auction logic that affects incentives to achieve certain objectives. It looks at how to set up rules to make the auction more efficient.

If your goal is increasing a seller’s revenue, that’s a goal market design can address. Another goal is efficiency and making markets safe. And you want to monetize the inventory, and outcomes that are fair for both buyers and sellers. Market design is having a significant impact on how digital marketplaces are being run."

Repugnant language: some reflections on profanity

The Canadian magazine Maclean's has a very polite (but nontheless interesting) essay on profanity
Are we wearing out obscenities?
"Profanity sinks deep emotional roots in our brains. When words develop duelling meanings, the bad stuff almost always wins out.
...
"In short, if English should lose its surprisingly small profane vocabulary set through overusage, we would be forced to invent new obscenities. That would be no easy task, given the polished perfection of what biology, time and chance has already bequeathed us."