"The NY Times reports on the evolution of the market for brides among Bulgarian Roma: Subtle Shift at the Gypsy Bride Market
"STARA ZAGORA, BULGARIA — In a field outside town, teenage girls in skimpy outfits worked the crowd at what is known locally as the “Gypsy bride market.” Clad by contrast in long velvet skirts and brightly colored headscarves, their proud mothers watched. Gold flashed on necks, fingers, ears and teeth.
"Meet the tinkers of Thrace, semi-nomadic Roma who in the early 21st century are among the few in Europe hewing to ancient ways.
...
"Technically, the young women at this traditional St. Todor’s Day “market” were not for sale. But it is at this fair, held each year on the first Saturday of Orthodox Christian Lent, that the Kalaidzhi (as the estimated 18,000 Thracian tinkers are known) conduct the complex negotiations on a bride price that traditionally lead to marriage.
"The identity of this semi-nomadic Roma group is based on the ancient craft of its menfolk: producing and repairing pots, pans and caldrons. For centuries, these smiths have scattered in ones or twos in Bulgarian villages to practice this craft, and they get together rarely for events like the St. Todor’s fair.
"This is therefore one of the few opportunities for teenagers to meet other Kalaidzhi — and potential spouses. Dating is not really an option when teenage boys and girls are forbidden to meet without an adult. Marriage outside the group is equally taboo.
"Leaning against his car, surveying the scene, Hristos Georgiev, 18, was pleased to be wrapping up negotiations with the father of Donka Dimitrova, an 18-year-old he expected to marry weeks later. Bargaining had narrowed to between 10,000 and 15,000 levs, or $7,500 to $11,300, well more than a year’s worth of the average Bulgarian’s wages of 8,400 levs. He said he saved the money working construction in Cyprus.
"According to Velcho Krustev, an ethnographer with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, “the man is not buying a wife, but her virginity.” The payment ensures the bride will be treated well by her new family, he said.
...
"Kalaidzhi are among the most tradition-bound of Roma. But even they are changing — to the distaste of elders like Ivan Kolev, 73.
"While he insisted the bride price would stay — “our people always insist that a girl be a virgin” — he noted that Kalaidzhi women “were much shyer” when he married some 50 years ago. “Now they just elope. Now they go around like Bulgarians.”
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Pro-social behavior of all kinds: Judd Kessler
Judd Kessler defended his dissertation yesterday (successfully, I should add:).
His work includes lab and field investigations of charitable giving, of provision of public goods, of cooperation in the presence or absence of contracts, of team production when pay is equal or unequal, and of the decision to be an organ donor.
His job market paper, “Signals of Support and Public Good Provision,” is unusual in the way it combines experiments both in the field and in the lab. The field experiment involves a big national charity’s regional campaign in about 200 firms, covering around 25,000 employees. One of the treatment conditions involved giving out buttons to all employees, which they could wear if they wished to express support for the charity. This turned out to have a surprisingly large effect on giving: it increased the number of donations and the amount donated by about a third. Another treatment involved giving out raffle tickets to those who contributed, and this did not have a positive effect on giving. The hypothesis is that the buttons (unlike the raffle tickets) provide information to coworkers about the level of support the charity enjoys, and that when they receive positive information about this they are more likely to contribute themselves.
But a field experiment is by nature imperfectly controlled, so Judd also conducted a lab experiment modeled on the field experiment (in which subjects also had an opportunity to contribute to a charity), but with careful controls in place to test for alternative hypotheses. The treatments in the field experiments already suggested that we aren’t seeing increased contributions because of gift exchange (i.e. the button isn’t regarded as a gift, as the raffle tickets might be), and what Judd finds in the lab is that the major effect of seeing another subject who has chosen to wear the button is that it increases a subject’s estimate of what the other subject will give, and this appears to be the mechanism through which contributions are increased. (Subjects also contribute more when wearing a pin, so this is a rational expectation.)
Judd’s field experiment and lab experiment complement each other; the lab experiment couldn’t have given a reliable prediction of the magnitude of the effect Judd observes in the field, while the field experiment leaves open many more hypotheses about the cause of this effect than does the lab experiment.
Welcome to the club, Judd.
His work includes lab and field investigations of charitable giving, of provision of public goods, of cooperation in the presence or absence of contracts, of team production when pay is equal or unequal, and of the decision to be an organ donor.
His job market paper, “Signals of Support and Public Good Provision,” is unusual in the way it combines experiments both in the field and in the lab. The field experiment involves a big national charity’s regional campaign in about 200 firms, covering around 25,000 employees. One of the treatment conditions involved giving out buttons to all employees, which they could wear if they wished to express support for the charity. This turned out to have a surprisingly large effect on giving: it increased the number of donations and the amount donated by about a third. Another treatment involved giving out raffle tickets to those who contributed, and this did not have a positive effect on giving. The hypothesis is that the buttons (unlike the raffle tickets) provide information to coworkers about the level of support the charity enjoys, and that when they receive positive information about this they are more likely to contribute themselves.
But a field experiment is by nature imperfectly controlled, so Judd also conducted a lab experiment modeled on the field experiment (in which subjects also had an opportunity to contribute to a charity), but with careful controls in place to test for alternative hypotheses. The treatments in the field experiments already suggested that we aren’t seeing increased contributions because of gift exchange (i.e. the button isn’t regarded as a gift, as the raffle tickets might be), and what Judd finds in the lab is that the major effect of seeing another subject who has chosen to wear the button is that it increases a subject’s estimate of what the other subject will give, and this appears to be the mechanism through which contributions are increased. (Subjects also contribute more when wearing a pin, so this is a rational expectation.)
Judd’s field experiment and lab experiment complement each other; the lab experiment couldn’t have given a reliable prediction of the magnitude of the effect Judd observes in the field, while the field experiment leaves open many more hypotheses about the cause of this effect than does the lab experiment.
Welcome to the club, Judd.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Boston School Choice: it's not all location
The latest article in the Globe's series on school choice in Boston, by Jenna Russell, makes very graphically a point I like to make by saying that school choice always brings out two political viewpoints. Those who live close to good schools are members of the "walk to school party", while those who don't are members of the "school choice party". In Boston, those interests are accommodated by having half the seats in some schools give a priority for children who live in the "walk zone," while the other half do not. The decision is then made based on the preference lists the families submit (via a deferred acceptance algorithm that makes it safe for families to reveal their preferences), with ties broken by lottery.
The article focuses on two children, one of whom lives right across the street from a good school and one who doesn't. The kindergarten only has 32 places, only 16 of which are reserved for local children, with the other 16 giving everyone equal access. Since there are lots of ties, the lottery is important.
An early education in the meaning of ‘no’
"The system seems deeply regrettable to her parents, Jen and Doug Bowen-Flynn. But to Marie and Markel Wade of Dor chester, it is a blessing. They, too, live steps away from an elementary school. If school assignments were based on proximity, they would have no choice but to send their children to Winthrop Elementary, which has lower test scores and a less polished reputation.
The article focuses on two children, one of whom lives right across the street from a good school and one who doesn't. The kindergarten only has 32 places, only 16 of which are reserved for local children, with the other 16 giving everyone equal access. Since there are lots of ties, the lottery is important.
An early education in the meaning of ‘no’
"The system seems deeply regrettable to her parents, Jen and Doug Bowen-Flynn. But to Marie and Markel Wade of Dor chester, it is a blessing. They, too, live steps away from an elementary school. If school assignments were based on proximity, they would have no choice but to send their children to Winthrop Elementary, which has lower test scores and a less polished reputation.
Instead, because of a lottery that gives all students a chance to seek a seat at better-regarded schools, it is they who send their children to the school on Sawyer’s doorstep."
(Our papers on the design of the Boston school choice mechanism here.)
(Our papers on the design of the Boston school choice mechanism here.)
Monday, May 9, 2011
The international market for stolen cars
The Washington Post reports: International theft rings steal hundreds of vehicles in D.C. area every year
"Officials estimate that each year in the Washington area alone, hundreds of cars are stolen and shipped overseas. New York authorities announced last June that they had charged 17 people with stealing and shipping hundreds of luxury cars. Other D.C. area police officials and a spokesman for the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office said their detectives have worked similar cases.
...
"The ring’s bosses are usually based in African countries or other developing nations, where it is more difficult to find reasonably priced, mid- to high-end vehicles, authorities said. They order specific cars from middlemen in the United States, and then low-level thieves set out to get their cut.
"In the Prince George’s ring, the thieves are paid according to the vehicles they carjack or steal — $1,500 for a Toyota Camry, $2,500 for a RAV4, $5,000 for a Porsche Cayenne, Aponte said. The middlemen handle the rest. They stash the stolen cars in parking lots or neighborhoods, waiting to see whether police are on their trail. Then they load the vehicles onto shipping containers bound for Africa, police said. The rings are especially prevalent in the D.C. area, police said, because of its proximity to ports."
"Officials estimate that each year in the Washington area alone, hundreds of cars are stolen and shipped overseas. New York authorities announced last June that they had charged 17 people with stealing and shipping hundreds of luxury cars. Other D.C. area police officials and a spokesman for the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office said their detectives have worked similar cases.
...
"The ring’s bosses are usually based in African countries or other developing nations, where it is more difficult to find reasonably priced, mid- to high-end vehicles, authorities said. They order specific cars from middlemen in the United States, and then low-level thieves set out to get their cut.
"In the Prince George’s ring, the thieves are paid according to the vehicles they carjack or steal — $1,500 for a Toyota Camry, $2,500 for a RAV4, $5,000 for a Porsche Cayenne, Aponte said. The middlemen handle the rest. They stash the stolen cars in parking lots or neighborhoods, waiting to see whether police are on their trail. Then they load the vehicles onto shipping containers bound for Africa, police said. The rings are especially prevalent in the D.C. area, police said, because of its proximity to ports."
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Lending library for newspapers (help wanted ads, mostly)
Sonia Jaffe points me to this article: Renting a read from 'newspaper landlords'
"Garum Tesfaye is one of Addis Ababa's "newspaper landlords," a group of entrepreneurs in the Ethiopian capital who rent out papers to people too poor to buy them.
...
"For 20 to 30 minutes, these readers can get their hands on a newspaper for a fraction of the price of having to buy it. If they keep the paper longer than their allotted rental time, they have to pay extra.
"A newspaper in Addis Ababa costs about six birr (35 U.S. cents) to buy. In contrast, it costs only 50 Ethiopian cents (less than one U.S. cent) to rent one.
"If 20 readers read this single paper at the rate of 50 cents, I will make 10 birr (about 60 U.S. cents)," says Tesfaye, whose business serves a regular customer base that visits his makeshift roadside shop each day.
"Most of the readers focus on vacancies rather than regular news," Tesfaye says."
...
"For 20 to 30 minutes, these readers can get their hands on a newspaper for a fraction of the price of having to buy it. If they keep the paper longer than their allotted rental time, they have to pay extra.
"A newspaper in Addis Ababa costs about six birr (35 U.S. cents) to buy. In contrast, it costs only 50 Ethiopian cents (less than one U.S. cent) to rent one.
"If 20 readers read this single paper at the rate of 50 cents, I will make 10 birr (about 60 U.S. cents)," says Tesfaye, whose business serves a regular customer base that visits his makeshift roadside shop each day.
"Most of the readers focus on vacancies rather than regular news," Tesfaye says."
Saturday, May 7, 2011
High school choice in New York City: some advice for next year
An article in the NY Times discusses the plight of 8th graders who do not match to a school in the main round of the high school match: Lost in the School Choice Maze
Many of the unmatched children interviewed in the story, who now have to participate in an additional round of matching to get their school assignments, only ranked a few school programs (instead of the 12 they are allowed to rank), and also seem to have received bad advice in other ways, like the child mentioned at the end of this quoted section.
"This year, of the 78,747 students who applied, the computer matched 83 percent to one of their top five choices. An additional 7 percent were matched to schools lower on their lists. The rest, like Radcliffe, were unmatched. Over the past three years, officials said, there has been a slight but steady increase in the number of unmatched students, up from 8 percent last year and 7 percent in 2009.
One new variable this year was the department’s publishing of graduation rates in school descriptions, which caused a surge in applications to the best schools, said Robert Sanft, the chief executive of the Office of Student Enrollment. The competition at many of those top schools meant long-to-impossible odds. Baruch College Campus High School, with a 100 percent graduation rate, received the most applications from across the city: 7,606 for 120 seats, giving it an acceptance rate of about 1.6 percent (Harvard, by contrast, accepted 6.2 percent of its applicants.)
But geography was a significant factor for Baruch, especially for those who, like Radcliffe, applied from outside Manhattan. According to Baruch’s principal, Alicia Perez-Katz, the school, created for Manhattan’s District 2, has not accepted out-of-district students in many years, a fact not mentioned in the Education Department’s school profile."
At the beginning of April, I responded to an email describing the plight of an unmatched student (who had only applied to six programs, none of which, I am informed, had ever accepted a student with his solid but not spectacular math grades), as follows.
Many of the unmatched children interviewed in the story, who now have to participate in an additional round of matching to get their school assignments, only ranked a few school programs (instead of the 12 they are allowed to rank), and also seem to have received bad advice in other ways, like the child mentioned at the end of this quoted section.
"This year, of the 78,747 students who applied, the computer matched 83 percent to one of their top five choices. An additional 7 percent were matched to schools lower on their lists. The rest, like Radcliffe, were unmatched. Over the past three years, officials said, there has been a slight but steady increase in the number of unmatched students, up from 8 percent last year and 7 percent in 2009.
One new variable this year was the department’s publishing of graduation rates in school descriptions, which caused a surge in applications to the best schools, said Robert Sanft, the chief executive of the Office of Student Enrollment. The competition at many of those top schools meant long-to-impossible odds. Baruch College Campus High School, with a 100 percent graduation rate, received the most applications from across the city: 7,606 for 120 seats, giving it an acceptance rate of about 1.6 percent (Harvard, by contrast, accepted 6.2 percent of its applicants.)
But geography was a significant factor for Baruch, especially for those who, like Radcliffe, applied from outside Manhattan. According to Baruch’s principal, Alicia Perez-Katz, the school, created for Manhattan’s District 2, has not accepted out-of-district students in many years, a fact not mentioned in the Education Department’s school profile."
At the beginning of April, I responded to an email describing the plight of an unmatched student (who had only applied to six programs, none of which, I am informed, had ever accepted a student with his solid but not spectacular math grades), as follows.
Dear Jimmy: I'm sorry to hear that you weren't matched in the main round of the high school admissions process. I know that is very stressful.
I helped design the choice algorithm in 2003-04, but I have no role in its continued operation, and I don't know which schools may be available now. So you need to get advice from people with current, hands-on experience. Your guidance counselor might be a good person to start with, on Monday if you can.
As you indicate in your email, the next step of the process is to get matched to some school in the supplemental round. After that there is an appeals process. My advice is to take the supplemental round seriously. For a start, you might take a quick look at the advice here: http://insideschools.org/blog/2011/04/01/no-high-school-match-heres-what-to-do/
You may also be able to get some information now from the Office of Student Enrollment Planning and Operations (OSEPO). At the very least they can give you the information you will need to participate in the appeals process.
If you don't get into a school you are happy with, there are transfer options that you can pursue to change schools for 10th grade.
I hope you won't give up on your ambition to go to Harvard after you graduate from high school. I'll be very glad to meet you if you come here. But when it comes time to apply to colleges, bear in mind that admission to Harvard and other top universities is very competitive, so be sure to apply to other schools, including some safe schools.
Best of luck,
Al Roth"
So, for next year, I have two bits of advice, for students and for the schools.
For students: use all 12 choices. The system is designed so listing 12 choices won't hurt your chance of getting one of your top ones. But if you don't get one of your top choices, having some other schools on your list that you wouldn't mind going to will save you some heartache.
For schools and guidance counselors: give these kids more useful advice! They should be told if the lists they are submitting include only schools for which they have little or no chance of being accepted.
So, for next year, I have two bits of advice, for students and for the schools.
For students: use all 12 choices. The system is designed so listing 12 choices won't hurt your chance of getting one of your top ones. But if you don't get one of your top choices, having some other schools on your list that you wouldn't mind going to will save you some heartache.
For schools and guidance counselors: give these kids more useful advice! They should be told if the lists they are submitting include only schools for which they have little or no chance of being accepted.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Milgrom on market design
Paul Milgrom has an article in the latest (April 2011) issue of Economic Inquiry:
CRITICAL ISSUES IN THE PRACTICE OF MARKET DESIGN
Abstract: The years since 1994 have witnessed the emergence of market design as a new discipline within economics, in which research and practice exert powerful mutual influences in matching and auction markets. The problem of designing well-functioning auction markets has led economic designers to revisit such fundamental issues as the definitions of commodities, the ways participants communicate with markets, the trade-offs between the incentives provided for truthful reporting and other attributes of mechanism performance, and the determinants of the scope of markets, especially whether and how trade in different goods is linked.
CRITICAL ISSUES IN THE PRACTICE OF MARKET DESIGN
Abstract: The years since 1994 have witnessed the emergence of market design as a new discipline within economics, in which research and practice exert powerful mutual influences in matching and auction markets. The problem of designing well-functioning auction markets has led economic designers to revisit such fundamental issues as the definitions of commodities, the ways participants communicate with markets, the trade-offs between the incentives provided for truthful reporting and other attributes of mechanism performance, and the determinants of the scope of markets, especially whether and how trade in different goods is linked.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Nonsimultaneous kidney exchange chains produce more transplants than simultaneous chains (published)
When I published the earlier post with the same name, the paper hadn't yet been published, and medical journal rules meant that I could only link to an abstract.
Now the paper has appeared, and you can read it here:
Ashlagi, Itai, Duncan S. Gilchrist, Alvin E. Roth, and Michael A. Rees, ; ''Nonsimultaneous Chains and Dominos in Kidney Paired Donation -- Revisited,'' American Journal of Transplantation, 11, 5, May 2011, 984-994.
Now the paper has appeared, and you can read it here:
Ashlagi, Itai, Duncan S. Gilchrist, Alvin E. Roth, and Michael A. Rees, ; ''Nonsimultaneous Chains and Dominos in Kidney Paired Donation -- Revisited,'' American Journal of Transplantation, 11, 5, May 2011, 984-994.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Misc. kidney exchange
A larger than usual exchange in SF: SF hospital performs 10-person kidney exchange
"Five people have received healthy kidneys from five donors in what may be among the largest kidney exchanges at a single hospital in California.
"The swap at California Pacific Medical Center took place on Friday during a series of operations, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
"This has been bread-and-butter for us for a few years; we've just never done one of this size," said Dr. Steve Katznelson, medical director of California Pacific's kidney transplant program. "There are all sorts of logistics involved, and it's hard to do."
******
Kidney exchange in India is still rare (but not rare like a unicorn): Two women in kidney swap to save life of other’s spouse
"Dr H Sudarshan Ballal, medical director and chairman, medical advisory board of Manipal Health Enterprises, said swap transplants are common in the US but not so in India. "One of my earlier patient was a middle-aged woman whose husband was a potential donor but incompatible with her. They migrated to the US and later told me they had done a swap with a Jewish couple there. We've been trying for a long time to make swap transplants happen but managed it this time," he said. "
****
Here's an account of a non-simultaneous nondirected donor chain at St. Barnabas hospital in New Jersey, conducted around Valentine's day, with reporting of an April 2011 meeting of patients and donors: Donors, recipients in chain of eight kidney transplants gather for reunion.
The non-directed donor chose to remain anonymous "I’ve got some new scars, but that’s it," the donor said. "I’d rather it not be a big deal."
"Five people have received healthy kidneys from five donors in what may be among the largest kidney exchanges at a single hospital in California.
"The swap at California Pacific Medical Center took place on Friday during a series of operations, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
"This has been bread-and-butter for us for a few years; we've just never done one of this size," said Dr. Steve Katznelson, medical director of California Pacific's kidney transplant program. "There are all sorts of logistics involved, and it's hard to do."
******
Kidney exchange in India is still rare (but not rare like a unicorn): Two women in kidney swap to save life of other’s spouse
"Dr H Sudarshan Ballal, medical director and chairman, medical advisory board of Manipal Health Enterprises, said swap transplants are common in the US but not so in India. "One of my earlier patient was a middle-aged woman whose husband was a potential donor but incompatible with her. They migrated to the US and later told me they had done a swap with a Jewish couple there. We've been trying for a long time to make swap transplants happen but managed it this time," he said. "
****
Here's an account of a non-simultaneous nondirected donor chain at St. Barnabas hospital in New Jersey, conducted around Valentine's day, with reporting of an April 2011 meeting of patients and donors: Donors, recipients in chain of eight kidney transplants gather for reunion.
The non-directed donor chose to remain anonymous "I’ve got some new scars, but that’s it," the donor said. "I’d rather it not be a big deal."
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Bait and switch in law school admissions?
A much blogged about article in the NY Times discusses how law schools offer many admitted students merit scholarships whose continuation depends on their maintaining a certain grade point average. The article notes that, coupled with forced-curve grading policies, this sometimes means that many of those with first year scholarships will inevitably fail to maintain their eligibility for continued scholarship assistance. It argues that the algorithm used by US News and World Report to rank law schools plays a role, by focusing on statistics for the entering class.
Law Students Lose the Grant Game as Schools Win
"Why would a school offer more scholarships than it planned to renew?
"The short answer is this: to build the best class that money can buy, and with it, prestige. But these grant programs often succeed at the expense of students, who in many cases figure out the perils of the merit scholarship game far too late.
"On the Golden Gate campus recently, a group of first-year students at risk of losing their scholarships were trying to make sense of the system. Most declined to be identified for this article because criticizing the school seemed, at minimum, undiplomatic. But the phrase “bait and switch” came up a lot. Several assumed that they were given what is essentially a discount to get them in the door.
...
"If it sounds absurd that America’s legal education system could be whipsawed by, of all things, U.S. News, you have yet to grasp the law school fixation with rankings. Unlike undergraduate colleges, law schools share far more similarities than differences, particularly in the first-year curriculum.
"So a lot of schools regard the rankings as their best chance to establish a place in the educational hierarchy, which has implications for the quality of students that apply, the caliber of law firms that come to recruit, and more. Striving for a high U.S. News ranking consumes the bulk of the marketing budget of a vast number of schools.
"Which is where scholarships come in.
"The algorithm used by U.S. News puts a heavy emphasis on college grade-point averages and Law School Admission Test scores. Together, those two numbers determine about 22 percent of a school’s ranking. The bar passage rate, which correlates strongly with undergraduate G.P.A.’s and LSAT scores, is worth an additional two points in the algorithm. In short, students’ academic credentials determine close to a quarter of a school’s rank — the largest factor that schools can directly control. "
Law Students Lose the Grant Game as Schools Win
"Why would a school offer more scholarships than it planned to renew?
"The short answer is this: to build the best class that money can buy, and with it, prestige. But these grant programs often succeed at the expense of students, who in many cases figure out the perils of the merit scholarship game far too late.
"On the Golden Gate campus recently, a group of first-year students at risk of losing their scholarships were trying to make sense of the system. Most declined to be identified for this article because criticizing the school seemed, at minimum, undiplomatic. But the phrase “bait and switch” came up a lot. Several assumed that they were given what is essentially a discount to get them in the door.
...
"If it sounds absurd that America’s legal education system could be whipsawed by, of all things, U.S. News, you have yet to grasp the law school fixation with rankings. Unlike undergraduate colleges, law schools share far more similarities than differences, particularly in the first-year curriculum.
"So a lot of schools regard the rankings as their best chance to establish a place in the educational hierarchy, which has implications for the quality of students that apply, the caliber of law firms that come to recruit, and more. Striving for a high U.S. News ranking consumes the bulk of the marketing budget of a vast number of schools.
"Which is where scholarships come in.
"The algorithm used by U.S. News puts a heavy emphasis on college grade-point averages and Law School Admission Test scores. Together, those two numbers determine about 22 percent of a school’s ranking. The bar passage rate, which correlates strongly with undergraduate G.P.A.’s and LSAT scores, is worth an additional two points in the algorithm. In short, students’ academic credentials determine close to a quarter of a school’s rank — the largest factor that schools can directly control. "
Monday, May 2, 2011
Love and Warcraft
Any venue in which lots of single people invest time and energy in something that interests them can provide the thickness needed for an effective mating market. You can get a date by being an active Yelp reviewer*, and, it turns out, World of Warcraft isn't bad either, as Stephanie Rosenbloom reports in the NY Times: It’s Love at First Kill
" With more than 12 million subscribers, World of Warcraft is one of the most popular games of its kind in the world (others include EverQuest, Aion, Guild Wars). That’s a sizable dating pool. Match.com, by way of comparison, has fewer than 2 million subscribers."
***
*My new HBS colleague Mike Luca has studied Yelp, including (in passing) the way that they create a social network for their most active reviewers.
" With more than 12 million subscribers, World of Warcraft is one of the most popular games of its kind in the world (others include EverQuest, Aion, Guild Wars). That’s a sizable dating pool. Match.com, by way of comparison, has fewer than 2 million subscribers."
***
*My new HBS colleague Mike Luca has studied Yelp, including (in passing) the way that they create a social network for their most active reviewers.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
“Matching markets: Theory and practice”
That's the title of this paper by Atila Abdulkadiroglu and Tayfun Sonmez, presented at the 2010 Econometric Society World Congress, in Shanghai.
Yeon-Koo Che has just posted his discussion of that paper. Among other things, he suggests that one reason we don’t see more centralized clearinghouses is that they don’t necessarily create Pareto improvements, and a hybrid approach is worth thinking about. (For example, he speculates, maybe a centralized clearinghouse for college admissions could be started if it explicitly allowed colleges to continue to engage in early admissions, and only tried to organize the "regular admissions" part of the market.)
Yeon-Koo Che has just posted his discussion of that paper. Among other things, he suggests that one reason we don’t see more centralized clearinghouses is that they don’t necessarily create Pareto improvements, and a hybrid approach is worth thinking about. (For example, he speculates, maybe a centralized clearinghouse for college admissions could be started if it explicitly allowed colleges to continue to engage in early admissions, and only tried to organize the "regular admissions" part of the market.)
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Designing "hidden markets"--Sven Seuken
Yesterday Sven Seuken defended his dissertation, which is on the interface of CS and Economics. In particular, he is interested in designing both computerized marketplaces and the user interfaces through which participants will interact.
The essay that was his job market paper concerns a practical business idea for a centrally administered marketplace for peer-to-peer computer backup services that have to be consumed in bundles (e.g. bandwidth and memory are complements), but may be offered in different proportions by different users, at market prices that are posted through a user interface that makes it easy for a consumer to see what backup he requires, and what combinations of resources he can offer to the system to pay for his own services. A customer for the backup service must offer backup services to other customers, and the centralized server keeps track of what resources are being used, and sets relative prices for different resources that are “hidden” in that they are revealed not as numerical prices, but as tradeoffs between backup capacity a consumer demands and various ways that he can supply the system with resources from his own computer (upload and download bandwidth and memory, and hours a day connected to the web).
That is, this is a market with complements, in which both bids and asks must be for packages of services, but in which customers can participate using a simple interface.
Market design itself is becoming a market with complementarities between economists and computer scientists. Sven may join his main advisor, David Parkes, in internalizing many of these complementarities himself. (The other members of his committee were Eric Horvitz, Yiling Chen, and me.) Since he is going to Zurich, he may also have the opportunity to join forces with Jacob Goeree and solidify a real center of market design there.
Welcome to the club, Sven.
The essay that was his job market paper concerns a practical business idea for a centrally administered marketplace for peer-to-peer computer backup services that have to be consumed in bundles (e.g. bandwidth and memory are complements), but may be offered in different proportions by different users, at market prices that are posted through a user interface that makes it easy for a consumer to see what backup he requires, and what combinations of resources he can offer to the system to pay for his own services. A customer for the backup service must offer backup services to other customers, and the centralized server keeps track of what resources are being used, and sets relative prices for different resources that are “hidden” in that they are revealed not as numerical prices, but as tradeoffs between backup capacity a consumer demands and various ways that he can supply the system with resources from his own computer (upload and download bandwidth and memory, and hours a day connected to the web).
That is, this is a market with complements, in which both bids and asks must be for packages of services, but in which customers can participate using a simple interface.
Market design itself is becoming a market with complementarities between economists and computer scientists. Sven may join his main advisor, David Parkes, in internalizing many of these complementarities himself. (The other members of his committee were Eric Horvitz, Yiling Chen, and me.) Since he is going to Zurich, he may also have the opportunity to join forces with Jacob Goeree and solidify a real center of market design there.
Welcome to the club, Sven.
Friday, April 29, 2011
First kidney exchange in Spain
La Vanguardia reported yesterday on a nondirected donor chain, the first in Spain (and I think the first kidney exchange in Spain):
Éxito en la primera cadena de trasplante renal de vivo con 'buen samaritano'
El primer 'buen samaritano' de España es un religioso de Barcelona que de forma altruista y anónima ha entregado uno de sus riñones a un desconocido, logrando que se beneficiaran tres personas
The first 'Good Samaritan' non-directed donor in Spain is a priest from Barcelona who initiated a chain of three transplants.
And here's the article from El Pais:
España realiza el primer trasplante de vivo en cadena gracias a un donante altruista
Tres pacientes se han podido beneficiar del procedimiento.- Con este sistema, la ONT espera mantener la elevada tasa de trasplantes de España
See my earlier post about Mike Rees and Spain:
HT: Rosemarie Nagel and 'Chris F. Masse'
Éxito en la primera cadena de trasplante renal de vivo con 'buen samaritano'
El primer 'buen samaritano' de España es un religioso de Barcelona que de forma altruista y anónima ha entregado uno de sus riñones a un desconocido, logrando que se beneficiaran tres personas
The first 'Good Samaritan' non-directed donor in Spain is a priest from Barcelona who initiated a chain of three transplants.
And here's the article from El Pais:
España realiza el primer trasplante de vivo en cadena gracias a un donante altruista
Tres pacientes se han podido beneficiar del procedimiento.- Con este sistema, la ONT espera mantener la elevada tasa de trasplantes de España
See my earlier post about Mike Rees and Spain:
"Una persona altruista puede salvar muchas vidas"
"A selfless person can save many lives"HT: Rosemarie Nagel and 'Chris F. Masse'
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Expectations and reference points: Andreas Fuster
Andreas Fuster successfully defended his dissertation today on various aspects of behavioral economics. The part that was his job talk was his experimental paper, “Expectations as Endowments: Evidence on Reference-Dependent Preferences from Exchange and Valuation Experiments,” written with his fellow graduate student Keith Ericson and forthcoming in the QJE. The high level motivation for the paper is to study carefully in the lab how expectations are important for consumer decisions, and to better understand how expectations are formed. The more particular focus of the paper is reference-dependent preferences, with the idea that reference points are determined by expectations as formulated by Koszegi and Rabin. And the very particular focus of the paper is the recently controversial “endowment effect,” related to experimental observations that subjects seem reluctant to trade objects with which they are endowed.
Andreas and Keith explore whether the “reference point” that subjects form is related more to their expectations about what they may own in the future than to their current endowment. In a very carefully designed experiment, they manipulate expectations by assigning subjects a probability that they will receive an object, or have an opportunity to trade it, and then observe various measures of how subjects evaluate the object as a function of these probabilities. Their results provide the most convincing support to date of the Koszegi-Rabin model of expectation based reference points.
When asked how he planned to spend the rest of the day, Andreas replied "PhD: pretty heavy drinking."
Welcome to the club, Andreas.
Deceased donor kidney allocation--webinar today
Webinar: Thursday, April 28, 2011
Eastern time: 3:30 - 5:00 p.m. Central time: 2:30 - 4:00 p.m.
Mountain time: 1:30 - 3:00 p.m. Pacific time: 12:30 - 2:00 p.m.
Speakers/Faculty:
Kenneth Andreoni, MD, Chair, United Network for Organ Sharing Kidney Transplantation Committee; Associate Professor of Surgery, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
- UNOS Kidney Committee Allocation Concepts:Not As Different As Some Want You to Believe… (Microsoft Powerpoint Required)
- Are We Clear On The Concept? Empirical And Normative Concerns (Microsoft Powerpoint Required)
- Clarification of Media Reports on OPTN Kidney Allocation Concept Document (Internet Connection Required)
- Concepts for Kidney Allocation – Concepts for Kidney Allocation prepared by the UNOS Kidney Transplantation Committee (40 pages) (Acrobat Reader Required))
Jim Warren, Editor &; Publisher, Transplant News - Moderator
*********
See my earlier posts on this proposed policy change in the allocation of deceased donor kidneys:
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
The underlying structure of matching models: Scott Kominers
Scott recently finished his unusually well attended dissertation defense. He's engaged in a wide ranging effort to prove all the familiar theorems about matching models without any of the familiar assumptions, or at least with a demonstrably minimal set of assumptions, and hence to discover why things work in models of who gets what.
John Hatfield, on the right in the picture below, is one of Scott's chief co-conspirators.
And here they are, getting down to serious drinking afterwards:
(QED:)
Welcome to the club, Scott.
John Hatfield, on the right in the picture below, is one of Scott's chief co-conspirators.
And here they are, getting down to serious drinking afterwards:
Welcome to the club, Scott.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
A match for the law firm market?
Paul Kominers points me to this item: New ‘JD Match’ to Help Law Firms Find Law Students to Interview; K&L Gates Giving Service a Tryout
"Tired of the traditional on-campus law school interviewing process? A consultant may have the answer for some who would like to deal more directly with law firms and other legal employers seeking law students who want to apply for work.
And here's a longer article from the Am Law Daily, which suggests that unraveling is the motivator, and a deferred acceptance algorithm is part of the proposed solution: JD Match Aims to Fix the Law Firm Recruiting Process
"On Monday, Ashby Jones at The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog lifted the curtain on JD Match, a new product that will try to connect job-seeking law students with firms. For a $99 fee, students upload their resume and basic information to JD Match, then rank the law firms where they’d like to work. The law firms, in turn, rank students. An algorithm matches firms and students based on their rankings.
"It seems like such a nifty, logical concept that we at The Am Law Daily are kicking ourselves for not thinking of it first. We reached out to the driver behind JD Match, law firm consultant and Adam Smith, Esq. blogger Bruce MacEwen, to find out more. Following is an edited transcript of our phone conversation on Tuesday.
What was the genesis of JD Match?
"People have been kicking around the idea about doing something about the dysfunctional law firm recruiting model for a long time. [Harvard Law School professor] Ashish Nanda wrote a piece in The American Lawyer last January addressing this very thing.... And from my perspective, the great train wreck of the 2008/2009 recession really revealed the flaws in the system.
There's this arms race to interview earlier and earlier. It's not a smoothly functioning market at all. The economist in me just found that infuriating. So my partner Janet Stanton and I started talking about doing something like this, probably shortly after Ashish's article came out.
We did an extensive amount of research with managing partners at firms, hiring partners, career services people at law schools, and even students and junior associates, and quickly realized that the medical matching model which Ashish had written about was not going to work in our world. To begin with you can't make anything mandatory with law firms. Nevertheless, we were inspired by the idea of having an algorithm at the heart of the process.
How will the algorithm work?
"The algorithm will run three times in the OCI recruiting season: August, September, and October. What it does is assume the Econ 101 truth that each firm and each student is in the best position to determine what's in their self-interest. So the only input to the algorithm is preferences for firms for students and preferences for students for firms. That's it. No qualitative or quantitative information whatsoever.
"The assumption is that the preferences represent all the distilled information--research, anecdotes, gossip, whatever--that firms have about students and students have about firms. When the algorithm runs, a couple of things happen. First, no student and firm wlll ever be paired unless it's mutual. So if I didn't put Skadden on my list, it doesn't matter if Skadden loves me. I'm not going to be matched with Skadden.
So give me a hypothetical scenario of how this would work.
"Let's pretend I did put Skadden as my first choice and they did have 25 spots. I will tentatively, as the algorithm is running, be matched with Skadden unless and until I get bumped because Skadden gets matched with 25 students it likes more than it likes me. And then I go to my next available firm that has a seat for me. And then it goes on like that.
"Students get [matched with] one and only one firm on the theory that they can only take one job. Firms will get as many students as they said they have slots or maybe fewer if not that many students like them. But they won't get more. So this helps firms manage yield. And two professors of law [Kevin Quinn at the University of California at Berkeley and Andrew Martin at Washington University in St. Louis] are writing the algorithm for us.
Why will you run the algorithm three times?
"Let's pretend that I'm a law student back at Stanford but I have delusions about what a hot commodity I am. Let's say the first 15 firms I rank are highly aspirational: Skadden, Davis Polk, Cleary. You know. The usual suspects. So the August match runs, and I find out that I was matched with firm number 17. Well, this is a reality check for me. It's unfiltered, real-time market information and that should tell me for the September match and OCI, I need to be a little more realistic.
Is there a baseline number of students and firms that JD Match will need to sign up in order for the process to work efficiently?
"Yes. We have four Am Law 30 firms signed up including K&L Gates. We can't name the other three yet, but they will come out shortly. We've been previewing JD Match primarily to the law firms, but we've also reached out to the law schools. The schools are intrigued. They're a little nervous about upsetting the OCI process that they drive, but they do understand JD Match provides an overlay to the process as it currently works. We don't change anything about OCI.
What else do you have in the works?
"We are creating something called the JD Match Institute which we will fund out of our revenues. And its designed to begin to look at the data we will be gathering and suss out what actually makes for successful lawyers.
"Our strong suspicion--confirmed by [University of Indiana professor] Bill Henderson--is it ain't GPA. In version 2.0 of JD Match we will introduce some psychographic and behavioral testing for students. Voluntary, obviously, but there are very few law firms that are doing this. McKenna Long is doing it. Some firms like K&L are doing it in the U.K....
"What we think we can develop in fairly short order is empirical evidence of what makes for a successful lawyer and that would be tremendously exciting for us because law firms could begin to hire a little more rationally. Frankly I think it could only be good for the students. There are 40,000 law students in the U.S. and how many of them are on the Harvard Law Review? But a lot of them could be great with clients, could be responsive, could be team players, could be emotionally intelligent....It could only open up more doors."
"Tired of the traditional on-campus law school interviewing process? A consultant may have the answer for some who would like to deal more directly with law firms and other legal employers seeking law students who want to apply for work.
And here's a longer article from the Am Law Daily, which suggests that unraveling is the motivator, and a deferred acceptance algorithm is part of the proposed solution: JD Match Aims to Fix the Law Firm Recruiting Process
"On Monday, Ashby Jones at The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog lifted the curtain on JD Match, a new product that will try to connect job-seeking law students with firms. For a $99 fee, students upload their resume and basic information to JD Match, then rank the law firms where they’d like to work. The law firms, in turn, rank students. An algorithm matches firms and students based on their rankings.
"It seems like such a nifty, logical concept that we at The Am Law Daily are kicking ourselves for not thinking of it first. We reached out to the driver behind JD Match, law firm consultant and Adam Smith, Esq. blogger Bruce MacEwen, to find out more. Following is an edited transcript of our phone conversation on Tuesday.
What was the genesis of JD Match?
"People have been kicking around the idea about doing something about the dysfunctional law firm recruiting model for a long time. [Harvard Law School professor] Ashish Nanda wrote a piece in The American Lawyer last January addressing this very thing.... And from my perspective, the great train wreck of the 2008/2009 recession really revealed the flaws in the system.
There's this arms race to interview earlier and earlier. It's not a smoothly functioning market at all. The economist in me just found that infuriating. So my partner Janet Stanton and I started talking about doing something like this, probably shortly after Ashish's article came out.
We did an extensive amount of research with managing partners at firms, hiring partners, career services people at law schools, and even students and junior associates, and quickly realized that the medical matching model which Ashish had written about was not going to work in our world. To begin with you can't make anything mandatory with law firms. Nevertheless, we were inspired by the idea of having an algorithm at the heart of the process.
How will the algorithm work?
"The algorithm will run three times in the OCI recruiting season: August, September, and October. What it does is assume the Econ 101 truth that each firm and each student is in the best position to determine what's in their self-interest. So the only input to the algorithm is preferences for firms for students and preferences for students for firms. That's it. No qualitative or quantitative information whatsoever.
"The assumption is that the preferences represent all the distilled information--research, anecdotes, gossip, whatever--that firms have about students and students have about firms. When the algorithm runs, a couple of things happen. First, no student and firm wlll ever be paired unless it's mutual. So if I didn't put Skadden on my list, it doesn't matter if Skadden loves me. I'm not going to be matched with Skadden.
So give me a hypothetical scenario of how this would work.
"Let's pretend I did put Skadden as my first choice and they did have 25 spots. I will tentatively, as the algorithm is running, be matched with Skadden unless and until I get bumped because Skadden gets matched with 25 students it likes more than it likes me. And then I go to my next available firm that has a seat for me. And then it goes on like that.
"Students get [matched with] one and only one firm on the theory that they can only take one job. Firms will get as many students as they said they have slots or maybe fewer if not that many students like them. But they won't get more. So this helps firms manage yield. And two professors of law [Kevin Quinn at the University of California at Berkeley and Andrew Martin at Washington University in St. Louis] are writing the algorithm for us.
Why will you run the algorithm three times?
"Let's pretend that I'm a law student back at Stanford but I have delusions about what a hot commodity I am. Let's say the first 15 firms I rank are highly aspirational: Skadden, Davis Polk, Cleary. You know. The usual suspects. So the August match runs, and I find out that I was matched with firm number 17. Well, this is a reality check for me. It's unfiltered, real-time market information and that should tell me for the September match and OCI, I need to be a little more realistic.
Is there a baseline number of students and firms that JD Match will need to sign up in order for the process to work efficiently?
"Yes. We have four Am Law 30 firms signed up including K&L Gates. We can't name the other three yet, but they will come out shortly. We've been previewing JD Match primarily to the law firms, but we've also reached out to the law schools. The schools are intrigued. They're a little nervous about upsetting the OCI process that they drive, but they do understand JD Match provides an overlay to the process as it currently works. We don't change anything about OCI.
What else do you have in the works?
"We are creating something called the JD Match Institute which we will fund out of our revenues. And its designed to begin to look at the data we will be gathering and suss out what actually makes for successful lawyers.
"Our strong suspicion--confirmed by [University of Indiana professor] Bill Henderson--is it ain't GPA. In version 2.0 of JD Match we will introduce some psychographic and behavioral testing for students. Voluntary, obviously, but there are very few law firms that are doing this. McKenna Long is doing it. Some firms like K&L are doing it in the U.K....
"What we think we can develop in fairly short order is empirical evidence of what makes for a successful lawyer and that would be tremendously exciting for us because law firms could begin to hire a little more rationally. Frankly I think it could only be good for the students. There are 40,000 law students in the U.S. and how many of them are on the Harvard Law Review? But a lot of them could be great with clients, could be responsive, could be team players, could be emotionally intelligent....It could only open up more doors."
Monday, April 25, 2011
Pre-kindergarten and school choice in Boston
Boston has a pre-kindergarten program that doesn't have enough spaces to meet demand, particularly because it is an entryway into the full public school choice process: a child who gets a good school for pre-K is guaranteed to be able to stay there for elementary school.
Stephanie Ebbert picks up the story in the Globe: Split decisions on school lottery.
Parents shut out of Boston pre-K classes despair, while others rejoice in top picks
Stephanie Ebbert picks up the story in the Globe: Split decisions on school lottery.
Parents shut out of Boston pre-K classes despair, while others rejoice in top picks
"Chief Jasaad Rogers of Roxbury, like his brother before him, had lousy luck in the Boston public schools lottery. Not only was the 4-year-old shut out of the schools his parents wanted; he did not win a prekindergarten seat in any school at all. His parents, who both work full time, were left with few options besides paying for him to go somewhere else.
In West Roxbury, Debra Brendemuehl hit the jackpot, though she did not necessarily need full-day schooling for her 4-year-old, Brendan. (“They’re not kids forever,’’ she reasoned.)
She entered the lottery because she knew the only way to get him into the neighborhood’s highly sought-after schools was to apply when he was 4. The strategy worked: He won a spot at one of the city’s most competitive schools, the Lyndon in West Roxbury, which he can attend through eighth grade."
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Ad for custom egg donor
An ad in the Harvard Crimson (the student newspaper) reflects some of the fast-changing world of same-sex marriage and the market for reproductive services, with a mixed-race married gay couple looking for a Caucasian-Chinese mixed race egg donor. I infer that the market for surrogate wombs may also be involved.
**************
(This also reminds me of the work Kim Krawiec has been doing on the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s guidelines for compensating oocyte donors. ("Total payments to donors in excess of $5,000 require justification and sums above $10,000 are not appropriate.")
Kim's recent blog posts on the subject are here, here, here and here, and her paper is here: Krawiec, Kimberly D., Sunny Samaritans and Egomaniacs: Price-Fixing in the Gamete Market (May 23, 2009). Law and Contemporary Problems, Vol. 72, No. 3, 2009; UNC Legal Studies Research Paper No. 1356012. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1356012
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Misc. repugnant transactions
Kung Pao Kitten (a recipe meant as a joke, that elicited lots of complaints...)
"A student who had sex with a girlfriend on top of a university building in front of hundreds of onlookers has been suspended from his fraternity."
"The university said it was investigating whether the actions of the male student "constituted a violation of university policies that prohibit unauthorised access to building roofs."
The university is USC.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Susan Athey and the National Medal of Science
No, not yet.
But this.
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release April 21, 2011 President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts
Susan Athey, Appointee for Member, President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science
Susan Athey is a Professor of Economics at Harvard University and co-director of the Market Design Working Group at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her current research studies the design of auction-based marketplaces, the statistical analysis of auction data, and internet economics. Dr. Athey was the first female recipient of the highly prestigious John Bates Clark medal, awarded by the American Economic Association, and she is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She recently served as an elected member of the executive committee of the American Economics Association as well as the Council of the Econometric Society. Dr. Athey received her B.A. from Duke University in economics, mathematics, and computer science and her Ph.D. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Laws against polygamy to be tested in Canada
Canadian laws against polygamy will be tested in a suit brought against some of the inhabitants of the rural enclave of Bountiful, British Columbia, who are polygamous adherents of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). The Canadian magazine The Walrus covers the story: To the Exclusion of All Others: In a liberal society, is polygamy still intolerable?
At least part of the issue is how traditional divorce law, set up for dividing property between two people, would be adopted.
"American legal scholar Adrienne Davis, who believes that conventional family law rooted in monogamous marriage may not be up to attempts at cobbling polygamous marriage onto it, points out an alternative: commercial partnership law. Typically used when two or more parties go into business, according to Davis it would certainly address “polygamy’s central conundrum: ensuring fairness and establishing baseline behaviour in contexts characterized by multiple partners, on-going entrances and exits, and life-defining economic and personal stakes.” Of course, there would be a huge administrative cost to both adapting the model to marriage, and to ensuring that over the course of a union all partners consented to any new additions to it and renegotiated their respective rights as the landscape changed. More to the point, however, this is not what polygamists want, and it’s not what we want. Remember, liberal marriage was built on the concept of love; it’s hard to imagine a way of squaring this with the filing of an annual marriage report."
At least part of the issue is how traditional divorce law, set up for dividing property between two people, would be adopted.
"American legal scholar Adrienne Davis, who believes that conventional family law rooted in monogamous marriage may not be up to attempts at cobbling polygamous marriage onto it, points out an alternative: commercial partnership law. Typically used when two or more parties go into business, according to Davis it would certainly address “polygamy’s central conundrum: ensuring fairness and establishing baseline behaviour in contexts characterized by multiple partners, on-going entrances and exits, and life-defining economic and personal stakes.” Of course, there would be a huge administrative cost to both adapting the model to marriage, and to ensuring that over the course of a union all partners consented to any new additions to it and renegotiated their respective rights as the landscape changed. More to the point, however, this is not what polygamists want, and it’s not what we want. Remember, liberal marriage was built on the concept of love; it’s hard to imagine a way of squaring this with the filing of an annual marriage report."
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Exploding offers and the market culture of law reviews
Here's an April 19 open letter To the legal community from a number of student-edited law journals.
"In recent years, many law journals have adopted the practice of issuing “exploding offers”—giving scholars only a couple of days, hours, or even minutes to accept an offer of publication. The reasoning behind these offers was simple: we each hoped to secure the best articles for our own journal before others could identify them and make competing offers. But experience has made clear that the costs of this practice—to the quality of our deliberations, to the faculty with whom we work, and, ultimately, to the scholarship we publish—dramatically outweigh the benefits. We therefore commit, effective immediately, to give every author at least seven days to decide whether to accept any offer of publication.
"This decision stems from the recognition that what once seemed an effective strategy for any one of us has in fact had a highly corrosive effect on all of us. Journals have responded to the prospect of exploding offers elsewhere by speeding up their own processes: rapidly winnowing down submissions, quickly holding articles committee votes, and, in the case of many journals, only occasionally consulting scholars in the field regarding an article’s novelty or contribution. This expedited review has inevitably favored established authors, popular topics, and broad claims at the expense of originality and merit. It has led many law journals to establish a twotrack process for article review: a fast track for widely recognized authors, whose submissions are more likely to elicit exploding offers; a slower track for younger authors and authors who teach at lower-ranked institutions. Many deserving pieces in the latter category never get to the front of the line.
"Moreover, expedited review has unduly compelled authors to undertake complicated workarounds and endure strong-arming and stress. Nor have exploding offers accomplished their purpose of improving our standing: for as often as we’ve taken good articles from others, we’ve had good articles taken from us. The dominant experience has merely been an ever-expanding push toward quick review and quick decision.
"Opening a seven-day offer window will substantially eliminate these defects. Student editors, lacking the incentive to expedite selection decisions, will be able to engage more deeply with the articles we review. We will have the time to consult scholars regularly regarding an article’s significance and novelty. As a result, all of us will be able to publish more of the stellar pieces that, under the current system, slip through the cracks.
"No doubt giving up a practice to which we’ve grown accustomed entails some risk. But we are confident that the risks of continuing the present race to the bottom are substantially greater. We invite all other student-edited law journals to join this letter, and we welcome an ongoing discussion with both journals and authors about how best to work together effectively."
HT: Clayton Featherstone, who writes "I wonder who the first defector will be?"
I notice that none of the journals signing the letter have made the more difficult promise not to respond to exploding offers from less prestigious journals. So there will still be incentives for authors to try to move up the prestige ranking of law journals by first soliciting offers from lower ranked journals, and then trying to turn these into hasty acceptances from higher ranked journals.
for more on exploding offers and market culture,
Niederle, Muriel, and Alvin E. Roth, "Market Culture: How Rules Governing Exploding Offers Affect Market Performance," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 1, 2, August 2009, 199-219.
And here are some (law review) articles on exploding offers in the market for law clerks:
Avery, Christopher, Christine Jolls, Richard A. Posner, and Alvin E. Roth, "The Market for Federal Judicial Law Clerks" University of Chicago Law Review, 68, 3, Summer, 2001, 793-902.(online at SSRN)
Avery, Christopher, Jolls, Christine, Posner, Richard A. and Roth, Alvin E., "The New Market for Federal Judicial Law Clerks" . University of Chicago Law Review, 74, Spring 2007, 447-486.
"In recent years, many law journals have adopted the practice of issuing “exploding offers”—giving scholars only a couple of days, hours, or even minutes to accept an offer of publication. The reasoning behind these offers was simple: we each hoped to secure the best articles for our own journal before others could identify them and make competing offers. But experience has made clear that the costs of this practice—to the quality of our deliberations, to the faculty with whom we work, and, ultimately, to the scholarship we publish—dramatically outweigh the benefits. We therefore commit, effective immediately, to give every author at least seven days to decide whether to accept any offer of publication.
"This decision stems from the recognition that what once seemed an effective strategy for any one of us has in fact had a highly corrosive effect on all of us. Journals have responded to the prospect of exploding offers elsewhere by speeding up their own processes: rapidly winnowing down submissions, quickly holding articles committee votes, and, in the case of many journals, only occasionally consulting scholars in the field regarding an article’s novelty or contribution. This expedited review has inevitably favored established authors, popular topics, and broad claims at the expense of originality and merit. It has led many law journals to establish a twotrack process for article review: a fast track for widely recognized authors, whose submissions are more likely to elicit exploding offers; a slower track for younger authors and authors who teach at lower-ranked institutions. Many deserving pieces in the latter category never get to the front of the line.
"Moreover, expedited review has unduly compelled authors to undertake complicated workarounds and endure strong-arming and stress. Nor have exploding offers accomplished their purpose of improving our standing: for as often as we’ve taken good articles from others, we’ve had good articles taken from us. The dominant experience has merely been an ever-expanding push toward quick review and quick decision.
"Opening a seven-day offer window will substantially eliminate these defects. Student editors, lacking the incentive to expedite selection decisions, will be able to engage more deeply with the articles we review. We will have the time to consult scholars regularly regarding an article’s significance and novelty. As a result, all of us will be able to publish more of the stellar pieces that, under the current system, slip through the cracks.
"No doubt giving up a practice to which we’ve grown accustomed entails some risk. But we are confident that the risks of continuing the present race to the bottom are substantially greater. We invite all other student-edited law journals to join this letter, and we welcome an ongoing discussion with both journals and authors about how best to work together effectively."
HT: Clayton Featherstone, who writes "I wonder who the first defector will be?"
I notice that none of the journals signing the letter have made the more difficult promise not to respond to exploding offers from less prestigious journals. So there will still be incentives for authors to try to move up the prestige ranking of law journals by first soliciting offers from lower ranked journals, and then trying to turn these into hasty acceptances from higher ranked journals.
for more on exploding offers and market culture,
Niederle, Muriel, and Alvin E. Roth, "Market Culture: How Rules Governing Exploding Offers Affect Market Performance," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 1, 2, August 2009, 199-219.
And here are some (law review) articles on exploding offers in the market for law clerks:
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
A danceable economic experiment on public good provision
Lights! Dancers! Economics!
"If Milton Friedman and Martha Graham had a love child, it might look something like the "Tragedy of the Commons."
"Antony Davies, an associate professor of economics at Duquesne University, and his sister, Jenefer Davies, an assistant professor of dance at Washington and Lee University, staged the experimental production this month at Washington and Lee to demonstrate a key principle of economics. The tragedy of the commons, enunciated in an essay of the same name in 1968 by the ecologist Garrett Hardin, states that when a resource is held jointly, its owners will deplete it more quickly than when individuals own equal and private portions of the same resource.
...
"In the performance, five volunteers from the audience individually controlled spotlights that illuminated each of five dancers onstage. Volunteers were told that they should try to keep their dancers illuminated as long as possible but that the light was a limited resource: The first performance began with 30 seconds of light in the communal "light bank," and audience members drained that bank when they illuminated their dancers. Turning the light off, however, would slowly replenish the time in the bank.
"Immediately after the first performance with the communal bank, the dancers began a second performance. But this time the five volunteers drew light from—and restored it to—private banks, up to six seconds per volunteer.
...
"The economic theory played out as anticipated. The volunteers generated more light during the second leg of each of the three performances, with their individual "light banks," than they did while sharing time from the communal bank. Mr. Davies was relieved."
You can see the dance here: econ dance performance
"If Milton Friedman and Martha Graham had a love child, it might look something like the "Tragedy of the Commons."
"Antony Davies, an associate professor of economics at Duquesne University, and his sister, Jenefer Davies, an assistant professor of dance at Washington and Lee University, staged the experimental production this month at Washington and Lee to demonstrate a key principle of economics. The tragedy of the commons, enunciated in an essay of the same name in 1968 by the ecologist Garrett Hardin, states that when a resource is held jointly, its owners will deplete it more quickly than when individuals own equal and private portions of the same resource.
...
"In the performance, five volunteers from the audience individually controlled spotlights that illuminated each of five dancers onstage. Volunteers were told that they should try to keep their dancers illuminated as long as possible but that the light was a limited resource: The first performance began with 30 seconds of light in the communal "light bank," and audience members drained that bank when they illuminated their dancers. Turning the light off, however, would slowly replenish the time in the bank.
"Immediately after the first performance with the communal bank, the dancers began a second performance. But this time the five volunteers drew light from—and restored it to—private banks, up to six seconds per volunteer.
...
"The economic theory played out as anticipated. The volunteers generated more light during the second leg of each of the three performances, with their individual "light banks," than they did while sharing time from the communal bank. Mr. Davies was relieved."
You can see the dance here: econ dance performance
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Mixed martial arts: a formerly repugnant transaction?
New York State is one of the few holdouts, and a recent Op-Ed in the NY Times anticipates that will end: It Only Looks Dangerous
"MIXED martial arts is one of the fastest-growing sports in America. Yet for years the New York State Legislature has refused to sanction M.M.A. — making New York one of the last states holding out against the sport’s expansion. (Connecticut is a holdout, too.) After helping to block a clause in last year’s budget that would have legalized M.M.A., Bob Reilly, a state assemblyman, called it “a violent sport not worthy of our society.”
...
"There have been only three fatalities in the 17-year history of American M.M.A. But we average almost that many in a single year in boxing: 129 fighters have died in American rings since 1960.
"Some might argue that such statistics only make the case that boxing, too, should be banned. But what about hockey or football? Men’s Health has proudly and without controversy featured Drew Brees, Tom Brady and other N.F.L. stars on our cover — despite the fact that football and hockey combined sent 55,000 Americans to the emergency room for head injuries in 2009 alone.
...
"The New York State Assembly and Senate both have bills in committee that would allow M.M.A. into the state, and it only makes sense to push them through."
"MIXED martial arts is one of the fastest-growing sports in America. Yet for years the New York State Legislature has refused to sanction M.M.A. — making New York one of the last states holding out against the sport’s expansion. (Connecticut is a holdout, too.) After helping to block a clause in last year’s budget that would have legalized M.M.A., Bob Reilly, a state assemblyman, called it “a violent sport not worthy of our society.”
...
"There have been only three fatalities in the 17-year history of American M.M.A. But we average almost that many in a single year in boxing: 129 fighters have died in American rings since 1960.
"Some might argue that such statistics only make the case that boxing, too, should be banned. But what about hockey or football? Men’s Health has proudly and without controversy featured Drew Brees, Tom Brady and other N.F.L. stars on our cover — despite the fact that football and hockey combined sent 55,000 Americans to the emergency room for head injuries in 2009 alone.
...
"The New York State Assembly and Senate both have bills in committee that would allow M.M.A. into the state, and it only makes sense to push them through."
Monday, April 18, 2011
Jon Levin, Clark Medalist
Among a long list of accomplishments, the AEA includes these:
"The Organization and Design of Markets
A second main strand of Levin's research focuses on the success or failure of specific markets in efficiently allocating scarce resources. Much of it attempts to determine whether changes in market design and institutions would lead to more efficient outcomes. This research is distinguished by the way it integrates economic theory, novel empirical methods, and data to obtain interesting new insights. For example, in a series of papers with Susan Athey (a previous John Bates Clark medalist), Levin studied competitive bidding for federally-owned timber, with the goal of understanding how different auction rules used by the government have affected competition. These papers are examples of excellent applied work, and they helped establish the frontier for empirical work on auctions, an active and exciting area in the last decade."
Congratulations, Jon.
"The Organization and Design of Markets
A second main strand of Levin's research focuses on the success or failure of specific markets in efficiently allocating scarce resources. Much of it attempts to determine whether changes in market design and institutions would lead to more efficient outcomes. This research is distinguished by the way it integrates economic theory, novel empirical methods, and data to obtain interesting new insights. For example, in a series of papers with Susan Athey (a previous John Bates Clark medalist), Levin studied competitive bidding for federally-owned timber, with the goal of understanding how different auction rules used by the government have affected competition. These papers are examples of excellent applied work, and they helped establish the frontier for empirical work on auctions, an active and exciting area in the last decade."
Congratulations, Jon.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Edelman on Bloomberg on Google
Antitrust regulation is of course a form of market design. Ben Edelman talks about his concerns here.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Jeff Ely on market design
Friday, April 15, 2011
High school choice in New York City
The outcome of the main match for positions in NYC high schools has come out, and about 8,000 children (out of somewhat more than 80,000) did not find a match among their listed choices and will have to go through the supplemental round to find a match: Over 8,000 New York eighth-graders rejected from high school choices, forced to apply again
"Pamela Wheaton of Insideschools.org at The New School said every year there are some kids who don't get matched because there aren't enough good schools to go around.
"There simply aren't the spaces," she said, noting the process is also "very complicated" for parents who don't necessarily realize the steep competition at some choice schools.
"The city's record at matching students with at least one of their choices has improved since 2004, when 16% of students got no matches."
A similar problem--shortage of spaces in popular schools--has influenced the kindergarten choice process as well: Kindergarten crunch: Popular schools run out of seats and parents are furious
Not enough good schools: that's a problem no school choice system can fix by itself.
(Recall the similar story I blogged about in Boston: Boston Globe on school choice.)
My papers on school choice in NY and Boston are here.
"Pamela Wheaton of Insideschools.org at The New School said every year there are some kids who don't get matched because there aren't enough good schools to go around.
"There simply aren't the spaces," she said, noting the process is also "very complicated" for parents who don't necessarily realize the steep competition at some choice schools.
"The city's record at matching students with at least one of their choices has improved since 2004, when 16% of students got no matches."
A similar problem--shortage of spaces in popular schools--has influenced the kindergarten choice process as well: Kindergarten crunch: Popular schools run out of seats and parents are furious
Not enough good schools: that's a problem no school choice system can fix by itself.
(Recall the similar story I blogged about in Boston: Boston Globe on school choice.)
My papers on school choice in NY and Boston are here.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
France Enforces Ban on Full-Face Veils in Public
Here's the story in the NY Times.
"A French ban outlawing full-face veils in public, the first to be enacted in Europe, came into force on Monday and faced immediate, if low-key, challenges."
"A French ban outlawing full-face veils in public, the first to be enacted in Europe, came into force on Monday and faced immediate, if low-key, challenges."
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Delayed college admissions
The NY Times reports on a new trend in enrollment management: Admission to College, With Catch: Year’s Wait
"Now, as colleges are increasingly swamped with applications, a small but growing number are offering a third option: guaranteed admission if the student attends another institution for a year or two and earns a prescribed grade-point average.
"This little-noticed practice — an unusual mix of early admission and delayed gratification — has allowed colleges to tap their growing pools of eager candidates to help counter the enrollment slump that most institutions suffer later on, as the accepted students drop out, transfer, study abroad or take internships off campus.
“Life happens — we all understand that the size of the freshman class diminishes as they progress,” said Barmak Nassirian, an associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers in Washington. “This is an attempt at what is called enrollment management.”
"But while the practice, known as deferred admission or a guaranteed transfer option, offers applicants another shot at their dream school, it can also place them in limbo, as they start college life on a campus they plan to abandon. And it can create problems for that institution, which is not usually told about the deal the student has struck with a competitor.
"Monica Inzer, the dean of admission at Hamilton College in upstate New York, called the practice “borderline unethical,” saying it had the effect of recruiting students from other colleges. “We would allow a student to defer for a year, but never to matriculate full time at another college,” Ms. Inzer said."
"Now, as colleges are increasingly swamped with applications, a small but growing number are offering a third option: guaranteed admission if the student attends another institution for a year or two and earns a prescribed grade-point average.
"This little-noticed practice — an unusual mix of early admission and delayed gratification — has allowed colleges to tap their growing pools of eager candidates to help counter the enrollment slump that most institutions suffer later on, as the accepted students drop out, transfer, study abroad or take internships off campus.
“Life happens — we all understand that the size of the freshman class diminishes as they progress,” said Barmak Nassirian, an associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers in Washington. “This is an attempt at what is called enrollment management.”
"But while the practice, known as deferred admission or a guaranteed transfer option, offers applicants another shot at their dream school, it can also place them in limbo, as they start college life on a campus they plan to abandon. And it can create problems for that institution, which is not usually told about the deal the student has struck with a competitor.
"Monica Inzer, the dean of admission at Hamilton College in upstate New York, called the practice “borderline unethical,” saying it had the effect of recruiting students from other colleges. “We would allow a student to defer for a year, but never to matriculate full time at another college,” Ms. Inzer said."
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Medical residency scramble
Dr. Naveed Saleh, writing in New Physician, describes some of the different prognoses suggested for the new resident scramble (SOAP) which will operate next year: Unscrambling the Match.
"Roth predicts that the rules of the SOAP will be subverted by both programs and applicants eager to match. "If it's really, really tempting for people on both sides to break the rules," says Roth, "often the rules get broken."
Roth suggests that instead of the SOAP, the NRMP and ERAS should institute a properly organized second match during Match Week.
Mona M. Signer, executive director of the NRMP, disagrees with Roth's prediction that decision-making during the SOAP will be strategic. Instead, she predicts that programs and applicants will continue to pursue their best opportunities. Additionally, as with the Match, should a program or applicant violate prescribed rules, sanctions would be imposed.
My previous posts on the residency scramble, and the proposed new rules are here.
"Roth predicts that the rules of the SOAP will be subverted by both programs and applicants eager to match. "If it's really, really tempting for people on both sides to break the rules," says Roth, "often the rules get broken."
Roth suggests that instead of the SOAP, the NRMP and ERAS should institute a properly organized second match during Match Week.
Mona M. Signer, executive director of the NRMP, disagrees with Roth's prediction that decision-making during the SOAP will be strategic. Instead, she predicts that programs and applicants will continue to pursue their best opportunities. Additionally, as with the Match, should a program or applicant violate prescribed rules, sanctions would be imposed.
My previous posts on the residency scramble, and the proposed new rules are here.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Live donor teeth (and George Washington)
Owen Ozier writes: "I have been reading Ron Chernow's 2010 biography of George Washington, and came across a passage about the trade in a different body part - teeth. I hadn't ever heard of this before, but it reminded me of your talk, so I thought I would send it along:
"From chapter 36 of Washington: A Life
"Always a tough, leery customer, Washington was skeptical about claims made for transplanted teeth. The following year, when Le Mayeur performed a successful transplant upon Richard Varick, it made a convert of Washington. According to Mary Thompson, Washington bought nine teeth in 1784 from certain nameless "Negroes" for thirteen shillings apiece.[7] Whether he wanted the teeth implanted directly in his mouth, or incorporated into dentures, we cannot say. However ghoulish this trade sounds to modern readers, it was then standard practice for rich people to purchase teeth from the poor. In his advertisements, Dr. Le Mayeur offered to buy teeth from willing vendors and bid "three guineas for good front teeth from anyone but slaves." [8] This suggests a stigma among white people about having slaves' teeth. We can deduce that Washington's dental transplant miscarried, since by the time of his presidential inauguration in 1789, he had only a single working tooth remaining."
Relevant references appear to be:
[5] Brown, Lawrence Parmly. "The Antiquities of Dental Prosthesis:
Part III, Section 2, Eighteenth Century." Dental Cosmos 76, No. 11, November 1934
[7] Henriques, Peter R. Realistic Visionary: A Portrait of George Washington. Charlottesville: UVA Press, 2006, p.154
[8] Unger, Harlow Giles. The Unexpected George Washington: His Private Life. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2006, p.163
(Kant also wrote about sale of teeth: see my earlier blog post Kant on compensation for organ donors )
"From chapter 36 of Washington: A Life
"Always a tough, leery customer, Washington was skeptical about claims made for transplanted teeth. The following year, when Le Mayeur performed a successful transplant upon Richard Varick, it made a convert of Washington. According to Mary Thompson, Washington bought nine teeth in 1784 from certain nameless "Negroes" for thirteen shillings apiece.[7] Whether he wanted the teeth implanted directly in his mouth, or incorporated into dentures, we cannot say. However ghoulish this trade sounds to modern readers, it was then standard practice for rich people to purchase teeth from the poor. In his advertisements, Dr. Le Mayeur offered to buy teeth from willing vendors and bid "three guineas for good front teeth from anyone but slaves." [8] This suggests a stigma among white people about having slaves' teeth. We can deduce that Washington's dental transplant miscarried, since by the time of his presidential inauguration in 1789, he had only a single working tooth remaining."
Relevant references appear to be:
[5] Brown, Lawrence Parmly. "The Antiquities of Dental Prosthesis:
Part III, Section 2, Eighteenth Century." Dental Cosmos 76, No. 11, November 1934
[7] Henriques, Peter R. Realistic Visionary: A Portrait of George Washington. Charlottesville: UVA Press, 2006, p.154
[8] Unger, Harlow Giles. The Unexpected George Washington: His Private Life. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2006, p.163
(Kant also wrote about sale of teeth: see my earlier blog post Kant on compensation for organ donors )
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Swoopo: gone but not forgotten
Swoopo is reported to be bankrupt: Goodnight, Swoopo: The Pay-Per-Bid Auction Site Is Dead
I blogged in 2009 about A proliferation of penny auctions, and when I looked back at it just now, I saw that it attracted a bunch of spammish comments from penny auction sites...
HT: Peter Coles
I blogged in 2009 about A proliferation of penny auctions, and when I looked back at it just now, I saw that it attracted a bunch of spammish comments from penny auction sites...
HT: Peter Coles
Saturday, April 9, 2011
2011 Summer School: Market Failure and Market Design
2011 Summer School. Market Failure and Market Design, Louvain-la-Neuve, May 23-26, 2011
To submit a paper: Those interested should submit a title for their presentation AND a paper as well as your curriculum vitae by April 10 to Sylvie Mauroy. The selection of speakers and preliminary program will be announced by April 26.
To register (without presenting a paper): Just send an e-mail to Nancy De Munck or Sylvie Mauroy with your complete affiliation. There is no registration fee, but registration is NECESSARY before May 10.
Keynote Speakers:
Douglas BERNHEIM, Stanford University
Lecture 1: Poverty and Self-Control
Lecture 2: Applied Behavioral Welfare Economics: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Lecture 3: Revealed Preference without Choice
Vincent CRAWFORD, University of Oxford
Lecture 1: Strategic Thinking
Lecture 2: Level-k Auctions (paper 1 - paper 2 )
Lecture 3: Efficient Mechanisms for Level-k Bilateral Trading
Parag PATHAK, Massuchusetts Institute of Technology
Organizing committee:
Jean Hindriks, CORE, Université catholique de Louvain
Georg Kirchsteiger, ECARES, Université Libre de Bruxelles
François Maniquet, CORE, Université catholique de Louvain
HT: Bettina Klaus
To submit a paper: Those interested should submit a title for their presentation AND a paper as well as your curriculum vitae by April 10 to Sylvie Mauroy. The selection of speakers and preliminary program will be announced by April 26.
To register (without presenting a paper): Just send an e-mail to Nancy De Munck or Sylvie Mauroy with your complete affiliation. There is no registration fee, but registration is NECESSARY before May 10.
Keynote Speakers:
Douglas BERNHEIM, Stanford University
Lecture 1: Poverty and Self-Control
Lecture 2: Applied Behavioral Welfare Economics: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Lecture 3: Revealed Preference without Choice
Vincent CRAWFORD, University of Oxford
Lecture 1: Strategic Thinking
Lecture 2: Level-k Auctions (paper 1 - paper 2 )
Lecture 3: Efficient Mechanisms for Level-k Bilateral Trading
Parag PATHAK, Massuchusetts Institute of Technology
Organizing committee:
Jean Hindriks, CORE, Université catholique de Louvain
Georg Kirchsteiger, ECARES, Université Libre de Bruxelles
François Maniquet, CORE, Université catholique de Louvain
HT: Bettina Klaus
Should there be a donor kidney market? Latest version of a familiar debate
The Los Angeles Times published a short debate between two familiar interlocuters, Ben Hippen and Frank Delmonico: Pro/con The consequences of a donor kidney market
"With a waiting list for a kidney at almost 83,000 Americans, the push to offer cash and other incentives grows. Two experts offer their opposing views on a donor kidney market."
"People who need kidneys are dying unnecessarily, and an organ market would save lives."
Dr. Benjamin Hippen is a transplant nephrologist at the Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C.
"The most compelling reason for setting up a market for organs is that there really isn't any other plausible solution to the growing disparity between the demand for and supply of organs. Even if we were to maximize organ procurement from deceased donors, we still couldn't meet the demand.
"As that demand grows, it's not just potential kidney recipients who get desperate — it's also potential donors, who often have a close-up view of what their loved ones are going through. We then see people with health problems, like high blood pressure or obesity, say that they're willing to take on a certain amount of risk so that their loved one can live a better life.
"A regulated market would be, in some sense, safer — the pressure would be taken off folks who want to be donors but perhaps shouldn't be for medical reasons. Transplant professionals could then select the healthiest donors, who are at the lowest risk for long-term complications. With a regulated market, we could say to high risk-donor candidates, "No, you shouldn't be a donor, and your loved one isn't going to suffer as a consequence of that decision."
"There's also a significant difference between what it costs to maintain a transplant versus what it costs to maintain someone on dialysis. In 2007, $28 billion was spent nationally on people on dialysis; about $2.2 billion was allocated to kidney transplantation. So transplants are vastly more cost-effective, and in general they confer a longer survival benefit. Also, a larger proportion of people are able to go back to work compared with people on dialysis.
"The unregulated, underground black market in organs in developing countries has been catastrophic for both donors and recipients. But the reason that someone who is desperately poor may be able to sell their kidney on the black market is that people in countries of comparative wealth have failed to solve their own supply problem. That is a policy failure. If the demand for organs could be met through legal, ethical strategies, some of the driving forces that support black markets would disappear.
"If, indeed, the current system isn't meeting demand, then there's a sense in which it's unethical not to establish regulated incentives for living donors or to think more carefully about not doing so. The cost is being paid by the people who are dying on the waiting list, getting sicker on dialysis or selling their kidneys under terrible circumstances."
"An organ market would exploit the world's poor and set the precedent for medical transplant tourism that puts everyone at risk."
Dr. Francis Delmonico is the director of renal transplantation at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School. He is also the medical director of the New England Organ Bank in Newton, Mass.
"Despite the good intentions of those who would suggest that an organ market could be regulated, it's impossible to do so. A market for organ sales enables brokers and extra payments, and in a global society, the market could not be restricted to the United States.
"Right now, our country sets the tone on this issue. Once we say it's OK to have a market here, it condones markets everywhere else in the world, and with medical tourism being what it is, those in search of kidneys will go to the place where it's the cheapest price — Americans won't be limited to undergoing transplants locally.
"From there, transplant tourism in global markets brings unanticipated consequences. It increases the risk for diseases like hepatitis, tuberculosis or malignancy, and it also opens the door to a variety of unethical practices involving the donor and their medical care.
"The central problem of organ sales is that it's a victimization and exploitation of poor people, notwithstanding good intention. The source of these organs is always the lowest socioeconomic class of a particular country — we know that has been the case in the Philippines, in Pakistan, in Egypt and in Iran. And the payment isn't that substantial of an amount, so rather than making them better off or helping them, the money is quickly used, and the donor is left with one less kidney. It's a reality that there's no escaping.
"It's true that there has been a plateau of living donors in this country, and something has to be done. For that reason, I do believe in eliminating disincentives for donors. The living donor who doesn't have health insurance should have it — and even life insurance — provided for them, as it pertains to the donation event."
HT: Ted Roth
"With a waiting list for a kidney at almost 83,000 Americans, the push to offer cash and other incentives grows. Two experts offer their opposing views on a donor kidney market."
"People who need kidneys are dying unnecessarily, and an organ market would save lives."
Dr. Benjamin Hippen is a transplant nephrologist at the Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C.
"The most compelling reason for setting up a market for organs is that there really isn't any other plausible solution to the growing disparity between the demand for and supply of organs. Even if we were to maximize organ procurement from deceased donors, we still couldn't meet the demand.
"As that demand grows, it's not just potential kidney recipients who get desperate — it's also potential donors, who often have a close-up view of what their loved ones are going through. We then see people with health problems, like high blood pressure or obesity, say that they're willing to take on a certain amount of risk so that their loved one can live a better life.
"A regulated market would be, in some sense, safer — the pressure would be taken off folks who want to be donors but perhaps shouldn't be for medical reasons. Transplant professionals could then select the healthiest donors, who are at the lowest risk for long-term complications. With a regulated market, we could say to high risk-donor candidates, "No, you shouldn't be a donor, and your loved one isn't going to suffer as a consequence of that decision."
"There's also a significant difference between what it costs to maintain a transplant versus what it costs to maintain someone on dialysis. In 2007, $28 billion was spent nationally on people on dialysis; about $2.2 billion was allocated to kidney transplantation. So transplants are vastly more cost-effective, and in general they confer a longer survival benefit. Also, a larger proportion of people are able to go back to work compared with people on dialysis.
"The unregulated, underground black market in organs in developing countries has been catastrophic for both donors and recipients. But the reason that someone who is desperately poor may be able to sell their kidney on the black market is that people in countries of comparative wealth have failed to solve their own supply problem. That is a policy failure. If the demand for organs could be met through legal, ethical strategies, some of the driving forces that support black markets would disappear.
"If, indeed, the current system isn't meeting demand, then there's a sense in which it's unethical not to establish regulated incentives for living donors or to think more carefully about not doing so. The cost is being paid by the people who are dying on the waiting list, getting sicker on dialysis or selling their kidneys under terrible circumstances."
"An organ market would exploit the world's poor and set the precedent for medical transplant tourism that puts everyone at risk."
Dr. Francis Delmonico is the director of renal transplantation at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School. He is also the medical director of the New England Organ Bank in Newton, Mass.
"Despite the good intentions of those who would suggest that an organ market could be regulated, it's impossible to do so. A market for organ sales enables brokers and extra payments, and in a global society, the market could not be restricted to the United States.
"Right now, our country sets the tone on this issue. Once we say it's OK to have a market here, it condones markets everywhere else in the world, and with medical tourism being what it is, those in search of kidneys will go to the place where it's the cheapest price — Americans won't be limited to undergoing transplants locally.
"From there, transplant tourism in global markets brings unanticipated consequences. It increases the risk for diseases like hepatitis, tuberculosis or malignancy, and it also opens the door to a variety of unethical practices involving the donor and their medical care.
"The central problem of organ sales is that it's a victimization and exploitation of poor people, notwithstanding good intention. The source of these organs is always the lowest socioeconomic class of a particular country — we know that has been the case in the Philippines, in Pakistan, in Egypt and in Iran. And the payment isn't that substantial of an amount, so rather than making them better off or helping them, the money is quickly used, and the donor is left with one less kidney. It's a reality that there's no escaping.
"It's true that there has been a plateau of living donors in this country, and something has to be done. For that reason, I do believe in eliminating disincentives for donors. The living donor who doesn't have health insurance should have it — and even life insurance — provided for them, as it pertains to the donation event."
HT: Ted Roth
Friday, April 8, 2011
Medicare payments for dialysis
The New York Times describes the growing federal expenses for dialysis, and some surrounding controversy: When Ailments Pile Up, Asking Patients to Rethink Free Dialysis
"Of all the terrible chronic diseases, only one —end-stage kidney disease — gets special treatment by the federal government. A law passed by Congress 39 years ago provides nearly free care to almost all patients whose kidneys have failed, regardless of their age or ability to pay.
"But the law has had unintended consequences, kidney experts say. It was meant to keep young and middle-aged people alive and productive. Instead, many of the patients who take advantage of the law are old and have other medical problems, often suffering through dialysis as a replacement for their failed kidneys but not living long because the other chronic diseases kill them.
"Kidney specialists are pushing doctors to be more forthright with elderly people who have other serious medical conditions, to tell the patients that even though they are entitled to dialysis, they may want to decline such treatment and enter a hospice instead. In the end, it is always the patient’s choice.
...
"When Congress established the entitlement to pay for kidney patients in October 1972, dialysis and transplants were new procedures that were not covered by health insurance. There were horrifying stories — rich people got dialysis and lived while poor people died. In Seattle, a committee meted out dialysis by voting on who could get it. A man who was supporting a family, for example, took precedence over a single woman.
"It also was expected at that time that fewer than 40 patients per million would need dialysis, and that most of those patients would be healthy — except for their failed kidneys — and under age 54.
"Now more than 400 people per million start dialysis each year. More than a third of the patients are 65 or older, and they account for about 42 percent of the costs. People over 75 make up the fastest-growing group of dialysis patients. And most elderly dialysis patients have other serious diseases like diabetes, heart failure, stroke and even advanced dementia. One-third of them have four or more chronic conditions.
"The federal program, said Dr. Peter S. Aronson, a professor of nephrology at Yale University’s School of Medicine “is so emblematic of good intentions misapplied.”
“The question,” Dr. Aronson said, “is how to dial it back.”
"Recent studies have found that dialysis does not prolong life for many elderly people with other serious chronic illnesses. One study found that the procedure’s main effect is to increase the chances that such patients will die in the hospital rather than at home.
"Meanwhile, costs are soaring — end-stage kidney disease will cost the nation an estimated $40 billion to $50 billion this year."
"Of all the terrible chronic diseases, only one —end-stage kidney disease — gets special treatment by the federal government. A law passed by Congress 39 years ago provides nearly free care to almost all patients whose kidneys have failed, regardless of their age or ability to pay.
"But the law has had unintended consequences, kidney experts say. It was meant to keep young and middle-aged people alive and productive. Instead, many of the patients who take advantage of the law are old and have other medical problems, often suffering through dialysis as a replacement for their failed kidneys but not living long because the other chronic diseases kill them.
"Kidney specialists are pushing doctors to be more forthright with elderly people who have other serious medical conditions, to tell the patients that even though they are entitled to dialysis, they may want to decline such treatment and enter a hospice instead. In the end, it is always the patient’s choice.
...
"When Congress established the entitlement to pay for kidney patients in October 1972, dialysis and transplants were new procedures that were not covered by health insurance. There were horrifying stories — rich people got dialysis and lived while poor people died. In Seattle, a committee meted out dialysis by voting on who could get it. A man who was supporting a family, for example, took precedence over a single woman.
"It also was expected at that time that fewer than 40 patients per million would need dialysis, and that most of those patients would be healthy — except for their failed kidneys — and under age 54.
"Now more than 400 people per million start dialysis each year. More than a third of the patients are 65 or older, and they account for about 42 percent of the costs. People over 75 make up the fastest-growing group of dialysis patients. And most elderly dialysis patients have other serious diseases like diabetes, heart failure, stroke and even advanced dementia. One-third of them have four or more chronic conditions.
"The federal program, said Dr. Peter S. Aronson, a professor of nephrology at Yale University’s School of Medicine “is so emblematic of good intentions misapplied.”
“The question,” Dr. Aronson said, “is how to dial it back.”
"Recent studies have found that dialysis does not prolong life for many elderly people with other serious chronic illnesses. One study found that the procedure’s main effect is to increase the chances that such patients will die in the hospital rather than at home.
"Meanwhile, costs are soaring — end-stage kidney disease will cost the nation an estimated $40 billion to $50 billion this year."
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Donation after cardiac death
When are you dead? An article in Stanford Medicine explores the question, which becomes pointed when the subject is deceased organ donation. The standard criterion in the U.S. is brain death, but of course irreversible cessation of heartbeat is an older standard. The trouble is that organs have to be preserved fast after cardiac death, unlike the case of a brain dead patient on a ventilator.
So there are obstacles to donation after cardiac death (DCD). Most of the discussion of restricting organ donation to brain dead patients focuses on the desperately needed organs that are made unavailable to the patients who need them. So I was struck by this view from another angle, by Nikole Neidlinger, MD, the medical director of the California Donor Transplant Network.
“A lot of people think that it’s all about the organ recipient, but really, I think, the donors’ families get the biggest benefit,” Neidlinger says. “They have spent perhaps weeks dealing with the hardship of seeing loved ones on life support and coming to terms with their death. And the fact that the donor gets a chance to help another person live — it’s a legacy that counts so much for families.”
So there are obstacles to donation after cardiac death (DCD). Most of the discussion of restricting organ donation to brain dead patients focuses on the desperately needed organs that are made unavailable to the patients who need them. So I was struck by this view from another angle, by Nikole Neidlinger, MD, the medical director of the California Donor Transplant Network.
“A lot of people think that it’s all about the organ recipient, but really, I think, the donors’ families get the biggest benefit,” Neidlinger says. “They have spent perhaps weeks dealing with the hardship of seeing loved ones on life support and coming to terms with their death. And the fact that the donor gets a chance to help another person live — it’s a legacy that counts so much for families.”
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Redesigning the market for bribes (by making some bribes legal to give)
The Wall Street Journal reports that Kaushik Basu, currently on leave from Cornell as Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India, has been thinking about how to reduce the incidence of bribe taking in India by officials who require bribes to deliver (legal) services that they are supposed to provide as part of their government duties. His idea is to make it legal to give a bribe in such a case, while keeping it illegal to demand or receive one, so that after the fact the bribe givers could report/testify against corrupt officials without being treated as their partners in crime.
Here's the WSJ story: Kaushik Basu Says Make Bribe Giving Legal, and here's the working paper from the Indian Ministry of Finance: Why, for a Class of Bribes, the Act of Giving a Bribe should be Treated as Legal
HT: Tabarrok at MR
Here's the WSJ story: Kaushik Basu Says Make Bribe Giving Legal, and here's the working paper from the Indian Ministry of Finance: Why, for a Class of Bribes, the Act of Giving a Bribe should be Treated as Legal
HT: Tabarrok at MR
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