SITE 2023 Conference Call For Papers

 There are 18 sessions at Stanford SITE this summer, something for everyone. (You can submit papers at the link.)  Regular readers of this blog may be particularly interested in Session 3: Market Design; Session 4: Dynamic Games, Contracts, and Markets; Session 5: Psychology and Economics; Session 6: Experimental Economics, all described below.

SITE 2023 Conference Call For Papers

Session 1: Empirical Implementation of Theoretical Models of Strategic Interaction and Dynamic Behavior

Wednesday, July 12, 2023, 9:00am - Friday, July 14, 2023, 5:00pm

Landau Economics Building, 579 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

The unifying theme of the papers for this session is a theoretical model of an economic interaction and an empirical implementation of this theoretical model using actual data.  This year will have a more concentrated focus on topics where the theoretical economic model must also respect both technology and legal institutions governing the economic environment as well as the optimizing behavior and strategic behavior of economic agents. For example, in the case of wholesale electricity markets with significant amounts intermittent renewables and storage devices that can either inject or withdraw electricity, simplified economic models that do not account for the physics of power flows, non-convexities dispatchable generation units operate (such as start-up costs, limited range of output levels, and limited rates of change in their output levels), and how forward financial markets can limit the impact of these non-convexities and intermittency risks are increasingly ill-suited for policy analysis or the assessment of market design changes. Recent experience with the simplified markets for both natural gas and electricity in Australia, Europe and the United States provide ample real-world evidence of the need for economic models that incorporate these factors for effective policy analysis and market design.  There is an increasing number of engineers that recognize strategic behavior by market participants that understand the physics of power systems and natural gas systems operation can create economically and environmentally harmful market outcomes.

The goal of this session is to encourage cross-field interaction between the increasing number of engineers with some knowledge of economic models of strategic behavior and economists that understand how to use data to estimate theory-based econometric models of strategic behavior in complex economic environments but do not understand how to incorporate into the empirical models the physical constraints and legal framework that are having a first-order impact on market participant behavior and market outcomes. There are many other examples where these same issues arise in modeling strategic behavior such as air travel and freight transportation where this same interaction between engineers and economist would be particularly fruitful.  The session welcomes these kinds of papers from both economists and engineers as well.

ORGANIZED BY: Christoph Graf, New York University, Frank Wolak, Stanford University

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION April 15, 2023

Session 2: International Macroeconomics and Finance

Monday, July 31, 2023, 9:00am - Tuesday, August 1, 2023, 5:00pm

This session is on international macroeconomics and finance, focusing on global capital allocations, the role of the dollar, the emergence of China, and tax havens. Both empirics and theory.

ORGANIZED BY: Antonio Coppola, Stanford University  Matteo Maggiori, Stanford University  Jesse Schreger, Columbia University  Chenzi Xu, Stanford University

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION May 1, 2023

Session 3: Market Design

August 3, 2023, 9:00am - Friday, August 4, 2023, 5:00pm

Landau Economics Building, 579 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

This session seeks to bring together researchers in economics, computer science, and operations research working on market design.  We’re aiming for a roughly even split between theory papers and empirical and experimental papers.  In addition to faculty members, we also invite graduate students on the job market to submit their paper for shorter graduate student talks.

ORGANIZED BY: Mohammad Akbarpour, Stanford University  Piotr Dworczak, Northwestern University  Ravi Jagadeesan, Stanford University  Shengwu Li, Harvard University  Ellen Muir, Harvard University

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION May 1, 2023

Session 4: Dynamic Games, Contracts, and Markets

Monday, August 7, 2023, 9:00am - Wednesday, August 9, 2023, 5:00pm

This session is to bring together microeconomic theorists working on dynamic games and contracts with more applied theorists working in macro, finance, organizational economics, and other fields. There are two aims. First, this is a venue to discuss the latest questions and techniques facing researchers working in dynamic games and contracts. Second, to foster interdisciplinary discussion between scholars working on parallel topics in different disciplines and help raise awareness among theorists of the open questions in other fields.

ORGANIZED BY: Arjada Bardhi, Duke University  Simon Board, University of California Los Angeles  Erik Madsen, New York University  Joao Ramos, University of Southern California  Andrzej Skrzypacz, Stanford University  Takuo Sugaya, Stanford University

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION  April 15, 2023

Session 5: Psychology and Economics

Tuesday, August 8, 2023, 9:00am - Wednesday, August 9, 2023, 5:00pm

LOCATION: John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building, 366 Galvez Street, Stanford

This session brings together researchers working on issues at the intersection of psychology and economics. The segment will focus on evidence of and explanations for non-standard choice patterns, as well as the positive and normative implications of those patterns in a wide range of economic decision-making contexts, such as lifecycle consumption and savings, workplace productivity, health, and prosocial behavior. The presentations will frequently build upon insights from other disciplines, including psychology and sociology. Theoretical, empirical, and experimental studies will be included. 

ORGANIZED BY: B. Douglas Bernheim, Stanford University  John Beshears, Harvard University  Vincent Crawford, University of Oxford & University of California San Diego  David Laibson, Harvard University  Ulrike Malmendier, University of California Berkeley

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION  May 8, 2023

Session 6: Experimental Economics

Thursday, August 10, 2023, 9:00am - Friday, August 11, 2023, 5:00pm

LOCATION: John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building, 366 Galvez Street, S

This session will be dedicated to advances in experimental economics combining laboratory and field-experimental methodologies with theoretical and psychological insights on decision-making, strategic interaction and policy. We are inviting papers in lab experiments, field experiments and their combination that test theory, demonstrate the importance of psychological phenomena, and explore social and policy issues. In addition to senior faculty members, invited presenters will include junior faculty as well as graduate students.

ORGANIZED BY:  Christine Exley, Harvard University  Kirby Nielsen, California Institute of Technology  Muriel Niederle, Stanford University  Alvin Roth, Stanford University  Lise Vesterlund, University of Pittsburgh

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION May 8, 2023

Session 7: Political Economic Theory

Thursday, August 10, 2023, 9:00am - Friday, August 11, 2023, 5:00am

LOCATION: Stanford Graduate School of Business, M104,

This session will bring together researchers from political science and economics who apply economic theory to the study of politics. This includes work in the areas of voting theory, political bargaining, policy-making and implementation, lobbying and regulation, and the media and information environment in which politics takes place. The session will encourage productive dialogue between researchers in economic theory that have developed ideas and tools relevant to the study of politics, and those in political science who study questions and topics that can be addressed by economic theory.

ORGANIZED BY: Nina Bobkova, Rice University  Steven Callander, Stanford University Hülya Eraslan, Rice University  Dana Foarta, Stanford University  Federica Izzo, University of California San Diego

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION May 10, 2023

Session 8: Politically Feasible Environmental and Energy Policy

Monday, August 14, 2023, 9:00am - Tuesday, August 15, 2023, 5:00pm

LOCATION: Landau Economics Building, 

This session will feature empirical papers evaluating environmental and energy (E&E) policy decisions by both governments and firms. The session will focus on papers that deliver useful and politically feasible insights on how to make E&E policy more efficient and equitable. We welcome papers studying topics such as the following:

Quantitative evaluations of past or potential future E&E policy changes, 

How to improve the public appeal of economically efficient E&E policies,

Evaluations of voluntary corporate actions such as net-zero commitments and ESG investing screens, and

Empirical evaluations of utility programs, such as energy efficiency, load management, and pricing reform.

One potential downstream impact of this session could be a concrete set of politically feasible suggestions for efficient and equitable E&E policy reforms for governments and firms.

In addition to standard paper presentations, we will leave time for structured conversations to encourage new interactions and collaborations.

ORGANIZED BY: Hunt Allcott, Stanford University  Meredith Fowlie, University of California Berkeley  Lawrence Goulder, Stanford University  Joe Shapiro, University of California Berkeley

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION May 15, 2023

Session 9: Climate Finance, Innovation, and Challenges for Policy

Wednesday, August 16, 2023, 9:00am - Thursday, August 17, 2023, 5:00pm

LOCATION: Landau Economics Building, 579 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

The session would bring together research on how to best finance companies that innovate on green technologies, the pricing of climate risks in financial markets, banks' exposures to climate risk and their regulation, the impact of monetary policy on climate change, and policies more broadly that help mitigate climate changes.

ORGANIZED BY:

Juliane Begenau, Stanford University    Stefano Giglio, Yale University  Lars Peter Hansen, University of Chicago  Monika Piazzesi, Stanford University

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION May 15, 2023

Session 10: Fiscal Sustainability

Monday, August 21, 2023, 9:00am - Tuesday, August 22, 2023, 5:00pm

As governments emerge from the pandemic, they are dealing with major challenges in regards to fiscal sustainability. We want to organize a session that focuses on topics at the intersection of monetary policy, fiscal policy and sustainability, and the valuation of government debt. What role do central banks play in creating fiscal space for governments? Is there a possibility of fiscal dominance going forward? How does this possibility affect asset prices and the creation of safe assets? Could the erosion of the U.S. fiscal position threaten its reserve currency role? 

ORGANIZED BY: Francesco Bianchi, Johns Hopkins University  Arvind Krishnamurthy, Stanford University  Hanno Nico Lustig, Stanford University

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION May 22, 2023

Session 11: Financial Regulation

Monday, August 28, 2023, 9:00am - Wednesday, August 30, 2023, 12:00pm

LOCATION: Landau Economics Building, 579 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

This session discusses the latest advances in theoretical and empirical issues related to financial regulation, defined broadly. Topics will include, but will not be limited to, connections of regulation for intermediaries, households and policymakers in the US and outside the US. 

ORGANIZED BY:  Gregor Matvos, Northwestern University  Amit Seru, Stanford University

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION May 29, 2023

Session 12: IO of Healthcare and Credit Markets

Wednesday, August 30, 2023, 1:00pm - Thursday, August 31, 2023, 5:00pm

LOCATION: Landau Economics Building, 579 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

This session will bring together researchers working on the IO of healthcare and credit markets. These markets share similar features, including selection, market power, behavioral consumers, among others. We believe there are opportunities for fruitful interaction between researchers studying these environments. 

ORGANIZED BY: Jose Ignacio Cuesta, Stanford University  Liran Einav, Stanford University  Gaston Illanes, Northwestern University Pietro Tebaldi, Columbia University

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION May 22, 2023

Session 13: The Macroeconomics of Uncertainty and Volatility

Wednesday, September 6, 2023, 9:00am - Friday, September 8, 2023, 5:00pm

LOCATION: John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building, 366 Galvez Street 

The session will cover recent work on the causes and effects of changes in volatility and uncertainty. This can cover everything from the COVID pandemic, Monetary, Fiscal shocks to Wars, and Regulatory changes. This session will focus on measuring changes in uncertainty, evaluating its mechanisms and impacts on firms, consumers, national or global economies, discussing policy responses and any other related topics. The mix of academics and policy makers across multiple institutions reflects this broad interest. Papers or presentation slides are required (abstracts only will not be accepted).

ORGANIZED BY:  Nicholas Bloom, Stanford University  Steven Davis, University of Chicago  Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde, University of Pennsylvania  Zheng Liu, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco  Bo Sun, University of Virginia  Nancy R. Xu, Boston College

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION June 5, 2023

Session 14: New Frontiers in Asset Pricing

Wednesday, September 6, 2023, 9:00am - Friday, September 8, 2023, 5:00pm

This session is for asset pricing papers on the frontier of the discipline. Particular areas of focus are macrofinance, computation, machine learning, and climate finance. Possible topics include but are not limited to the following: asset pricing, investor heterogeneity, learning and ambiguity, new preference structures for pricing models, or using machine learning to understand the cross-section of returns. A particular area of interest is climate finance, where both climate change and the policy responses to climate change present new risks in asset pricing markets.  Topics of interest include asset pricing with heterogeneous agents and disaster risks, credit risk modeling for possibly stranded assets, the implications of integrated assessment models for financial risks, and methodological advances in solution methods for complex analyses of climate finance models. As the analysis of such models often requires the use of computational methods, we encourage submissions that develop and make use of new numerical techniques.

ORGANIZED BY: Kenneth Judd, Hoover Institution at Stanford University Walter Pohl, Norwegian School of Economics Karl Schmedders, IMD Lausanne Ole Wilms, University of Hamburg & Tilburg University

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION June 5, 2023

Session 15: The Micro and Macro of Labor Markets

Thursday, September 7, 2023, 9:00am - Friday, September 8, 2023, 5:00pm

LOCATION: Landau Economics Building, 579 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

The idea of this session is to bring together labor economists and macroeconomists with interests in labor markets with two goals. The first goal is to be a venue to discuss the latest research about labor markets. The second goal is to promote intellectual exchange among scholars working on similar topics, but with different approaches. Specific topics will depend on the submissions. 

ORGANIZED BY: Gregor Jarosch, Duke University  Isaac Sorkin, Stanford University

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION May 15, 2023

Session 16: Frontiers of Macroeconomic Research

Monday, September 11, 2023, 9:00am - Wednesday, September 13, 2023, 5:00pm

LOCATION: Landau Economics Building, 579 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

The goal of the session is to bring together researchers working in macroeconomics, broadly defined. The session will focus on both short-run macroeconomic fluctuations, as well as open questions in economic growth. We welcome submissions that are quantitative, theoretical or empirical in nature. We hope that the diverse research topics within macroeconomics covered in the session will foster engaging and productive discussion. 

ORGANIZED BY: Adrien Auclert, Stanford University Luigi Bocola, Stanford University  Kurt Mitman, Stockholm University

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION June 12, 2023

Session 17: Labor Markets and Policies

Thursday, September 14, 2023, 9:00am - Saturday, September 16, 2023, 5:00pm

This session offers a forum for scholars interested in the use of general equilibrium models disciplined by micro data to carefully analyze important labor market issues and reforms to address them. The use of these models to conduct comprehensive quantitative analyses of policy reforms is still in its infancy. The goal of this session is to bring together a diverse group of scholars, both young and established, engaged in frontier research in this area. The session is organized around three themes, all of which have implications for the observed increase in wage and wealth inequality in the United States. The first theme is about the dynamic effects of increases in the minimum wage and of the taxation of wealth of the types now being discussed and implemented in the United States, in both the short and the long run. The second theme is about how the growth and diffusion of automation will lead to changes in the structure of wages, work, and employment in developed industrial economies. The third theme is about the effect on labor markets of the adoption of trade reforms that differentially expose some sectors of an economy to much more intense international competition.

ORGANIZED BY:  Erik Hurst, University of Chicago  Patrick Kehoe, Stanford University Elena Pastorino, Stanford University

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION June 30, 2023

Session 18: Gender

Friday, September 15, 2023, 9:00am - Saturday, September 16, 2023, 5:00pm

LOCATION: Landau Economics Building, 579 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

This session will be dedicated to understanding how gender influences economic outcomes and decision-making. We invite submissions of papers whose main focus is on gender, regardless of field, to foster dialogue across fields. In addition to senior faculty members, invited presenters will include junior faculty as well as graduate students. 

ORGANIZED BY:

Alejandro Martinez-Marquina, University of Southern California  Muriel Niederle, Stanford University  Alessandra Voena, Stanford University

DEADLINE FOR PAPER SUBMISSION June 16, 2023

Peter Lorentzen interviews me about market design (podcast)

 Peter Lorentzen interviews me about market design, and my book Who Gets What and Why. (We have an interesting conversation on market design and my career, not closely related to the book...)

"In our interview, we range far beyond the examples from the book to discuss the implications of his work for the design of tech’s market-making “platform” businesses like Airbnb, Amazon, Lyft, or Uber, the challenges he faces when countries or people view some kinds of transactions as “repugnant” or morally unacceptable, and the reasons why San Francisco’s school district (unlike Boston’s or New York’s) chose not to implement the un-gameable school choice plan his team devised for them.

"Host Peter Lorentzen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of San Francisco, where he leads a new digital economy-focused Master's program in Applied Economics."

;

ASSA meetings in San Diego--Market design on Friday

The ASSA meetings are a cornucopia.  Here are some sessions related to market design that caught my eye in the preliminary program for the first day of conferencing, Friday January 3. No one can go to all of them, aside from interviewing junior market candidates, some of these sessions conflict with each other...:-(

Frontiers in Market Design
Paper Session
 Friday, Jan. 3, 2020   8:00 AM - 10:00 AM
 Marriott Marquis San Diego, Catalina
Hosted By: ECONOMETRIC SOCIETY
Chair: Eric Budish, University of Chicago
Targeting In-Kind Transfers through Market Design: A Revealed Preference Analysis of Public Housing Allocation
Daniel Waldinger, New York University

Approximating the Equilibrium Effects of Informed School Choice
Claudia Allende, Columbia University and Princeton University
Francisco Gallego, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
Christopher Neilson, Princeton University

The Efficiency of A Dynamic Decentralized Two-Sided Matching Market
Tracy Liu, Tsinghua University
Zhixi Wan, Didi Chuxing
Chenyu Yang, University of Rochester

Will the Market Fix the Market? A Theory of Stock Exchange Competition and Innovation
Eric Budish, University of Chicago
Robin Lee, Harvard University
John Shim, University of Chicago

When Do Cardinal Mechanisms Outperform Ordinal Mechanisms?: Operationalizing Pseudomarkets
Hulya Eraslan, Rice University
Jeremy Fox, Rice University
Yinghua He, Rice University
Yakym Pirozhenko, Rice University
*********
Search and Matching in Education Markets
Paper Session
 Friday, Jan. 3, 2020   10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (PST)
 Marriott Marquis San Diego, Rancho Santa Fe 2
Hosted By: AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
Chair: Eric Budish, University of Chicago

Simultaneous Search: Beyond Independent Successes
Ran Shorrer, Pennsylvania State University

Search Costs, Biased Beliefs and School Choice under Endogenous Consideration Sets
Christopher Neilson, Princeton University
Claudia Allende, Columbia University
Patrick Agte, Princeton University
Adam Kapor, Princeton University

Facilitating Student Information Acquisition in Matching Markets
Nicole Immorlica, Microsoft Research
Jacob Leshno, University of Chicago
Irene Lo, Stanford University
Brendan Lucier, Microsoft Research

Why Are Schools Segregated? Evidence from the Secondary-School Match in Amsterdam
Hessel Oosterbeek, University of Amsterdam
Sandor Sovago, University of Groningen
Bas van der Klaauw, VU University Amsterdam

***********
Market Design
Paper Session
 Friday, Jan. 3, 2020   10:15 AM - 12:15 PM
 Marriott Marquis San Diego, Del Mar
Hosted By: ECONOMETRIC SOCIETY
Chair: Sergei Severinov, University of British Columbia

Market Design and Walrasian Equilibrium
Faruk Gul, Princeton University
Wolfgang Pesendorfer, Princeton University
Mu Zhang, Princeton University

Repeat Applications in College Admissions
Yeon-Koo Che, Columbia University
Jinwoo Kim, Seoul National University
Youngwoo Koh, Hanyang University

Entry-Proofness and Market Breakdown under Adverse Selection
Thomas Mariotti, Toulouse School of Economics

Who Wants to Be an Auctioneer?
Sergei Severinov, University of British Columbia
Gabor Virag, University of Toronto
**********
Transportation Economics
Paper Session
 Friday, Jan. 3, 2020   10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (PST)
 Marriott Marquis San Diego, La Costa
Hosted By: ECONOMETRIC SOCIETY
Chair: Tobias Salz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Selection of Prices and Commissions in a Spatial Model of Ride-Hailing
Cemil Selcuk, Cardiff University

The Welfare Effect of Road Congestion Pricing: Experimental Evidence and Equilibrium Implications
Gabriel Kreindler, University of Chicago

Customer Preference and Station Network in the London Bike Share System
Elena Belavina, Cornell University
Karan Girotra, Cornell University
Pu He, Columbia University
Fanyin Zheng, Columbia University

Platform Design in Ride Hail: An Empirical Investigation
Nicholas Buchholz, Princeton University
Laura Doval, California Institute of Technology
Jakub Kastl, Princeton University
Filip Matejka, Charles University and Academy of Science
Tobias Salz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
**********

Information (Design), Black Markets, and Congestion
Paper Session
 Friday, Jan. 3, 2020   2:30 PM - 4:30 PM
 Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego, Torrey Hills AB
Hosted By: ECONOMIC SCIENCE ASSOCIATION
Chair: Dorothea Kuebler, WZB Berlin Social Science Center
An Experimental Study of Matching Markets with Incomplete Information
Marina Agranov, California Institute of Technology
Ahrash Dianat, University of Essex
Larry Samuelson, Yale University
Leeat Yariv, Princeton University

Information Design in Dynamic Contests: An Experimental Study
Yan Chen, University of Michigan
Mohamed Mostagir, University of Michigan
Iman Yeckehzaare, University of Michigan

How to Avoid Black Markets for Appointments with Online Booking Systems
Rustamdjan Hakimov, University of Lausanne
C.-Philipp Heller, NERA Economic Consulting
Dorothea Kuebler, WZB Berlin Social Science Center
Morimitsu Kurino, Keio University

Application Costs and Congestion in Matching Markets
Yinghua He, Rice University
Thierry Magnac, Toulouse School of Economics

Discussant(s)
Christian Basteck, ECARES Brussels
Lionel Page, University of Technology Sydney
Robert Hammond, University of Alabama
Ahrash Dianat, University of Essex
*******

Tech Economics
Paper Session
 Friday, Jan. 3, 2020   2:30 PM - 4:30 PM
 Marriott Marquis San Diego, San Diego Ballroom A
Hosted By: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR BUSINESS ECONOMICS
Chair: Michael Luca, Harvard Business School

GDPR and the Home Bias of Venture Investment
Jian Jia, Illinois Institute of Technology
Ginger Jin, University of Maryland
Liad Wagman, Illinois Institute of Technology

New Goods, Productivity and the Measurement of Inflation: Using Machine Learning to Improve Quality Adjustments
Victor Chernozhukov, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Patrick Bajari, Amazon

Double Randomized Online Experiments
Guido Imbens, Stanford University
Patrick Bajari, Amazon

Gail Cornwall responds to the recent NY Times story on SF schools

Gail Cornwall, who follows San Francisco schools, replies to a recent article in the NY Times:

A cautionary tale about linking school choice and segregation

"Late last month, New York Times’ national education reporter Dana Goldstein wrote about public school choice and segregated schools in San Francisco. Headlined San Francisco Had an Ambitious Plan to Tackle School Segregation. It Made It Worse, the story hits several nails squarely on the head.

...

"But there are several important weaknesses in Goldstein’s article that could mislead parents, readers, and policymakers.

"The piece lays blame for segregation at the feet of San Francisco’s citywide public school choice system. It oversimplifies the views and priorities of lower-income non-white families. And, though Goldstein told me it wasn’t meant to, the article seems to endorse a controversial return to a restriction of choice in favor of a form of neighborhood attendance zones."

**********
Here's my earlier post on the NY Times article:

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

School choice in San Francisco--update in the NYT

I've blogged about other articles by Ms. Cornwall.

School choice in San Francisco--update in the NYT

Here's the NY Times story: San Francisco Had an Ambitious Plan to Tackle School Segregation. It Made It Worse.

“Our current system is broken,” said Stevon Cook, president of the district Board of Education, which, late last year, passed a resolution to overhaul the process. “We’ve inadvertently made the schools more segregated.”
...
"About a quarter of the city’s children are enrolled in private school, a higher percentage than in some other major cities, like New York, where it is around 20 percent. The lottery system is thought to be a major reason wealthy parents here opt out of public schools, further worsening segregation."
**********

The San Francisco Unified School District interacted with market designers some years ago, but ultimately turned down their (our) help and decided to deal with the existing problems in-house.  Here are some old blog posts...

Thursday, September 23, 2010

San Francisco school choice goes in-house

And

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Followup on school choice in San Francisco

Deferred rejection: longer college admission wait lists

College waiting lists are a bit of a misnomer--they aren't ordered lists, they are more like waiting pools from which candidates can be drawn if the yield from regular admissions falls short.

The WSJ has the story:
College Wait Lists Are Ballooning as Schools Struggle to Predict Enrollment
The chance of getting off the wait list has plummeted at many schools as the pool has expanded

"As hundreds of thousands of high-school seniors face a May 1 deadline to put down deposits at their college of choice, many still face uncertainty over where they will end up. Their futures are clouded by the schools’ use of wait lists to make sure they have the right number, and type, of students come fall.

"The University of Virginia increased the number of applicants invited onto wait lists by 68% between 2015 and 2017. At Lehigh University, that figure rose by 54%. And at Ohio State University, it more than tripled.
...
"[Carnegie Mellon University], with a target of 1,550 freshmen, offered wait-list spots to just over 5,000 applicants this year.

"“You can take stock and ‘fix’ or refine the class by gender, income, geography, major or other variables,” said Jon Reider, director of college counseling at San Francisco University High School. “A large waiting list gives you greater flexibility in filling these gaps.”

"This year, applications to Carnegie Mellon rose 19%. With more students accepting its offers of admission, it couldn’t risk over-enrolling. The school admitted 500 fewer students and expects to go to some of its wait lists to make sure each undergraduate program meets enrollment goals, and that there is a good mix of students, including enough aspiring English majors or kids from South Dakota. The school can also take into account the financial situations of wait-listed candidates."

School choice in San Francisco faces ongoing problems (and not just school choice)

The SF Chronicle has the story:

Why San Francisco needs a full-time school board
By Gail Cornwall, May 17, 2017  

"Ever wonder why the pace of change in public education falls somewhere between inching and crawling in arguably the most progressive, innovative city in the world? San Francisco Unified School District’s red tape and lack of resources are to blame, but there’s also a story of unpaid workers, organizational mutiny and missed opportunity.

Here’s an example: In 2009 the school board set out to redesign its method for assigning students to schools. Though the topic sounds dry, matching thousands of children to seats at more than a hundred programs — while taking into consideration parental preference, geography, diversity and more — involves the sexiest corner of economics: game theory.

Luckily, the board had the assistance of a group representing Harvard, Stanford, Duke and MIT. Nobel Prize winner Alvin Roth, Muriel Niederle, Clayton Featherstone and others proposed helping to create, monitor and adjust a cutting-edge algorithm for free. In March 2010, the board voted unanimously to take the offer.

But that September, district staff sent Roth’s team an email amounting to “Thank you, goodbye.” District officials had decided to instead “develop software to implement the new design on their own,” Roth reported.

Today, the state of the district’s homegrown assignment algorithm, known to parents as “the lottery,” is described by board member Mark Sanchez as “broken” and “untenable,” and by board member Rachel Norton as “probably the biggest policy issue that our community engages with us on.”

Neil Dorosin directs the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice, a nonprofit Roth and his team formed. When I recently asked Dorosin what kind of personnel would be needed to create an effective school assignment algorithm, he said, “Either a mathematician or an economist who knows about algorithms, and … a software engineer who could operationalize it. I would be stunned if they have that.”

Those who shared these concerns back in 2010 called on district staff to explain themselves. Despite making a pledge to the board to disclose the algorithm developed in-house, by March 2012 staff still hadn’t issued “a complete enough description to [know] … if they in fact implemented the plan … the board adopted,” said Roth.

Lack of compliance with board directives sounds crazy, but Sanchez, who served on the board from 2001 to 2009 and won re-election in November, said it happens all the time. “There are so many examples,” he said.

How could that be possible? Because board members each receive “about $6K a year — and everyone has a full-time job doing something else — they’re just too busy to check in and cajole, Sanchez said. The only thing the board really can do, he said, is fire the superintendent when “a lot of that piles up.”

That’s why Sanchez and San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim have discussed putting forward a ballot measure to increase school board member compensation. Sanchez said it would give board members “the average beginning pay for a teacher in the Bay Area ... probably ending up at around $45,000” (drawn from the city’s budget, rather than the school district’s). Following the model adopted by Los Angeles in 2006, the full amount would be available only to those who forsake other employment, he said.

Meanwhile, parents fret over the lottery. The long, complex application process — where paperwork is submitted in person in January and decisions are issued in March, then again in May, through three more rounds of supplication and the first two weeks of school — fails low-income families who lack the time or bureaucratic savvy to effectively engage. Those who do manage to navigate the process, one emotional parent told the school board committee Monday night, often find the experience “time-consuming, frustrating and stressful.” Raman Khanna, a member of the Ulloa Elementary School PTA, referred to another outcome: professional “flight.” Because of the lottery, he said, “a lot of the colleagues that I talk to … leave the city or they go to private school.”

Roth’s and Dorosin’s organization has worked with cities across the country to use data and technology to improve school assignment. Dorosin said the nonprofit’s modest fees are often covered by outside grants and other funding. This March they invited SFUSD board members and district officials to reach out again.

The response? The board committee announced Monday it would “not be taking action,” and district staff proposed two timelines for reform: one would give the board two years to articulate a new direction for the assignment system; the other, labeled “if policy development moves quickly,” would still give them a full year to do so and then another 18 months for district staff to implement it. Tommy Williams, a parent who works for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said: “The fact that we’re talking about the 202[0] or 2021 school year is very frustrating.”

Board members could start meeting with national experts with just days’ notice to hash out a broad-strokes plan, but that won’t happen until the fall. “It’s clearly an urgent issue,” Sanchez said, “but it’s one of many, many things that we have to deal with. ... We had to hire a superintendent, and now we’re involved in negotiations for the contract so we wanted to focus on that.”

Rionda Batiste, co-chair of the district’s African American Parent Advisory Council, won many approving head nods at Monday’s meeting when she said: “I don’t understand why this is something that cannot happen simultaneously.”

“If we really wanted to speed things along,” Sanchez told me, “we’d have more meetings. Intuitively, we all know [paying board members] would make things move faster.”


Nationally, school board compensation is all over the board. Connecticut pays nothing, while Florida’s lowest paying county, as of 2014 reportedly offered $24,290 a year. According to the National School Boards Association, approximately 75 percent of small-district school board members serve as volunteers while around 40 percent of large-district ones receive a “modest salary.”

This divide makes sense, because there’s much more work to be done in a district with 50,000 students than one with only a few hundred. When being an effective board member requires a full-time commitment from someone who must already work full-time elsewhere, “it’s a structural problem,” Sanchez said.

A second one resurfaced at Monday’s meeting. Orla O’Keefe, the district’s chief of policy and operations, told the board: “We need a larger number of staff with the technical skills and knowledge needed to complete assignment runs,” including to “[e]xplore leveraging district ... online registration functionality with a potential online application pilot.” In other words, while the board takes its time deciding what major changes to make, district staff propose once again building in-house. Meanwhile, a Nobel Prize-winning economist — and the tools his team has honed — wait in the wings.

Maybe instituting board salaries can buy our elected representatives the time they need to pursue public-private partnerships that bring expertise and manpower to the task of matching students with schools. Hopefully, this time it will be with the support of district staff, such as newly anointed Superintendent Vincent Matthews who, calling the meeting “democracy in action,” said Monday he’s “looking forward to moving this forward.”

Until then, Sanchez said, “It’s in a holding pattern.”

Congestion in SF public school choice

One thing that computerized school choice is supposed to do is reduce congestion that sometimes stops school districts from matching students to schools in a timely way. San Francisco has a computerized system, but they are nevertheless running into congestion this year. SFGate has the story:
High anxiety as SF public school assignments run late, By Nanette Asimov

"A school district glitch has parents biting their nails in San Francisco this week.
Thousands of dollars are on the line for families that are prepared to lay out hefty deposits for private schools by this week’s deadlines — but hope they won’t have to if they can get into a public school of their choice.
The trouble is, the San Francisco Unified School District may not be able to tell them about their public school options, from elementary through high school, before private-school down payments are due Wednesday through Friday. The district missed its March 17 deadline for sending out school-assignment letters because of “unforeseen staffing emergencies,” said spokeswoman Gentle Blythe.
“We have people who haven’t slept in days” trying to make sure that 83,000 school options for 14,000 students are all correct, Blythe said, adding that she can’t reveal more about the problem because of employee confidentiality.
...
"The deadline for private high school deposits is Wednesday at noon for parents applying for financial aid and Friday at noon for those paying full price. Private elementary and middle schools have a Thursday deadline. And although most private schools coordinated their deposit due dates with the public school district this year, the district’s glitch has thrown the careful planning into disarray."
****************

Update: SF school-assignment letters to be mailed out Monday night  By Nanette Asimov Updated 4:19 pm, Monday, March 20, 2017

"The San Francisco district sends out public-school assignments by U.S. mail because “the letters provide the documentation families need to register at school sites and serves to further verify their address,” spokeswoman Gentle Blythe said.
However, parents facing an imminent private-school deadline who haven’t gotten a letter by Tuesday can email enrollinschool@sfusd.edu.
“We will do what we can to help you after March 21,” says a notice on the district’s website."

Airbnb consider market design changes to reduce discrimination

The NY Times has the story:
Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

"Airbnb, based in San Francisco, said that it would institute a new nondiscrimination policy that goes beyond what is outlined in several anti-discrimination laws and that it would ask all users to agree to a “community commitment” starting on Nov. 1. The commitment asks people to work with others who use the service, “regardless of race, religion, national origin, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age.”

In addition, the company plans to experiment with reducing the prominence of user photos, which have helped signal race and gender. Airbnb said it would also accelerate the use of instant bookings, which lets renters book places immediately without host approval."
**********

There is a strong market design subtext to this story: Peter Coles, Airbnb's (new) chief economist, used to work at Harvard Business School, where some of his former colleagues conducted an experiment that helped focus on the possible discrimination problem.
Here's the current version of that paper:

Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy:Evidence from a Field Experiment
 Benjamin Edelman, Michael Luca, and Dan Svirsky
 September 4, 2016

 Abstract
Online marketplaces increasingly choose to reduce the anonymity of buyers and sellers in order to facilitate trust. We demonstrate that this common market design choice results in an important unintended consequence: racial discrimination. In a field experiment on Airbnb, we find that requests from guests with distinctively African-American names are roughly 16% less likely to be accepted than identical guests with distinctively White names. The difference persists whether the host is African-American or White, male or female. The difference also persists whether the host shares the property with the guest or not, and whether the property is cheap or expensive. We validate our findings through observational data on hosts’ recent experiences with African-American guests, finding host behavior consistent with some, though not all, hosts discriminating. Finally, we find that discrimination is costly for hosts who indulge in it: hosts who reject  guests are able to find a replacement guest only 35% of the time. On the whole, our analysis suggests a need for caution: while information can facilitate transactions, it also facilitates discrimination.

Matching and Market Design at INFORMS in San Francisco, Sunday November 9

There's a lot of market design at the INFORMS annual meeting, Nov 9-12.

On Sunday I'll start the day off with a talk from  10-10:50 called
"Market Design and the Economist as Engineer."

That will be followed by a cluster of talks organized by Itai Ashlagi called (embarrassingly)
Matching and Market Design (in honor of Al Roth), consisting of the following sessions

Cluster :	Matching and Market Design (in honor of Al Roth)
Session Information		: Sunday Nov 09, 11:00 - 12:30
Title:	Empirical Market Design
Chair:	Ramesh Johari,Stanford University,
Abstract Details
Title:	Quality Externalities and the Limits of Reputation in Two-Sided Markets
	Presenting Author:	Steve Tadelis,Professor, UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business, 2220 Piedmont Ave, Berkeley, United States of America, stadelis@haas.berkeley.edu
	Co-Author:	Chris Nosko,Booth School of Business, University Of Chicago, Chicago, United States of America, cnosko@chicagobooth.edu
Abstract:		Using data from eBay, we argue that platforms can mitigate externalities by actively screening sellers and promoting the prominence of better quality sellers. Exploiting the bias in feedback, we create a measure of seller quality and demonstrate the benefits of our approach through a controlled experiment that prioritizes better quality sellers to a random subset of buyers. .
Title:	On the Near Impossibility of Measuring the Returns to Advertising
	Presenting Author:	Randall Lewis,Economic Research Scientist, Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View Ca 94043, United States of America, randall@econinformatics.com
	Co-Author:	Justin Rao,Economic Research Scientist, Microsoft Research, New York City NY, United States of America, Justin.Rao@microsoft.com
Abstract:		Firms have a hard time measuring the causal impact of advertising expenditures on profit. In twenty-five online field experiments, individual-level sales are volatile relative to the per capita cost of a campaign--a small impact on a noisy dependent variable can generate positive returns. Experiments can need more than ten million person-weeks. Further, small selection biases can severely bias observational estimates. Weak informational feedback and technological advances shape ad marketplaces.
Title:	Corporate Prediction Markets: Evidence from Google, Ford, and Firm X
	Presenting Author:	Bo Cowgill,UC Berkeley, 1931 Diamond St Apt 3, SAN FRANCISCO Ca 94131, United States of America, bo.cowgill@gmail.com
	Co-Author:	Eric Zitezwitz,Dartmouth College, 6106 Rockefeller Hall, Hanover NH, United States of America, zitzewitz@dartmouth.edu
Abstract:		We examine data from prediction markets run by Google, Ford and Firm X (a large private materials company). Despite theoretically adverse conditions, we find these markets are relatively efficient, and improve upon the forecasts of experts at all three firms by as much as a 25% reduction in MSE. The most notable inefficiency is an optimism bias in the markets at Google and Ford. The inefficiencies that do exist become smaller over time for reasons we document.
Title:	At What Quality and What Price? Inducing Separating Equilibria as a Market Design Problem
	Presenting Author:	John Horton,Professor, NYU Stern School of Business, Kaufman Management Center, 44 West Fourth St, 8-81, New York NY 10012, United States of America, john.joseph.horton@gmail.com
	Co-Author:	Ramesh Johari,Stanford University, Huang 311, Stanford, United States of America, ramesh.johari@stanford.edu
Abstract:		A tool to promote revelation of buyers' price/quality preferences was experimentally introduced into an online labor market. In the treatment cells of the experiment, upon posting a job, buyers chose what price/quality level they were seeking from sellers. We find that buyers readily reveal their preferences and that this revelation---which itself was experimentally manipulated---strongly induced seller-side sorting.

Title:	******** Matching and Market Design
Chair:	Jacob Leshno,Columbia University,
Abstract Details
Title:	Matching in Networks
	Presenting Author:	Michael Ostrovsky,Associate Professor of Economics, Stanford Graduate School of Business, 655 Knight Way, Stanford CA 94305, United States of America, ostrovsky@stanford.edu
Abstract:		In this talk, I will present results on the existence and properties of stable outcomes in trading networks.
Title:	Matching with Peers in School Choice
	Presenting Author:	Atila Abdulkadiroglu,Professor, Duke University, 213 Social Sciences Building, Durham NC 27708, United States of America, atila.abdulkadiroglu@duke.edu
Abstract:		We develop a theory for matching of students to schools with peers and study various matching mechanisms with field data.
Title:	Endogenous preferences and the role of the mechanism in school choice
	Presenting Author:	Estelle Cantillon,Senior Research Fellow, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ECARES), 50, av FD Roosevelt, CP 114, Brussels 1050, Belgium, Estelle.Cantillon@ulb.ac.be
Abstract:		We consider a school choice model where preferences over schools are endogenous because students care about the quality of their peers. In such a setting, the mechanism affects the degree of preference polarization. We show how mechanisms can be designed to reduce polarization and improve the distribution of ranks of assigned schools in students’ preferences. A policy change in the city of Ghent (Belgium) provides a test for the predictions of the theory.
Title:	Evidence of Strategic Behavior in Hospital Claims Reporting
	Presenting Author:	Hamsa Bastani,Stanford University, Stanford, Stanford, United States of America, hsridhar@stanford.edu
	Co-Author:	Mohsen Bayati,Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford CA 94305, United States of America, bayati@gsb.stanford.edu
		Joel Goh,joelgoh@stanford.edu
		Stefanos Zenios,Charles A. Holloway Professor of Operations, Information, and Technology and Professor of Health Care Management, Stanford Graduate School of Business, 655 Knight Way, Stanford CA 94305, United States of America, stefzen@GSB.Stanford.Edu
Abstract:		We provide evidence from Medicare claims data that hospitals engage in upcoding behavior when reporting hospital-acquired infections that are no longer reimbursed by Medicare. In particular, we show that hospitals sometimes mark a hospital-acquired infection as present-on-admission, presumably in order to collect greater reimbursement.

*******

Title:	Matching Markets
Chair:	Yash Kanoria,Columbia Business School,
Abstract Details
Title:	Stable Matching in Large Economies
	Presenting Author:	Fuhito Kojima,Stanford University, 579 Serra Mall, Stanford CA 943055007, United States of America, fkojima@stanford.edu
Abstract:		Complementarities of preferences have been known to jeopardize stability of two-sided matching markets, yet they are a pervasive feature in many matching markets. In large markets, we demonstrate that if each firm's choice changes continuously as the set of available workers changes, then there exists a stable matching even if firm preferences exhibit complementarity. Building on this result, we show that there exists an approximately stable matching in any large finite economy.
Title:	The Prior-Independence Approach
	Presenting Author:	Inbal Talgam-Cohen,PhD Candidate, Stanford University, 86 Hulme Ct, Apt 108, Stanford CA 94305, United States of America, italgam@stanford.edu
	Co-Author:	Tim Roughgarden,Stanford, 353 Serra Street, Stanford, United States of America, tim@cs.stanford.edu
Abstract:		The matching literature has recently begun to consider priors on agents’ utilities. One of the barriers to adopting this potentially very fruitful approach is that priors add significant informational assumptions to the model. We survey a successful alternative approach from mechanism design called prior independence, which alleviates such assumptions while still reaping most benefits. We discuss both sampling-based methods and methods based on ensuring sufficient competition in the market.
Title:	The structure of the core in assignment markets
	Presenting Author:	Yash Kanoria,Columbia Business School, 404 Uris Hall, New York NY 10027, United States of America, ykanoria@columbia.edu
	Co-Author:	Daniela Saban,Columbia University, Uris Hall, 4I, New York, United States of America, dhs2131@columbia.edu
		Jay Sethuraman,Columbia University, IEOR Department, New York, United States of America, jay@ieor.columbia.edu
Abstract:		Assignment markets (Shapley & Shubik 1971) involve matching with transfers, as in labor markets and housing markets. We consider a two-sided assignment market with agent types and stochastic structure similar to models used in empirical studies. Each agent has a randomly drawn "productivity" associated with each type on the other side. We characterize how the structure of the core, i.e., the set of stable outcomes, is determined by market characteristics.

San Francisco may re-emphasize neighborhood schools in their school choice plan

From the SF Chronicle: Plan's goal: Get S.F. families into neighborhood school

"Unlike families who live in the suburbs, San Francisco residents don't automatically get assigned to the school near their homes.

"The system is built on decades of desegregation efforts and the idea of equal access to all schools.

"It requires families to submit a list of schools that they want their children to attend. If a school has enough spots for the families who want in, there are no issues. But if a school has fewer seats than families who listed it, a complicated tie-breaker system kicks in.

"Siblings of students get the first available seats. Then, families living in census tracts where students post the lowest test scores - which the district calls CTIP, for Census Tract Integration Preference - get second priority. Those in the school's attendance area are third, followed by everyone else.

"Schools like Clarendon, with high test scores, low student poverty and experienced teachers, fill up with siblings and CTIP families, leaving few or no seats for students who live in the neighborhood.

"Norton and Fewer want to flip things so attendance area comes before CTIP, giving higher priority to families who live nearby than to those living in presumably disadvantaged neighborhoods.

"The CTIP tie-breaker, introduced three years ago, was supposed to help diversify schools without specifically using race.

"It didn't work.

"All the board members appreciate diversity and want to eliminate racial isolation in our schools," Fewer said. "We just don't know if the CTIP preference is doing this. It's time to revisit it."


"Data from the past three years show 28 schools - a quarter of all campuses - are still racially isolated, meaning that 60 percent of enrollment is a single ethnic group.

"Instead of creating a big melting pot in schools, a CTIP address has become a golden ticket for families who wanted to attend the city's most popular schools, Norton said. It has also created demand for housing in CTIP areas, with real estate agents promoting those neighborhoods and people lying about their address to get an advantage.

"And even if a family living in a CTIP area were wealthy, it would not matter - they would still get the same high-priority status as someone living in poverty.

"There was no means test, said McCarthy, whose children were assigned to Sanchez Elementary, more than 2 miles from home.

"Someone that makes half a million a year that just bought a $2 million home in the Mission" has a better chance at Clarendon, she said. "That's unfair that they can kind of trump us."

"The CTIP wasn't intended to give an unfair advantage or attract people to buy or rent in certain neighborhoods, Norton said.

"People are making really big life decisions so they can be in a CTIP zone," she added. "That makes me very uneasy."

"In addition, African American and Latino families are less likely to participate in the first round of the school assignment lottery than white or Asian families, which again raises the question of whom the CTIP preference is serving."
*********

Background material: from SFUSD (San Francisco Public Schools).  Student Assignment and Enrollment Reports