Debra Satz on noxious markets

The Stanford class day speech: Satz to graduates: Some goods should never be for sale by Stanford philosopher Debra Satz, whose interests extend to sales of kidneys

Debra Satz (2008). The Moral Limits of Markets: The Case of Human Kidneys. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 108 (1pt3):269-288.

From the news story on her class day address:

"What are the different characteristics of markets? Why do some exchanges prompt "extreme revulsion"? Among the examples Satz raised: child labor, body parts, reproductive services, international arms, addictive drugs.
"What makes particular markets appear undesirable or, in my terminology, noxious?" she asked. The intrinsic nature of certain goods – friendship, a person's good name, various prizes and honor – can immediately diminish their value when they are sold.
There are also extrinsic reasons that make markets noxious, and this was Satz's focus. Is the agent fully aware of the consequences of his or her actions? Do all agents have the same information? Does the market cause extreme harm to individuals? And how extreme does it have to be to make it noxious? Does it cause harm to society?
As Satz said – with a nod to Tolstoy's line about unhappy families – "Each noxious market is noxious in its own way," and there will not be agreement on these issues. For example, the sale of kidneys is among one of the most difficult questions. Sales are illegal in every developed society, she said. Kidneys can be donated altruistically while the donor is alive or after death, but no society makes donation mandatory, even in death. Some would argue that with two kidneys people have more than they need. As of June 10, more than 80,000 Americans were on the waiting list for a kidney, and many of them will die waiting, Satz said. "...

"In closing, Satz threw up two final challenges: "Noxious markets" reflect some of the most fundamental problems of our globe, and they will not go away unless and until the underlying problems are addressed. That will require public debate and a willingness to confront hard issues."

HT: Michael Ostrovsky

And here's Megan McArdle on Satz: What We Should Feel and What We Should Not Sell

She quotes Satz's book Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets on the following juxtaposition of moral positions:

"[T]here is a dilemma for those who wish to use the mother-fetus bond to condemn pregnancy contracts while endorsing a woman's right to choose an abortion. They must hold it acceptable to abort a fetus but not to sell it."

Kidney Markets with Alvin Roth and Debra Satz (tomorrow, at Stanford)

 Tomorrow Debra Satz and I will respectfully disagree with each other about the prospects for and desirability of compensation for kidney donors, as part of the series  she is conducting on Democracy and Disagreement.

Kidney Markets with Alvin Roth and Debra Satz

FROM THE SERIES: Democracy and Disagreement

Tuesday, April 9, 2024  3:00pm - 4:50pm

CEMEX Auditorium, 655 Knight Way, Stanford, CA

Free

Stanford professors Alvin Roth and Debra Satz discuss kidney markets.

ABOUT THE SERIES:  Democracy and Disagreement

Debra Satz, the Vernon R. and Lysbeth Warren Anderson Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, and Paul Brest, interim dean and professor emeritus at Stanford Law School, host faculty members on opposing sides of a given issue for discussions that model civil disagreement. 

Open to the Stanford community.

Repugnant Behavior, a conference in Montpellier in February 2021

Here's the announcement and call for papers:

WINIR Workshop on

Repugnant Behaviours

24-25 February 2021

University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France

Organiser: Alain Marciano

"Formally introduced in economics by Nobel laureate Alvin Roth, the concept of "repugnance" arises in the debate among philosophers (e.g., Elizabeth Anderson, Michael Sandel, Debra Satz) and other social scientists (e.g., Kristie Blevins, Amitai Etzioni, Kimberly Krawiec, Amartya Sen, Philip Tetlock) about how and why moral concerns, taboos and sacred values place, or ought to place, limits on market transactions. (A set of representative references is provided in the call for papers.)

Important dates

15 June 2020 – Abstract submission deadline

15 July 2020 – Notification of acceptance

15 December 2020 – Full paper submission deadline

Keynote speaker

Kimberly D. Krawiec

Kathrine Robinson Everett Professor of Law

Duke Law School, USA

REFERENCES

Anderson, E. (1990) “The Ethical Limitations of the Market” Economics and Philosophy 6(2): 179-205.

Anderson, E. (1993) Value in Ethics and Economics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

Blevins, B., Ramirez, R. & Wight, J. B. (2010) “Ethics in the Mayan Marketplace” in M. D. White (ed.) Accepting the Invisible Hand: Market-Based Approaches to Solving Social-Economic Problems (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).

Cook, P J. & Krawiec, K. D. (2018) “If We Allow Football Players and Boxers to Be Paid for Entertaining the Public, Why Don’t We Allow Kidney Donors to Be Paid for Saving Lives?” Law and Contemporary Problems 81(3): 9-35.

Elias, J. J., Lacetera, N. & Macis, M. (2015) “Sacred Values? The Effect of Information on Attitudes toward Payments for Human Organs” American Economic Review 105(5): 361-365.

Elias, J. J., Lacetera, N. & Macis, M. (2016) “Efficiency-Morality Trade-Offs In Repugnant Transactions: A Choice Experiment” NBER, Working Paper No 22632.

Etzioni, A. (1986) “The Case for a Multiple-Preference Conception” Economics and Philosophy 2: 159-183.

Etzioni, A. (1988) The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics (New York: Free Press).

Healy, K. & Krawiec, K. D. (2017) “Repugnance Management and Transactions in the Body” American Economic Review 107(5): 86-90.

Held, P. J., McCormick, F., Ojo, A & Roberts, J. P. (2016) “A Cost‐Benefit Analysis of Government Compensation of Kidney Donors” American Journal of Transplantation 16(3): 877–885.

Kass L. R. (1997) “The Wisdom of Repugnance: Why We Should Ban the Cloning of Humans” New Republic 216(22):17-26.

Kekes J. (1998) A Case for Conservatism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).

Khalil, E. L. & Marciano, A. (2018) “A Theory of Tasteful and Distasteful Transactions” Kyklos 71(1): 110-131.

Krawiec, K. D. (2015) “Markets, Morals and Limits in the Exchange of Human Eggs” Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy 13(1): 349-365.

Krawiec, K. D. (2016) “Lessons from Law About Incomplete Commodification in the Egg Market” Journal of Applied Philosophy 33(2): 160-177.

Krawiec, K. D., Liu, W. & Melcher, M. (2017) “Contract Development in a Matching Market: The Case of Kidney Exchange” Law and Contemporary Problems 80(1): 11-35.

Kray, L. J., George, L. G., Liljenquist, K. A., Galinsky, A. D., Tetlock, P. E. & Roese, N. J. (2010) “From What Might Have Been to What Must Have Been: Counterfactual Thinking Creates Meaning” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 98(1): 106-118.

Leider, S. & Roth, A. E. (2010) “Kidneys for Sale: Who Disapproves, and Why?” American Journal of Transplantation 10(5): 1221-1227.

McGraw, P. & Tetlock, P. E. (2005) “Taboo Trade-Offs, Relational Framing And The Acceptability Of Exchanges” Journal of Consumer Psychology 15(1): 35-38.

McGraw, P., Schwartz, J. & Tetlock, P. E. (2012) “From the Commercial to the Communal: Reframing Taboo Trade-Offs in Religious and Pharmaceutical Marketing” Journal of Consumer Research 39(1): 157-173.

Roth, A. E. (2007) “Repugnance as a Constraint on Markets” Journal of Economic Perspectives 21(3): 37-58.

Sandel, M. J. (2012) What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux).

Sandel, M. J. (2013) “Market Reasoning as Moral Reasoning: Why Economists Should Re-Engage With Political Philosophy” Journal of Economic Perspectives 27(4): 121-140.

Satz, D. (1995) “Markets in Women's Sexual Labor” Ethics 106(1): 63-85.

Satz, D. (2008) “The Moral Limits of Markets: The Case of Human Kidneys” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 108(1/pt3): 269-288.

Satz, D. (2012) Why Some Things Should Not Be For Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets (New York: Oxford University Press).

Schoemaker, P. & Tetlock, P.E. (2011) “Taboo Scenarios: How To Think about The Unthinkable” California Management Review 54(2): 5-24.

Sen, A. (1987) On Ethics and Economics (Oxford: Blackwell).

Sheehan, M. (2016) “The Role of Emotion in Ethics and Bioethics: Dealing with Repugnance and Disgust” Journal of Medical Ethics 42(1): 1-2

Democracy & “Noxious” Markets, by Debra Satz

 The Winter 2023 issue of Daedalus is about Creating a New Moral Political Economy, edited by Margaret Levi & Henry Farrell.

The article by Debra Satz will strike a chord with market designers: she takes very seriously that markets are tools that need thoughtful design.

Democracy & “Noxious” Markets, by Debra Satz

"my argument is not a lawyer’s brief against markets. No large democratic society can or should entirely dispense with markets. Not only are markets among the most powerful tools we have for generating growth in living standards and incentivizing innovation, but also Smith was right to see their democratic potential as ways of enabling cooperation among independent, free, and equal individuals. As tools, however, we should think carefully about where to use them and how to design them when we do. While a neoliberal worldview sees efficient markets enhancing freedom and well-being everywhere, the reality is more complex. Some markets foreclose options that would better support democratic institutions and culture. Sometimes, closing off market options makes everyone better off. Consider that if individuals are free not to purchase health insurance on the market, the cost of publicly provided insurance will increase: healthy individuals are more likely to opt out of health insurance, leaving sicker individuals in the pool to be insured and raising the costs of their insurance, leading more people to forgo holding such insurance, driving the prices up even higher."

Among the markets she is concerned about are school choice, and military service:

"some of the ways parents prioritize their own children can lead to worse outcomes for other children and to the furthering of educational inequities, as well as to other social ills like instability and conflict. Evidence indicates, for example, that choice schools in the United States are more homogenous than public schools with respect to social class and race. Researchers have also shown that when public school choice is available, educated parents are especially likely to factor child demographics in their school selections.11 This may be because school quality is very hard to judge and parents default to markers such as the reading and math levels of other students. These levels, in turn, are heavily influenced by social class. It is likely that some parents take race and class directly as proxies for school quality."

...

"Extending the reach of markets even more, war has been further outsourced to private military contractors: in 2009, there were more private military contractors in Afghanistan than U.S. military troops.17 Hiring private mercenaries and outsourcing national security to a subsection of our population might spare our citizens, but as political philosopher Michael Sandel has noted, it changes the meaning of citizenship.18 In what sense are we “all in this together” if most citizens never need to think hard about decisions to go to war? Whatever the efficiency pros and cons of the decision to outsource fighting and allocate military service through market means, doing so changes our relationships with one another and our sense of a common life."

"My argument so far suffers from treating the state and market as two stark alternatives for the allocation of goods and services in society. So I now want to consider ways in which the benefits of markets can be harnessed—through design—to better serve important democratic goals. "

...

"One important mechanism is providing greater roles for worker voice. This can be done through such reforms as changing labor laws to support forms of worker association, like trade unions, allowing worker representatives on company boards, and strengthening democracy at work through diverse forms of ownership including worker-managed and -owned firms. Empowering the associational organization of labor would also help redress the background social conditions that render workers vulnerable to the oligarchic power of their employers.

"There are other examples in which careful design and policy can limit the “noxiousness” of a particular market for democracy. Policies such as a negative income tax can strengthen the power of workers, and campaign finance laws can diminish the power of money in elections. Others have argued for reforms to our current system of commodified legal representation within an adversarial system, and for single-payer health care systems."

Here's her concluding paragraph:

"Beyond education, we need to pay special attention to particular markets that affect democratic functioning and stability. Such markets include but are not limited to markets in legal representation, media and news markets, markets relating to national defense, and markets governing political rights. Politicians and other commentators usually write unreflectively, as if all markets were the same. They are not. Markets affect not only the distribution of income and wealth, but also our capacities, and our views of each other. Their strengths but also their limits depend on the fact that they are radically individualizing. But in some contexts, that individualizing threatens the practice of democracy. Markets have moral and even “spiritual” consequences relevant to our shared public life, and our evaluations of them must also attend to those consequences. A new political economy needs to take this larger evaluative frame into account."

******

The next article in the issue is a thoughtful essay on markets for personal care of the young and the elderly, organized in various ways, including care within families, written as a commentary on the Satz article: 

Is There a Proper Scope for Markets?  by Marc Fleurbaey

Limits of the market--conference in Paris (call for papers)

CALL FOR PAPERS

 “The limits of the market: commodification of nature and body” 

« Les limites du marché : la marchandisation de la nature et du corps »

Interdisciplinary workshop (philosophy, law, economics)

September, 13-14, 2018 – University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

 With plenary lectures by Margaret Jane Radin and by Debra Satz.

 The aim of this workshop is to unite debates on the commodification of nature and body that usually take place in different academic worlds, specific to a culture (the Anglosphere, the European continent), a discipline (philosophy, law, economics) or an object (body, nature).

Philosophy, law, and political economy (as well as anthropology and sociology) have long been questioning what things can be sold (liberty, money, labor, land). This debate has been renewed in the 1980s, with the publication of Margaret Jane Radin’s Contested commodities in 1996, which has become a landmark in “commodification studies”. These studies do not deal with the role and desirability of the market in general, or of market societies, but focus on particular markets that might pose ethical, moral or social problems (for example for organs, babies, or environmental services), in practice or in discourse. Philosophers, like Debra Satz with her “noxious markets”, and economists, like Alvin Roth with his “repugnant markets”, also contributed to these studies. The issue is the normative limit of the scope of the market in capitalist societies, not only in terms of a yes or no question, but also in terms of the limitations imposed to this kind of markets (incomplete commodification).

This debate, or at least this self-identified field, is mainly driven by the Anglosphere. The same questions are however posed in different cultural, theoretical and cultural frameworks. In France, we can mention for example works by Marie-Angèle Hermitte in law, by Philippe Steiner in economics, and by Catherine Larrère in philosophy. One of the aims of this workshop is to compare and to confront these different traditions of thought. The scientific committee will also encourage the discussion of two kinds of specific markets: nature and the environment on the one hand, and the body, its parts and products, on the other. Specifically, do nature and the body constitute particular cases of commodification? Does the debate on the financialization and valuation of environmental services share characteristics with that on body commodification? The Committee will favour communications in philosophy, law, economics, and political theory; as well as interdisciplinary communications. Finally, communications on the history and interpretation of these ideas, or analysing the political discourses on commodification, are also welcome.

We will have the pleasure to welcome Margaret Jane Radin (University of Toronto) and Debra Satz (Stanford University) for keynote lectures as well as invited panelists: Valérie Boisvert (University of Lausanne), Laurence Brunet (Cochin APHP), Stéphanie Hennette-Vauchez (University Paris Nanterre), Marie-Angèle Hermitte (CNRS, EHESS), Florence Jany-Catrice (University of Lille), Catherine Larrère (University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), Jennifer Merchant (University Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas), Christine Noiville (CNRS), John O’Neill (University of Manchester), Jean-Fabien Spitz (University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), Philippe Steiner (University Paris Sorbonne).

Languages: French and English

Keydates:

Submission of proposals (600 words) before 29 January 2018 to commodification2018@gmail.com

Repugnant markets on the radio

Repugnant Markets on the radio: I'll join Ken Taylor and Debra Satz on Philosophy Talk today, June 3

"We might ban buying or selling horse meat in the US not for the protection of horses, but because we find it morally repugnant. Yet this moral repugnance is clearly not universal, and on some level may even be arbitrary, given France's attitude toward horse meat. What role, if any, should moral repugnance play in determining the rules of our marketplaces? Even if we want to eliminate the influence of moral repugnance, can we? Debra and Ken hold their noses with Al Roth from Stanford University, author of Who Gets What ― and Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design."

Get Philosophy Talk

Radio

Sunday at 11am (pacific) on KALW 91.7 FM Local Public Radio, San Francisc

Ken wrote thoughtfully about this yesterday on the Philosophy Talk blog:
REPUGNANT MARKETS,  Ken Taylor
*************
Update: and here we are at KALW:

Ken Taylor, Debra Satz, and Al Roth in the studio at Philosophy Talk
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DeyV20-VQAAApPH.jpg 

And here's a link to a recording of the show:

Repugnant markets: listen to my Philosophy Talk chat with Ken Taylor and Debra Satz

Kidney Markets--my debate with Debra Satz (video)

The video of my debate with Debra Satz on kidney markets is now available, see below.  

You can also find it here: https://humsci.stanford.edu/events/kidney-markets-alvin-roth-and-debra-satz

The question we debated was "Should we experiment with forms of regulated payments to individuals who provide a kidney for others?"  

The audience was asked to vote on that question before we began, and again after we concluded.

 

 To set the stage, in an early slide I spoke briefly about Debra's book  Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets, and my book Who Gets What — And Why. The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design.   

If you happen to have read those books, I think you can already have a good idea of what we said, and what a friendly discussion it was.

A philosopher looks at repugnant markets

The Dutch philosopher/economist Ingrid Robeyns writes about Roth and Satz on repugnant/noxious markets

She writes that "economists would benefit from explicitly introducing values in their analysis of repugnant markets (and markets in general)," and holds up the work of Debra Satz as a good example of how to go about this.


(Here are my previous posts related to the work of my now-colleague Debra Satz.)

Ethics and Market Design: Stanford, Jan 8 (update, note room change)

If you're on the Stanford campus tomorrow, you're invited to hear a panel discussion, with Anat Admati, Debra Satz and me on repugnance and, more generally, Ethics and Market Design

EVENT OVERVIEW

Markets depend on legal and institutional structures. These structures raise questions of ethics: are they fair? Do they generate harms?  If harms are unavoidable, do these structures fairly manage and distribute the risks of harm?This panel discussion brings together prominent  philosophers and economists to discuss the potentials and limits of designing markets with ethics in mind. Cases in point will be markets for donated organs and financial markets. 

This is an RSVP event. RSVP here.

SPEAKER

Anat Admati, George G.C. Parker Professor of Finance and Economics at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, author of The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It.

Al Roth, Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University & Gund professor of economics and business administration emeritus at Harvard University, winner of the 2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work on market design.

Debra Satz, Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society, Professor of Philosophy and Political Science, author of Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale: The Limits of Markets.

4:00PM ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 2015 AT STANFORD LAW SCHOOL, CROWN QUADRANGLE, MANNING FACULTY LOUNGE (ROOM 270)

Sponsored by The McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society / ethicsinsociety@stanford.edu

***********
Update (with room change) from the organizers:
"Just a quick update on tomorrow's panel discussion: we've been overwhelmed with RSVPs (over 100), so we booked a larger room for the panel discussion (180 in the Law School - we'll put up signposts tomorrow), and we had to close the list for the dinner. "

More on the debate over kidney sales: transcript of interview

In my earlier post, Dubner interviews me about kidney sales, I promised to link to a transcript when it became available, and now it has: there's a link at the bottom of the Freakonomics post You Say Repugnant, I Say … Let’s Do It!

Dubner interviewed me for about an hour and a half, so he and his producer Chris Neary had to do lots of editing to produce the half hour or so podcast. I recall a pair of questions, one of which made it into the show and one of which was left on the cutting room floor (or wherever unused electronic files are left).  The question that made it in was about what makes many people view kidney sales as repugnant. The question that didn't make it was, if I were asked to help design a market in which kidneys could be sold, what would be my primary concerns.

Regarding what is behind the repugnance of kidney sales, here's the text of my reply included in the transcript:
"Al Roth: The late Pope John Paul wrote about this and he objects strongly to the sale of kidneys but thinks the donation of kidneys is a very good thing, though if we do it for money is a very bad thing...I think his feeling is that it turns people from ends into means which is a bad thing in itself. So that’s one nature of objection. 
Another kind of objection is that it might be OK if I offered to buy your kidney because you’d be a hard guy to exploit, you’re a successful, financially solvent person, but pretty soon we’d start seeing the desperately poor and maybe they would in some sense be acting against their self interest, they would be being exploited or coerced even, by the temptation of the money in ways that if they could use their better judgement they wouldn’t want to be.  So that’s sort of a coercion argument. 
And then there’s a slippery slope argument that says if we started allowing people to sell their kidneys, it would be primarily poor people who would sell their kidneys, and pretty soon we would start hearing political discussion that said, ‘you know, we don’t really need unemployment benefits, we don’t really need aid to families with dependent children because after all, everyone’s got two kidneys and they can take care of themselves by selling a kidney if they need to’...and that makes us a much less desirable society to live in."


I don't have a transcript to consult about what I said when they asked what I would do if asked to help design a kidney market, but as I recall, my answer went something like this.
The first thing I'd want to think about is what kind of review we would want to use to judge if the market had been a success ten years (or longer) after it had been started. The criteria we'd surely want the market to be evaluated on would include:
 How had the donor/vendors fared?: were they healthy and well treated, and respected, and did they encourage new potential donor/vendors to make the same choices they had?
How had patients with kidney disease fared?: were they receiving healthy kidneys, had the waiting list for transplants largely disappeared, were kidneys being allocated in ways that were widely seen as equitable?


To focus thoughts for future debate, we might want to think about a system in which only the federal government could legally pay for a live kidney, and would have a mandate to set the price (and associated benefits like follow-up medical care) high enough so that there would be a waiting list of donor/vendors, who could e.g. be expected to undergo regular health and suitability tests (suitability being a broad term meant to include physical and mental health, deeply informed consent, etc.)  for a year before being accepted as donor/vendors, and that the kidneys obtained in this way would be allocated anonymously through some regulated procedure that might resemble the current procedures for allocating deceased-donor organs.

In terms of how I've interpreted the ongoing debate between those in favor of sales and those against, I  think that a good deal of the coercion concern can be addressed by an appropriately designed one year waiting period, although I say that without having recently talked to someone who makes that argument with conviction.
I don't see any easy way to bridge the gap between those who think that selling kidneys is a bad thing in and of itself, not to be traded off with possible benefits of other sorts (e.g. to patients and perhaps to donor/vendors), and those who don't see it that way, or who feel that the current dire circumstances of many thousands of those with kidney disease gives legitimate counterweight to this concern.
And the slippery slope concern is the one that personally gives me the most pause. I can see how appropriate legislation would prevent e.g. your bank from asking for a kidney as collateral, but I can't see any way to be sure that making kidneys a potential financial asset wouldn't make us a less sympathetic society (even though a one year waiting period and other qualification tests would limit how much kidney sales could be used as a justification for cutting unemployment insurance in particular).

My work on kidney exchange has largely avoided being enmeshed in this debate, since the "in kind" kidney exchange doesn't seem to arouse repugnance. Thus for example Debra Satz' recent book Why Some Things Should Not Be For Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets, Oxford University Press, 2010, finds little to object to about kidney exchange, but largely disapproves of kidney sales. (I expect to meet Professor Satz for the first time this weekend, at a philosophy of economics conference in Helsinki...)

Perfect Strangers: kidney donation movie

I went to see Perfect Strangers last night at Stanford, by Stanford's documentary filmmaker Jan Krawitz.
It was followed by a panel discussion by Krawitz, Stanford philosopher Debra Satz, and two non-directed kidney donors, one of whom was the main character in the film. Both initiated non-directed donor chains.

The other donor was the subject of this 2011 blog post A kidney donor argues that selling kidneys should be legal.

Experiments as repugnant transactions (if subjects are paid)

Here's a paper that reports a survey of IRB members on whether payments to experimental subjects are coercive. (The focus was on medical trials...)

MONEY, COERCION, AND UNDUE INDUCEMENT: A SURVEY OF ATTITUDES ABOUT PAYMENTS TO RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS
by Emily A. Largent, BSN, Christine Grady, PhD, RN, Franklin G. Miller, PhD, and Alan Wertheimer, PhD, IRB. 2012 Jan-Feb; 34(1): 1–8.

"Nearly all agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that subjects are coerced if they are threatened with harm for not participating (91%). The majority also agreed that participants are coerced if the offer of payment makes them participate when they otherwise would not (65%), or when the offer of payment causes them to feel that they have no reasonable alternative but to participate (82%). Women tended to agree more than men (p = 0.03) that participants are coerced if the payment offer makes them participate when they otherwise would not. No other trends were observed by gender, education, or IRB membership. Most respondents agreed that payment offers are an undue influence if they cause participants to participate when they otherwise would not (81%), if a participant perceives he has no reasonable alternative but to participate (79%), or if the payment offer distorts participants’ evaluation of risks and benefits (98%). "


HT: Debra Satz

I am slandered (or at least misunderstood) by The Economist for writing about repugnant transactions

You would think that writers for a magazine/newspaper called The Economist would read some economics before writing about it.

Yet here, in a piece on what economists do
Economists focus too little on what people really care about
The fourth in our series on the profession’s shortcomings,
is this:

"Indeed, economists often work on the basis that tangible costs and benefits outweigh subjective values. Alvin Roth, for example, suggests that moral qualms about “repugnant transactions” (such as trading in human organs) should be swept aside in order to realise the welfare gains that a market in organs would generate. Perhaps so, but to draw that conclusion while dismissing such concerns, rather than treating them as principles which might also contribute to human well-being, is inappropriate. "

I don't think I dismiss such concerns when I write about them, e.g. here:
Repugnance as a Constraint on Markets
Alvin E. Roth, JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES, VOL. 21, NO. 3, SUMMER 2007, (pp. 37-58)

But reading is hard, and deadlines are short.

For those who prefer to listen, I'll be speaking about repugnance with my colleague, the eminent philosopher Debra Satz, on Philosophy Talk Radio on  Sunday, June 3, at 11am (pacific) on KALW 91.7 FM Local Public Radio, San Francisco.  (I believe there will be a podcast of the show available afterwards...)
**************

Update: now that I think of it, repugnance is one of the parts of economics The Economist has trouble with.  Here's an earlier blog post, in which I remarked "It's nice to be quoted, not so nice to be misunderstood."...

Friday, March 2, 2018

The Economist discusses repugnant transactions

******
Further update: Economists and economic journalists might have different ideas about this sort of thing, so I was gratified by this expression of support from Tim Harford, one of this generation's most distinguished economic journalists:

I choked on my coffee when I read that line in The Economist. I think they owe Al an apology. It seemed a strange claim.

Pictures from the celebration of Ken Arrow

The Celebration of Ken Arrow at Stanford was awesome, and unique.  Mostly we honor elder statesmen by a conference on their subject matter, and speakers talk about their own work and perhaps how it relates to the honoree. That isn't what happened last Monday, instead, distinguished panels spoke about Arrow's many seminal contributions in social choice, general equilibrium, health economics, finance and much more. There were also many short talks by individuals (see the program at the link above for a partial list), and I think it's fair to say that Ken was beloved in the profession and in his personal circles.

One memorable quote from Bob Solow (from memory). He told the story of a project he and Ken had worked on in the early days of the Rand Corporation, a project that had failed. He said something like this: "So you see, even Ken couldn't turn a failed project into a success. He was an economist just like you and me. Only smarter. Much smarter. Much much smarter."

Update: now that I've had a chance to hear the video (you can see many videos of the celebration here), I can quote Solow correctly (from the closing sentences of his keynote): "Kenneth was not a superman, he could not with some brilliant insight out of his head make a success out of a failed project, that wasn't Kenneth at all. What he was was an economist just like you and me, only he was smarter. He was much smarter. He was very much smarter." 

The photos below are ones that I took with my iPhone, you can find professional ones, by Steve Castillo, here.)

Finance. William Sharpe.Hersh Sheffrin.Hugo SonnenscheinDarrell Duffie.Marcus Brunnermeier

GE.John Geanakoplos. Andreu Mas-Colell. Robert Lucas. Herakles Polemarchakis. Chris Shannon

Joe Stiglitz.Partha Dasgupta.Debra Satz.Richard Cottle.Matt Jackson

Social choice. Roger Myerson.Eric Maskin.Kotaro Suzumura.Amartya Sen.Salvador Barbera

Health:Vic Fuchs.Amy Finkelstein.Alan Garber.Angus Deaton

Bob Solow

11 Nobel prize winners

There was also some discussion of how many Nobel prizes have been awarded to students of Arrow. I thought of four: Harsanyi, Spence, Maskin, and Myerson. But it turns out that when Arrow visited U. Cambridge he served as the outside chair of Jim Mirrlees' dissertation committee. And Dan McFadden reported that a few hours of conversation with Arrow when he was a grad student had a decisive effect on his work.  And of course the clock is still running...

Everything for Sale? The Ethics and Economics of Compensation for Body Parts (Video of the panel discussion)

Here's the video of the panel discussion I participated in at Johns Hopkins on May 7, Everything for Sale? The Ethics and Economics of Compensation for Body Parts: the panelists were James Childress, Michele Goodwin, Alvin Roth and Debra Satz

The video, including introductions before and questions after, is an hour and 20 minutes. The introduction by Mario Macis starts around minute 6:40, and includes audience voting on questions of whether they would be in favor of regulated markets for kidneys, for hearts, for blood, for human eggs and sperm, and for breast milk. The panel discussion, moderated by Jeff Kahn, starts at minute 14, with each of the panelists, in alphabetical order, giving an 8 minute opening statement. (Mine begins at 33:20, and ends at 41:41, pretty close to the 8 minute guideline:) .)

Repugnant markets: listen to my Philosophy Talk chat with Ken Taylor and Debra Satz

Below is a link to the audio recording of my Sunday radio chat on Philosophy Talk:

Repugnant Markets: Should Everything Be For Sale?

• by Philosophy Talk
• Length: 53:58

Terasaki Medical Innovation award

Itai Ashlagi and I received the NKR Terasaki Medical Innovation award Monday evening at the American Transplant Congress meeting in Boston, for our work on kidney exchange algorithms for patient pools with highly sensitized patients.

"The Terasaki Medical Innovation Award will be presented annually to a medical professional who, through their pioneering work, has had a significant impact in advancing paired exchange transplantation and saving the lives of those facing kidney failure. "

Awards are nice for the recipients, but one can't help but be mpressed by the career of the scientist after whom the award is named, UCLA's Dr. Paul Ichiro Terasaki. Dr. Terasaki pioneered the tests used today to determine immunocompatibility, and built a business to make tools to implement those tests widely available.

Born in California in 1929, he and his family were interned with other Japanese-Americans during WWII. Later in life he donated $50 Million to UCLA, which named their Life Sciences building after him.

In short, he has had a storied scientific and American career.

Also receiving an award Monday evening was the non-directed altruistic donor Alexander Berger, about whom I blogged earlier: A kidney donor argues that selling kidneys should be legal, after he published a NY Times op-ed to that effect. (He's a 2011 Stanford philosophy grad, and he apparently worked with Debra Satz, although they disagree about whether kidney sales should be allowed.) Appropriately enough, he's currently working for an organization called Give Well, which works to identify charities that are "cost-effective, underfunded, and outstanding." He gave well himself, and started a nonsimultaneous extended altruistic donor (NEAD) chain of the kind NKR is famous for.

(I discussed the first NEAD chain here, and have posted about them frequently.)

The food was pretty good too.

A non-directed kidney donor writes eloquently about his experience

Dylan Matthews is eloquent about his decision to give a kidney to a stranger, and explicit about his experience, including post-surgical pain and his recovery. He's well worth reading.

Vox has the story: Why I gave my kidney to a stranger — and why you should consider doing it too

My colleague, the philosopher Debra Satz, points out to me that one of the altruistic donors whose experience motivated Matthews was her student. Philosophy is powerful.

Michael Sandel on markets and economists

The Boston Review hosts a Forum on Michael Sandel's arguments against markets:

Forum:
How Markets Crowd Out Morals

Shout

Michael J. Sandel

Some economists think markets can benefit all spheres of human activity. But they’re wrong: markets can erode important goods and social norms.


Not only are there some things money can’t buy, but there are also many things it shouldn’t.

---

Responses

Richard Sennett

When the market is everywhere, we lead a socially impoverished existence.

Matt Welch

Because Sandel disagrees with people’s choices, he wants to take those choices away.

Anita L. Allen

Financial incentives are improperly used to induce African Americans to embrace “good” behaviors.

Debra Satz

Debating the place of the market is less about the value of goods than about inequality.

Herbert Gintis

Tolerance, equality, and democracy have only flourished in market societies.

Lew Daly

Making money, formerly an exclusive realm of cosmic evil, is now “doing God’s work.”

Samuel Bowles

Even market enthusiasts know that society can’t function if people are the amoral, self-interested calculators of blackboard economics.

Elizabeth Anderson

The profit motive is corrupting the justice system.

John Tomasi

Free markets are a kind of fairness.

Michael J. Sandel replies

By keeping markets in their place, we can avoid their corrosive effects.

---

Sandel lays out his views more fully than in the quote at the top of the page (if not always more clearly) in the lead essay of the forum: How Markets Crowd Out Morals, and in his reply to the commentators, some sympathetic and some less so. Bowles and Welch and Gintis all suggest that the level of the discussion could be raised by considering evidence, of various kinds.

See my earlier posts on Michael Sandel's views on markets.

Update: Nicholas Kristof weighs in in his May 30 NY Times column, citing some of the more lurid examples of things bought and sold.

Markets, broadly defined

I'm in Helsinki, participating in the second workshop of the Markets & Marketization program, that will bring together philosophers and philosophers of science with economists, sociologists, political scientists and others interested in markets very broadly defined.

Workshop II  Friday-Saturday, 7-8 January, 2011; Tentative program

Friday 7.1.

10.00 - 11.00 Alvin Roth (Harvard): "What does market design teach us about markets?"

11.10 - 11.30 Comment: Patrik Aspers

11.30 - 11.50 Comment: Emrah Aydinonat

11.50 - 12.30 Discussion

14.00 - 15.00 Ronald Noë: On biological markets (title TBA)

15.00 - 16.00 Risto Heiskala: "Coordination of human interaction: the BTCIEMP scheme"
(’BTCIEMP’ stands for: biology, traditions, cultural categorization, ideology, economy, military power and political power)

16.30 - 17.30 Jens Beckert: On the sociology of markets (title TBA)

Saturday 8.1.

10.00 - 11.00 Debra Satz (Stanford): The Moral Limits of Markets

11.10 - 11.30 Comment: Adrian Walsh

11.30 - 11.50 Comment: John O’Neill

11.50 - 12.30 Discussion