Here's a link to an interview with Scott Cunningham, whose work on sex work I've blogged about before. There's a surprising amount of discussion about causal inference and differences in differences. (I always suspected that econometrics was sexy, but this is the first time I’ve heard a podcast about that.)
Showing posts sorted by date for query cunningham. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query cunningham. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Friday, February 16, 2018
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
The accidental experiment with legal prostitution in Rhode Island
A scholarly paper and an easy to read-or-listen-to NPR report recount the period in which indoor prostitution was legal in Rhode Island.
The paper (forthcoming in Review of Economic Studies):
Decriminalizing Indoor Prostitution:Implications for Sexual Violence and Public Health by Scott Cunningham and Manisha Shah
Abstract:
Most governments in the world, including the United States, prohibit sex work.Given these types of laws rarely change and are fairly uniform across regions, our knowledge about the impact of decriminalizing sex work is largely conjectural. We exploit the fact that a Rhode Island District Court judge unexpectedly decriminalized indoor sex work to provide causal estimates of the impact of decriminalization on the composition of the sex market, reported rape offenses, and sexually transmit-ted infections. While decriminalization increases the size of the indoor sex market, reported rape offenses fall by 30 percent and female gonorrhea incidence declines by over 40 percent.
***********
And here's the NPR report and podcast:
Prostitution decriminalized: Rhode Island’s experiment
It's worth reading, with lots of interesting bits, and links. Here is a section of the transcript that struck me:
Scott Cunningham has been studying black markets for some time, and I'm a long time fan of his work. Here are some of my earlier posts covering it.
The paper (forthcoming in Review of Economic Studies):
Decriminalizing Indoor Prostitution:Implications for Sexual Violence and Public Health by Scott Cunningham and Manisha Shah
Abstract:
Most governments in the world, including the United States, prohibit sex work.Given these types of laws rarely change and are fairly uniform across regions, our knowledge about the impact of decriminalizing sex work is largely conjectural. We exploit the fact that a Rhode Island District Court judge unexpectedly decriminalized indoor sex work to provide causal estimates of the impact of decriminalization on the composition of the sex market, reported rape offenses, and sexually transmit-ted infections. While decriminalization increases the size of the indoor sex market, reported rape offenses fall by 30 percent and female gonorrhea incidence declines by over 40 percent.
***********
And here's the NPR report and podcast:
Prostitution decriminalized: Rhode Island’s experiment
It's worth reading, with lots of interesting bits, and links. Here is a section of the transcript that struck me:
"So, what did she and her colleague, Scott Cunningham at Baylor University, find?
The obvious: sex work exploded.
But then, the not so obvious: female gonorrhea rates statewide plummetedduring the overt decriminalization period.
"It goes down by around 40 percent," Shah said. "We spent a lot of time beating up the data and estimating these things in different ways, and we just can't get the results to go away, regardless of what we do, they're there.
A forty percent drop is a big deal in the world of public health. Shah thinks one of the reasons for this positive outcome is that legalization empowered sex workers to say no to riskier sexual behavior. She also wonders if newer people were entering the market and didn't have as big of an STD risk.
Still, perhaps even more surprising than the decrease in gonorrhea was another public health development. Sexual violence, or rapes, dipped dramatically. And this wasn't just amongst sex workers. It was across the board, according to FBI crime reports and jurisdiction level data.
"Reported rape offenses decreased by about 30 percent," Shah said.
That's another big decrease. Shah says, if anything, you'd expect rape to go up as when prostitution is decriminalized, sex workers are more likely to report rapes. She compared this to neighboring states, too. The drop was only in Rhode Island. So she examined other crime data in Rhode Island, like burglaries and murders, to see if there had just been a drop in crime generally.
It didn't match. So what happened?
That, she says is harder to answer. She has a theory, though, in that while she knows for some men rape is about power, "I think the argument that we're making is that that might not be true for all men, and for some, these activities could be substitutes."
In other words, for some men, rape may be just about sex. And if there's a legal and accessible market for it, the number of rapes in a community may go down.
This has not been a popular theory or study. And for many, it challenges the notion that rape is about violence and power, and not sex.
"So I consider myself a feminist, but I think this finding angers a lot of feminists," Shah said. "It is a very controversial idea."
And then there's that other controversial area: could decriminalization fuel sex trafficking and sexual exploitation?
"I definitely worry about that," Shah said. "It's an area that I would love to, to be able to do more with."
Still Shah believes there's no solid evidence yet that decriminalizing prostitution does lead to an increase in trafficking women and forcing them into prostitution.
"There is not good empirical evidence for this either way, and part of that is because it's just very, very hard to collect good data on numbers of human trafficking."
*************Scott Cunningham has been studying black markets for some time, and I'm a long time fan of his work. Here are some of my earlier posts covering it.
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Classified ads as a marketplace for sex
Here's a story about a classified ad sex site whose publishers were recently arrested, in a case that pits freedom of the press against accusations of making a market for illegal prostitution, and very illegal trafficking in children. The case may extend the criminal definition of illegal pimping to the owners of a newspaper that no one seems to dispute is used to advertise prostitution, among consenting adults and possibly also by nonconsenting adults and children.
Digital Pimps or Fearless Publishers?
The owners of Village Voice Media gamed the online classified business with Backpage.com and made millions. But when it became a breeding ground for child rape, the publishers became something else: defendants. by Kate Knibbs
"Backpage is the most prominent online destination for on-demand paid sex in the United States, and according to the arrest warrant for Ferrer and others, it made nearly 99 percent of its over $50 million revenue in California from January 2013 to March 2015 from charging for erotic classified ads. It is, in essence, an escort advertising network nestled in a Craigslist knockoff.
...
"“Backpage and its executives purposefully and unlawfully designed Backpage to be the world’s top online brothel,” California Attorney General Kamala Harris said in a statement in October. Her office had brought the charges against the men in the middle of what would turn out to be her successful campaign for U.S. Senate.
HT: Scott Cunningham
Digital Pimps or Fearless Publishers?
The owners of Village Voice Media gamed the online classified business with Backpage.com and made millions. But when it became a breeding ground for child rape, the publishers became something else: defendants. by Kate Knibbs
"Backpage is the most prominent online destination for on-demand paid sex in the United States, and according to the arrest warrant for Ferrer and others, it made nearly 99 percent of its over $50 million revenue in California from January 2013 to March 2015 from charging for erotic classified ads. It is, in essence, an escort advertising network nestled in a Craigslist knockoff.
...
"“Backpage and its executives purposefully and unlawfully designed Backpage to be the world’s top online brothel,” California Attorney General Kamala Harris said in a statement in October. Her office had brought the charges against the men in the middle of what would turn out to be her successful campaign for U.S. Senate.
"Backpage general counsel Liz McDougall called the arrests an “election year stunt.”
"Whether or not it was designed to be a brothel, and whether its owners are neutral web hosts attacked for political gain or nefarious pimps adept at skating the law, is what the court must decide.
...
"The executives at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) were also gratified.
The nonprofit views Backpage as so tightly tied to the sale of children for rape that the website is now the first place it searches for children reported missing. In a 2016 amicus brief, the organization outlined the ways in which it believes that Backpage has been deliberately optimized to keep the child trafficking industry going, including having relaxed posting rules for escort ads while requiring other sellers to provide valid telephone numbers. It also describes a case in which one child was “sold for sex more than 50 times on backpage.com beginning when she was 12 years old.” The organization has worked on more than 420 cases in which children were trafficked through Backpage.
“I don’t know that anyone really believes that there’s a way, with a website offering those services, to completely eliminate [the sex trade],” Staca Shehan, the executive director of the NCMEC’s Case Analysis Division, told me. “But there’s a lot to be done to reduce the likelihood, to reduce this website as a target to buy and sell children for sex.”
The relationship between Backpage and NCMEC was originally cooperative, but Shehan says it soured in 2013, when the center decided the site’s crackdown attempts were theater. She said that Backpage would voluntarily report that it took down one advertisement for a minor, but that her researchers would discover the same image of the child in many other posts that remained online and untouched. This infuriates Shehan. “Why would you report one, and not all the other ones that your website is hosting? Why wouldn’t you remove that ad if you suspect that a child is being sold for sex and block the individual user?” she said.
In March, the Senate voted unanimously to hold Ferrer in contempt for failing to comply with a subpoena for a separate investigation into Backpage’s activities — the first contempt authorization in more than 20 years. This investigation paints Backpage as a deliberately sinister operation, claiming that the company edits advertisements to make them look less like sex trafficking. “Our investigation showed that Backpage ‘edits’ advertisements before posting them, by removing certain words, phrases, or images. For instance, they might remove a word or image that makes clear that sexual services are being offered for money. And then they would post this ‘sanitized’ version of the ad,” Senator Rob Portman said in a statement. “In other words, Backpage’s editing procedures, far from being an effective anti-trafficking measure, only served to sanitize the ads of illegal content to an outside viewer.”
While lawmakers like Portman see Backpage as a demonic helpmate for rapists and abusive pimps, the website has a reputation as a valuable safety tool within some sex worker communities.
Consenting, adult sex workers often praise Backpage for helping minimize the risks of their job. Sex worker advocacy groups have condemned the prosecution of Ferrer, Lacey, and Larkin. In San Francisco, sex workers and supporters gathered to protest the Backpage arrests. “This culmination of a three-year investigation by the California government is a shocking waste of resources for a political stunt that leaves sex workers and trafficking victims stigmatized, isolated, and more vulnerable to violence,” the Urban Justice Center’s Sex Workers Project said in a statement condemning Ferrer’s arrest.
The phantoms of other shuttered and beleaguered sex ad sites worry sex workers who view digital classifieds as instrumental to their safety. RedBook, a long-running Bay Area hub for sex work ads, was shut down after an investigation by the IRS and FBI in 2014. “Authorities say the San Francisco–based website, which primarily served California and Nevada, facilitated prostitution and had to fall. Sex workers say the site provided a meager safeguard against predators, pimps, and cops,” the Sacramento News & Review wrote. “When it disappeared, the most at-risk workers — those of limited means and greatest need — were displaced to the streets.”
...
"While lurid and sad, the arrest report for Ferrer, Lacey, and Larkin has another striking feature: None of the incidents recounted involved the men arranging for or paying for sex, nor did they involve the participation of the men authorities describe as “pimps.” There is no mention of “pimping” in the traditional sense, the act of controlling sex workers, or arranging meet-ups, or taking a cut of their income. The men were arrested as pimps simply by dint of owning and operating a website where other people pimped, even though Backpage’s disclaimer instructs users to report underage trafficking and illegal activity.
The arrest warrant describes how a California Department of Justice agent personally called Ferrer to alert him of an illegal ad. Upending expectations, the warrant notes that the CEO promised to promptly remove this ad — and then kept his word and promptly removed it. So it isn’t that the website lacks moderation; the allegation is that Backpage’s moderation isn’t sufficient enough, and that insufficiency is tantamount to the act of pimping.
It is an unusual stretch of the definition of a very old crime. By arresting Backpage’s current and former executives, Harris was sending a message: If the definition of pimping hadn’t yet changed, she was trying to change it."
HT: Scott Cunningham
Monday, July 25, 2016
Trust and crime: Reputation in the (illegal) market for sex
Quartz has an article on how sex workers can vet new customers, in the age of the internet: Sex workers have created the perfect method for keeping people honest online. (I like the url better than the headline: http://qz.com/621994/trust-and-crime/
"If you work at Goldman Sachs in New York City and you want to tie up a woman and then have sex with her, there’s a good chance you’ll first have to speak to Rita.
She’ll insist on calling your office, speaking to the switchboard operator, and being patched through to your desk. Then she will want to check out your profile on the company website and LinkedIn. She’ll demand you send her message from your work email, and require a scan of either your passport or driver’s license.
...
"Mid-range prostitution is a relatively new market, enabled by technology. Before the internet, it was hard for escorts to find customers: They had to either walk the streets searching for customers (the lower end of the market), rely on word-of-mouth, or work with agencies. Walking the streets was dangerous, while agencies ate up a large share of workers’ profit and autonomy, and created a bottleneck to entering the market. The internet changed all that.
“Before the internet, agencies provided the steady flow of clients and screening, but their capacity was capped,” Baylor University economist Scott Cunningham said. Soon after Craigslist launched in 1995, US escorts quickly started marketing directly to customers online. This newfound ability to advertise on the internet grew the market, said Cunningham, because more women and men could work independently
...
"Even criminals need someone they can trust
"If you’re selling something illegal, you can’t rely on the law to make sure the buyer upholds their end of the deal. Once the bill comes, clients might turn violent, or turn out to be cops. That means trust commands a large premium and that’s the centerpiece of Rita’s business model: watertight background checks on would-be johns.
"Rita represents sex workers who offer BDSM in addition to sex. When rough play is on the list of services you offer, a high level of trust is essential; hence, Rita’s elaborate screening process, which can take days. “I am looking to weed out police and crazies,” she said. She estimates that only one in four potential customers ultimately passes. Those who do win some time with a professional escort/dominatrix, but it comes at a hefty price: Each hour can cost up to $800, and Rita’s cut is 30%."
"If you work at Goldman Sachs in New York City and you want to tie up a woman and then have sex with her, there’s a good chance you’ll first have to speak to Rita.
She’ll insist on calling your office, speaking to the switchboard operator, and being patched through to your desk. Then she will want to check out your profile on the company website and LinkedIn. She’ll demand you send her message from your work email, and require a scan of either your passport or driver’s license.
...
"Mid-range prostitution is a relatively new market, enabled by technology. Before the internet, it was hard for escorts to find customers: They had to either walk the streets searching for customers (the lower end of the market), rely on word-of-mouth, or work with agencies. Walking the streets was dangerous, while agencies ate up a large share of workers’ profit and autonomy, and created a bottleneck to entering the market. The internet changed all that.
“Before the internet, agencies provided the steady flow of clients and screening, but their capacity was capped,” Baylor University economist Scott Cunningham said. Soon after Craigslist launched in 1995, US escorts quickly started marketing directly to customers online. This newfound ability to advertise on the internet grew the market, said Cunningham, because more women and men could work independently
...
"Even criminals need someone they can trust
"If you’re selling something illegal, you can’t rely on the law to make sure the buyer upholds their end of the deal. Once the bill comes, clients might turn violent, or turn out to be cops. That means trust commands a large premium and that’s the centerpiece of Rita’s business model: watertight background checks on would-be johns.
"Rita represents sex workers who offer BDSM in addition to sex. When rough play is on the list of services you offer, a high level of trust is essential; hence, Rita’s elaborate screening process, which can take days. “I am looking to weed out police and crazies,” she said. She estimates that only one in four potential customers ultimately passes. Those who do win some time with a professional escort/dominatrix, but it comes at a hefty price: Each hour can cost up to $800, and Rita’s cut is 30%."
Friday, July 18, 2014
What is the effect of legalizing indoor prostitution?
In 2009 I wrote a blog post about the unusual situation in Rhode Island, in which a change in legislation had inadvertently made only outdoor prostitution illegal:
(That was a situation that Cheap Talk characterized as "happy endings but no beginnings.").
But now a serious paper has been written on the effect of this change (which was reversed later in 2009):
The story has been picked up:
Here's Vox, Rhode Island accidentally decriminalized prostitution, and good things happened
That post concludes as follows
"Why is this research important?
"According to a 2013 estimate, prostitution is an industry that generates over $14 billion annually in the United States. That's despite the fact that it's almost universally illegal across the country, save for some regulated brothels in some parts of Nevada. (Recall that Rhode Island recriminalized sex work in 2009.)
"Despite the industry being huge and persistent, almost everything we know about decriminalizing prostitution is rooted in speculation, rather than good data.
"Prior research has been plagued by problems, like relying on small sample sizes that aren't necessarily representative of the industry. According to the authors, most of the studies that exist examine street prostitution, even though 85 percent of all sex-work activity is considered part of the indoor market.
"Sex work is a predictably fraught policy issue, because it gets entangled in matters of morality. But this study adds to a body of research that suggests criminalizing prostitution causes higher rates of victimization and unsafe practices."
******
And the Washington Post weighs in here, with a wider discussion of prostitution and its repugnance,
**********
For those of you who don't know Scott Cunningham, he's a serious student of the dark side of the economy...see a previous post on his work here.
Where it's illegal for prostitutes to give massages
The complicated legal situation in Rhode Island makes indoor prostitution legal, but requires masseurs to be licensed, so prosecutors "brought charges against alleged brothels for performing unlicensed massages."
But now a serious paper has been written on the effect of this change (which was reversed later in 2009):
Decriminalizing Indoor Prostitution: Implications for Sexual Violence and Public Health
Scott Cunningham, Manisha Shah
Most governments in the world including the United States prohibit prostitution. Given these types of laws rarely change and are fairly uniform across regions, our knowledge about the impact of decriminalizing sex work is largely conjectural. We exploit the fact that a Rhode Island District Court judge unexpectedly decriminalized indoor prostitution in 2003 to provide the first causal estimates of the impact of decriminalization on the composition of the sex market, rape offenses, and sexually transmitted infection outcomes. Not surprisingly, we find that decriminalization increased the size of the indoor market. However, we also find that decriminalization caused both forcible rape offenses and gonorrhea incidence to decline for the overall population. Our synthetic control model finds 824 fewer reported rape offenses (31 percent decrease) and 1,035 fewer cases of female gonorrhea (39 percent decrease) from 2004 to 2009.
The story has been picked up:
Here's Vox, Rhode Island accidentally decriminalized prostitution, and good things happened
That post concludes as follows
"Why is this research important?
"According to a 2013 estimate, prostitution is an industry that generates over $14 billion annually in the United States. That's despite the fact that it's almost universally illegal across the country, save for some regulated brothels in some parts of Nevada. (Recall that Rhode Island recriminalized sex work in 2009.)
"Despite the industry being huge and persistent, almost everything we know about decriminalizing prostitution is rooted in speculation, rather than good data.
"Prior research has been plagued by problems, like relying on small sample sizes that aren't necessarily representative of the industry. According to the authors, most of the studies that exist examine street prostitution, even though 85 percent of all sex-work activity is considered part of the indoor market.
"Sex work is a predictably fraught policy issue, because it gets entangled in matters of morality. But this study adds to a body of research that suggests criminalizing prostitution causes higher rates of victimization and unsafe practices."
******
And the Washington Post weighs in here, with a wider discussion of prostitution and its repugnance,
**********
For those of you who don't know Scott Cunningham, he's a serious student of the dark side of the economy...see a previous post on his work here.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Alternatives to the NBA draft?
Scott Cunningham points me to this proposal to change the way professional basketball teams acquire new players. The present system rewards teams for poor performance by giving teams that lose lots of games a higher probability of very early draft choices. Early draft choices are important, because basketball is a game in which a single player can have a very big influence on team performance, and a small number of players are very good while still very young. So there may be an incentive, for a team having a poor season, to "tank" and try to be the worst team in order to have the highest probability of the first draft pick. The proposal would be to make draft choices independent of performance, and instead to alternate draft choices in a fixed schedule: The NBA's Possible Solution for Tanking: Good-bye to the Lottery, Hello to the Wheel
************
For more about the current draft system and how it is connected to player salaries, see Alicia Jessop on The Structure of NBA Rookie Contracts
************
For more about the current draft system and how it is connected to player salaries, see Alicia Jessop on The Structure of NBA Rookie Contracts
Sunday, March 18, 2012
The market for hitmen
If two men who have just met discuss a contract killing in a bar, there's an excellent chance that at least one of them is employed in some branch of law enforcement. So you would think that a website offering to match buyers and sellers in this market wouldn't have a lot of customers, but it appears from some recent court cases that you are overestimating the sophistication of internet shoppers. Here's a recent story from the LA Times. Apparently the proprietor of the site wasn't content to act as a matchmaker, he tried to play both sides of the market by selling hits and then contacting the intended victims and offering to be bought off. But it appears that the demand side was real, and some of them are serving time too...
Website matches targets and hit man
"The case began with a website called HitmanForHire.net. The designer thought it was a joke, but the FBI and Irish police soon learned that Essam Ahmed Eid, a Las Vegas poker dealer, was in business."
************
In another twist, the domain name http://hitmanforhire.net/ has been acquired by someone who apparently hopes to make a movie about the case, and from the look of it thinks it might be a comedy:.
HT: Scott Cunningham, who keeps an economist's eye on the dark side
Website matches targets and hit man
"The case began with a website called HitmanForHire.net. The designer thought it was a joke, but the FBI and Irish police soon learned that Essam Ahmed Eid, a Las Vegas poker dealer, was in business."
************
In another twist, the domain name http://hitmanforhire.net/ has been acquired by someone who apparently hopes to make a movie about the case, and from the look of it thinks it might be a comedy:.
HT: Scott Cunningham, who keeps an economist's eye on the dark side
Friday, January 6, 2012
Market design at the ASSA meetings in Chicago
First, good luck to all those on the job market at the ASSA meetings going on in Chicago now.
The ASSA meetings aren't only a job market, however, and there are a number of sessions in which papers on matching and market design are being presented . These are the ones I noticed on scanning the program:
Jan 06, 2012 12:30 pm, Hyatt Regency, New Orleans
Transportation & Public Utilities Group
***********
Jan 06, 2012 2:30 pm, Hyatt Regency, Columbus EF
American Economic Association
************
Jan 06, 2012 2:30 pm, Hyatt Regency, Regency D
American Economic Association
The ASSA meetings aren't only a job market, however, and there are a number of sessions in which papers on matching and market design are being presented . These are the ones I noticed on scanning the program:
Jan 06, 2012 12:30 pm, Hyatt Regency, New Orleans
Transportation & Public Utilities Group
Auction Design (L9)
Presiding: ERIC RALPH (Federal Communications Commission)
Auction Design for Universal Service
Procurement auctions to supply broadband over differing regions with quality differentiation
Distributing Universal Service Subsidies by Competitive Bidding
Discussants:
GREG ROSSTON (Stanford University)
***********
Jan 06, 2012 2:30 pm, Hyatt Regency, Columbus EF
American Economic Association
Incentives and Matching in Marriage and Dating Markets (J1)
Presiding: GARY BECKER (University of Chicago)
Matching with a Handicap: The Economics of Marital Smoking
Peer Effects in Sexual Initiation: Separating Demand from Supply
[Download Preview]
Terms of Endearment: An Equilibrium Model Of Sex and Matching
[Download Preview]
Dating Market Incentives to Improve Physical Appearance
Discussants:
SCOTT CUNNINGHAM (Baylor University)
JEREMY FOX (University of Michigan)
ALOYSIUS SIOW (University of Toronto)
JOHN CAWLEY (Cornell University)
************
Jan 06, 2012 2:30 pm, Hyatt Regency, Regency D
American Economic Association
New Challenges for Market Design (A1)
Presiding: MURIEL NIEDERLE (Stanford University)
Individual Rationality and Participation in Large Scale, Multi-Hospital Kidney Exchange
Holdout in the Assembly of Complements: A Problem for Market Design
[Download Preview]
Improving Efficiency in Matching Markets with Regional Caps: The Case of the Japan Residency Matching Program
[Download Preview]
Price Controls, Non-Price Quality Competition, and the Nonexistence of Competitive Equilibrium
[Download Preview]
Discussants:
PARAG PATHAK (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
THOMAS PALFREY (California Institute of Technology)
PAUL MILGROM (Stanford University)
MURIEL NIEDERLE (Stanford University)
********
Jan 07, 2012 8:00 am, Hyatt Regency, Columbus KL
American Economic Association
Jan 07, 2012 8:00 am, Hyatt Regency, Columbus KL
American Economic Association
Price Theory and Market Design (D4)
Presiding: ERIC BUDISH (University of chicago)
Market Power Screens Willingness-to-Pay
[Download Preview]
The Form of Incentive Contracts: Agency with Moral Hazard, Risk Neutrality, and Limited Liability
[Download Preview]
A Supply and Demand Framework for Two-Sided Matching Markets
[Download Preview]
Multilateral Matching
[Download Preview]
Discussants:
PIERRE-ANDRE CHIAPPORI (Columbia University)
DAVID SRAER (Princeton University)
THEODORE BERGSTROM (University of California-Santa Barbara)
ALI HORTACSU (University of Chicago)
**********
Jan 08, 2012 8:00 am, Hyatt Regency, Atlanta
American Economic Association
**********
Jan 08, 2012 10:15 am, Hyatt Regency, Wrigley
Econometric Society
**********
Jan 08, 2012 1:00 pm, Hyatt Regency, Columbus CD
American Economic Association
Jan 08, 2012 8:00 am, Hyatt Regency, Atlanta
American Economic Association
Advance in the Theory of Contests and Tournaments (C7)
Presiding: RON SIEGEL (Northwestern University)
Head Starts in Contests
[Download Preview]
Contests with Endogenous and Stochastic Entry
[Download Preview]
Sequential All-Pay Auctions with Head Starts and Noisy Outputs
[Download Preview]
The Optimal Design of Rewards in Contests
[Download Preview]
Discussants:
RON SIEGEL (Northwestern University)
QIANG FU (National University of Singapore)
ELLA SEGEV (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
TODD R. KAPLAN (University of Exeter and University of Haifa)
**********
Jan 08, 2012 10:15 am, Hyatt Regency, Wrigley
Econometric Society
Economics of Internet Markets (L1)
Presiding: JONATHAN LEVIN (Stanford University)
Multidimensional Heterogeneity and Platform Design
Price Discrimination in Many-to-Many Matching Markets
Social Advertising
Sales Mechanisms in Online Markets: What Happened to Internet Auctions?
Discussants:
PRESTON MCAFEE (Research Yahoo!)
JONATHAN BAKER (American Universityi)
**********
Jan 08, 2012 1:00 pm, Hyatt Regency, Columbus CD
American Economic Association
Designing Effective School Choice Mechanisms (I2)
Presiding: DIANE SCHANZENBACH (Northwestern University)
School Choice, School Quality and College Attendance
[Download Preview]
Charter School Entry and Student Choice: The Case of Washington, D.C.
[Download Preview]
Promoting School Competition through School Choice: A Market Design Approach
[Download Preview]
From Boston to Shanghai to Deferred Acceptance: Theory and Experiments on A Family of School Choice Mechanisms
Discussants:
KEVIN STANGE (University of Michigan)
JUSTINE HASTINGS (Brown University)
ONUR KESTEN (Carnegie Mellon University)
FUHITO KOJIMA (Stanford University)
Thursday, June 23, 2011
The assignation game: attempting to make an illegal market safe
Scott Cunningham (who studies risky behavior, crime, and illicit labor markets) points me to this story, which illustrates some of the difficulties of running a recommender system for an illegal transaction: Fairleigh Dickinson professor accused of running prostitution website
"a professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, was arrested Sunday while sitting in a Starbucks in Albuquerque, N.M., said Lt. William Roseman of the Albuquerque police."
...
"Flory’s website, Southwest Companions, had operated for months before several prostitutes in Albuquerque mentioned the site to police and they began investigating late last year, Roseman said.
"Users were split into three categories, and first-time visitors had to first gain the trust of Flory before gaining any access. Ordinarily this was done, Roseman said, by "sleeping with a prostitute." The prostitute would then report to Flory what sexual acts the two had engaged in, as well as how much money was exchanged.
"After that process, users were designated as "Verified," gaining access to a wider circle of women to choose from, Roseman said. If users became more frequent customers, their status was increased to "Trusted," which gave them access to more women and more portions of the website, including message boards explaining how to avoid the police, Roseman said.
"They had descriptions of my officers, phone numbers they used, videos of an attorney telling them that if you get busted by the police, here’s what you should do," Roseman said. "This was a website designed, managed and run fully for prostitution."
"The site also included message boards where users could rate the prostitutes with stars, including the rating of specific sexual acts, Roseman said.
"Roseman said Flory told police he did not make money off of the website and instead saw it as a hobby, "a safe place for guys to find female prostitutes," Roseman said."
*******
Another news account gives more details on the police operation, which made use of an informant:
"Seemingly aware of possible legal issues, the site notes its content is for "entertainment purposes" only.
"Police, however, contend that Flory knew he was promoting illegal activity. A detective infiltrated the site, gaining a “verified account” through an informant, according to an arrest warrant. Using the screen name “David8,” the warrant said Flory posted “helpful tips” on how to avoid arrest and removed users who he thought had contact with authorities.
"Through a subpoena to Internet domain registration company GoDaddy.com, police learned that Flory used his FDU e-mail account to create the site. A GoDaddy spokesman declined to comment on the case, but issued a statement noting the company "routinely" works with law enforcement. According to the warrant, Flory also used DCF8.org for e-mail on the prostitution site, with the domain matching his initials. "
"a professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, was arrested Sunday while sitting in a Starbucks in Albuquerque, N.M., said Lt. William Roseman of the Albuquerque police."
...
"Flory’s website, Southwest Companions, had operated for months before several prostitutes in Albuquerque mentioned the site to police and they began investigating late last year, Roseman said.
"Users were split into three categories, and first-time visitors had to first gain the trust of Flory before gaining any access. Ordinarily this was done, Roseman said, by "sleeping with a prostitute." The prostitute would then report to Flory what sexual acts the two had engaged in, as well as how much money was exchanged.
"After that process, users were designated as "Verified," gaining access to a wider circle of women to choose from, Roseman said. If users became more frequent customers, their status was increased to "Trusted," which gave them access to more women and more portions of the website, including message boards explaining how to avoid the police, Roseman said.
"They had descriptions of my officers, phone numbers they used, videos of an attorney telling them that if you get busted by the police, here’s what you should do," Roseman said. "This was a website designed, managed and run fully for prostitution."
"The site also included message boards where users could rate the prostitutes with stars, including the rating of specific sexual acts, Roseman said.
"Roseman said Flory told police he did not make money off of the website and instead saw it as a hobby, "a safe place for guys to find female prostitutes," Roseman said."
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Another news account gives more details on the police operation, which made use of an informant:
"Seemingly aware of possible legal issues, the site notes its content is for "entertainment purposes" only.
"Police, however, contend that Flory knew he was promoting illegal activity. A detective infiltrated the site, gaining a “verified account” through an informant, according to an arrest warrant. Using the screen name “David8,” the warrant said Flory posted “helpful tips” on how to avoid arrest and removed users who he thought had contact with authorities.
"Through a subpoena to Internet domain registration company GoDaddy.com, police learned that Flory used his FDU e-mail account to create the site. A GoDaddy spokesman declined to comment on the case, but issued a statement noting the company "routinely" works with law enforcement. According to the warrant, Flory also used DCF8.org for e-mail on the prostitution site, with the domain matching his initials. "
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