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."

Opioids and harm reduction: drug checking and Safe Injection Facilities

From Mason Marks writing on the Bill of Health blog at Harvard Law School:

The Opioid Crisis Requires Evidence-Based Solutions, Part III: How the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction Dismissed Harm Reduction Strategies

" it is noteworthy that the Commission ignored harm reduction strategies such as drug checking, which could reduce deaths due to consumption of contaminated opioids. Many countries including Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the Netherlands offer free and confidential drug checking (also known as pill testing) to drug users. Drug checking could reduce consumption of adulterated drugs and provides opportunities to support and counsel users who may otherwise receive no contact with medical or public health professionals. Drug checking is also a valuable source of information about drug use such as pricing, availability, effects, and composition of street drugs. This information can be used to further our understanding of drug use and its effects.

Some experts argue that drug dealers will be less likely to add dangerous adulterants to their products if they know that consumers have a mechanism to test their contents. The identification of drug contents can alert authorities to the presence of synthetic opioids, which can lead to public warnings and announcements that may further drive dealers to withdraw deadly additives from the market. The practice can also improve law enforcement efforts to reduce the illegal importation and sale of synthetic opioids. Dr. Carl Hart, Chair of the Department of Psychology at Columbia University, supports the use of free and anonymous drug checking in the United States. In a Scientific American article, heargues that the opioid crisis is a distinctly American problem. According to Hart, “Throughout Europe and other regions where opioids are readily available, people are not dying at comparable rates as those in the U.S., largely because addiction is not treated as a crime but as a public health problem.” Drug checking is one example of how European countries approach drug abuse from a public health angle rather than a punitive law enforcement perspective.

Critics of drug checking argue that it could normalize drug use or “send the wrong message” to potential users. For instance, the practice could create the appearance of safety when in fact the drugs being consumed are dangerous. ...

"Supervised injection facilities (SIFs), arguably a more controversial option than drug checking, were also ignored by the President’s Opioid Commission. SIFs provide a place for people to inject drugs under professional supervision to minimize the risk of HIV and hepatitis C infection, drug overdose, and death. They are primarily used in Switzerland, Canada, and Australia. However, the City of Denver is taking steps to become the first U.S. city to offer SIFs. In November, a plan for a pilot program won unanimous approval from a bipartisan ten-member legislative committee. However, the City’s General Assembly must approve the plan in January 2018 for it to move forward. Seattle and San Francisco are considering similar proposals. The State of Vermont is also considering using SIFs. On November 29, 2017, a commission of health and law enforcement professionals, led by State’s Attorney General Sarah George, recommended that Vermont make SIFs a part of its opioid strategy. However, the Vermont Commissioner of Public Safety and the Vermont Association of Police Chiefs disagree. The Commissioner stated, “Facilitating the ongoing use of heroin through SIFs sends the wrong message, at the wrong time, to the wrong people.”

...

"A 2014 review published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, examined the outcome of 75 studies and concluded that SIFs are an effective harm-reduction strategy not associated with increased drug use or crime. In early 2017, the Massachusetts Medical Society published its analysis of SIFs. It found that peer-reviewed research published in leading academic journals, such as JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine, supports the conclusion that SIFs produce positive outcomes such as reduced mortality and increased access to drug treatment.

...

"Admittedly, there could be an “ick factor” associated with SIFs, and overly zealous drug control advocates could find them repugnant. However, when thousands of lives are at stake, emotional reactions to SIFs must be weighed against the scientific evidence. If the evidence suggests that SIFs are effective, then lawmakers must be courageous and allow their decisions to be guided by science rather than emotions such as disgust."

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.

Congratulations to the winners of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)

Here's the announcement from the NSF:

President Obama honors early career scientists with top White House award

Twenty-one researchers nominated by the National Science Foundation receive awards for innovation, outreach in scientific community

and here's the list (one of which has "economics" in the citation...):

February 18, 2016

President Barack Obama today named 106 researchers as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), granting them the U.S. government's highest award for scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. The National Science Foundation (NSF) nominated 21 of the awardees.

PECASE recognizes scientists and engineers who show exceptional potential for leadership at the frontiers of scientific knowledge. Winners demonstrate the ability to broadly advance fundamental research and help the United States maintain its position as a leading producer of scientists and engineers.

"The awardees are outstanding scientists and engineers," said NSF Director France Córdova. "They are teacher-scholars who are developing new generations of outstanding scientists and engineers and ensuring this nation is a leading innovator. I applaud these recipients for their leadership, distinguished teaching and commitment to public outreach."

The NSF-nominated awardees come from universities around the country and excel in areas of science represented by NSF directorates: biology, computer and information science, education and human resources, engineering, geosciences, mathematics and physical sciences and social and behavioral sciences.

NSF vetted the research of its nominees through its rigorous peer review process. All of the NSF nominees have received five-year grants from the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program. CAREER awardees have proven themselves exemplary in integrating research and education. Selection is highly competitive: in 2012, NSF funded fewer than 20 percent of the 2,612 CAREER award applicants.

The Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President coordinated the PECASE awards, which were established by President Clinton in 1996. Awardees are selected on the basis of two criteria: pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and a commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education or community outreach.

This year's NSF recipients are:

Adam Abate, University of California, San Francisco

For his development of microfluidic approaches for creating single-cell bioreactors that may be applied to massively parallel approaches in single-cell genomics and transcriptomics and that can be implemented across a variety of disciplines including evolutionary biology, immunology, and cancer biology and for his outreach to underrepresented groups and veterans.

Marcel Agüeros, Columbia University

For his groundbreaking research in stellar astrophysics, and for his restless desire to ensure that minority students in sciences become tomorrow's leaders.

Arezoo Ardekani, University of Notre Dame

For research aimed to fundamentally understand, model and control bacterial biofilm formation through imaginative computations and elegant experiments, and for demonstrated commitment to increase underrepresented minority participation in STEM-related research.

Cullen Buie, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

For research to create highly sensitive systems that probe microbial physiology and thereby illustrate the coupling of cell phenotypes with virulence, and to train a new generation of underreprented minority scientists who become faculty.

Erin Carlson, Indiana University

For discovery of chemistry underlying a new approach to treat antibiotic-resistant infections, for leadership in the chemistry and women-chemists communities, and for developing new hands-on laboratory activities to engage K-12 students in natural product chemistry.

Antonius Dieker, Georgia Tech Research Corporation

For outstanding research on the stochastic behavior in engineered and physical systems; and for educational activities involving high school, undergraduate and graduate students.

Erika Edwards, Brown University

For innovative research leading to exciting breakthroughs in understanding the drivers of plant evolutionary innovation, and particularly the evolution of plant form and photosynthesis systems, and for engaging public outreach on plant biology.

Julia Grigsby, Boston College

For her work on the invariants of 3-manifolds, running advanced workshops, training graduate and undergraduate students, contributions to increasing participation of women in mathematical sciences and introducing talented middle-school girls to research mathematics.

Todd Gureckis, New York University

For his innovative work at the boundary of cognitive science, learning science and machine learning; for his work with museums to enhance the learning potential for children; and for creating an integrated, multidisciplinary curriculum for computational cognitive science for the workforce of the 21st century.

Tessa Hill, University of California, Davis

For her transdisciplinary research that places modern ocean acidification and ocean oxygenation into a long-term Earth-system context, and for training and outreach to K-12 teachers and students that offers them a better understanding of ocean science and climate change through inquiry-based learning.

Daniel Krashen, University of Georgia

For his work on local-to-global principles, organizing conferences and workshops, training graduate students and serving as a role model to underrepresented minorities in mathematics.

Daniel McCloskey, College of Staten Island, City University of New York

For research combining modeling, neurophysiology and systems biology/network science that will transform the field of social neuroscience by providing a comprehensive approach towards understanding the role of neuropetides in complex behavioral systems.

Rahul Mangharam, University of Pennsylvania

For inventing a new formal methodology to test and verify the correct operation of medical device software, saving lives and reducing care costs.

David Masiello, University of Washington

For his cutting-edge research in the emerging field of theoretical molecular nanophotonics, and for his comprehensive educational and outreach programs including an exemplary focus on enhancing the scientific communication abilities of young researchers.

Shwetak Patel, University of Washington

For inventing low-cost, easy-to-deploy sensor systems that leverage existing infrastructures to enable users to track household energy consumption and make the buildings we live in more responsive to our needs.

Aaron Roth, University of Pennsylvania

For visionary research on protecting personal data via differential privacy, and outstanding outreach that fosters interaction between the many communities that study data privacy from theoretical computer science to economics.

Sayeef Salahuddin, University of California, Berkeley

For pioneering research on the foundations of nanostructures as new, low-power electronics with potential influence on energy efficient systems, and for impact on industry, education and mentoring future scientists.

Jakita Thomas, Spelman College

For her research on how African-American middle-school girls develop computational algorithmic thinking within the context of designing games, a research project that explores the challenges African-American girls face and their self-perceptions as problem-solvers while at the same time educating them in mathematics, programming and reasoning.

Joachim Walther, University of Georgia

For building research capacity in engineering education by defining quality in qualitative research methods and leading communities of practice in this research, germane to and commonly used in broadening participation efforts.

Kristen Wendell, University of Massachusetts Boston

For her outstanding research work on how to integrate a community-based engineering design model into pre-service science elementary school teachers focused on crosscutting concepts, disciplinary core ideas and scientific and engineering practices.

Benjamin Williams, University of California, Los Angeles

For a comprehensive vision to advance Terahertz quantum-cascade lasers and devices for communications, sensing and imaging, and for leadership in enhancing undergraduate and graduate student learning experiences.

Real estate symposium

I participate today in a conference on an unusual (for me) subject:

SPIRE AND THE REAL PROPERTY LAW SECTION HOST
THE FIFTH ANNUAL REAL SYMPOSIUM

---

Fifth Annual Real Estate and Law Symposium Tuesday, February 16, 2016 1 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. 555 Salvatierra Walk Paul Brest Hall (Law School) Stanford University Earn 2.5 hours of MCLE credit.  Keynote Speakers: Angela Kleiman, CFO and Executive Vice President, Essex Property Trust, Inc. Alvin Roth, Nobel Laureate, Economic Sciences; Professor of Economics, Stanford University Panel topics include: Space on Demand Risk and Resiliency in Financial and Real Estate Markets Early Bird Pricing: SPIRE/RPLS Members: $125 Non-Members: $175 Young Professionals:  $95

About the REAL Symposium Program Schedule and Speakers  Sponsors Essential Information About SPIRE About the Real Property Law SectionDirections

Stanford Professionals  In Real Estate (SPIRE) http://www.spirestanford.org

The Real Property Law Section of The State Bar of California

About the Real Estate and Law (REAL) Symposium

The 2016 REAL Symposium will cover several legal topics such as the legal implications of the evolving use and management real estate in the new sharing economy in the areas of land use, financing, enforcement of existing regulations, and the potential for litigation.  New financing products and trends in the real estate financing markets will be discussed as well as legal issues facing transactional and financing lawyers.In addition, the lead deal maker for the largest West Coast multi-family REIT will give an inside look at the largest merger in recent history and its implications on future transactions.

Program Schedule and Speakers

Event	Time
Registration	12 noon - 1 p.m.
Welcoming Remarks	1 p.m. - 1:15 p.m.
Featured Panel 1: Space On Demand Tech innovations and the new sharing economy are changing how we work, travel and play. We are increasingly demanding accessible, fluid and fungible physical space. However, there are significant legal and financial ramifications to creating space on demand. This panel will discuss a variety of topics related to the sharing economy. Moderator: Curtis Smolar,  Partner, Browne George Ross LLP                                               Panelists: Scott Weiner, San Francisco Board of Supervisors Diana Rothschild, CEO & President, NextSpace Deborah Boyer, Executive VP & Director of Asset Management, The Swig Company Fourth panelist to be announced	1:15 p.m. - 2:20 p.m.
Keynote Speaker: Alvin Roth Nobel Laureate 2012, Economic Sciences; Professor of Economics, Stanford University Professor Roth has made significant contributions to the fields of game theory, market design, and market matching, and is known for his emphasis on applying economic theory to “real-world” problems. Under the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design, he uses mathematical algorithms to assign people or things to stable matches. Professor Roth’s work, which spans decades, culminated in him being awarded a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science. Professor Roth is currently the Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University and he is the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard University. Professor Roth received his bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and his master’s and doctorate from Stanford University.	2:20 p.m. - 2:55 p.m.
Break	3 p.m. - 3:20 p.m.
Keynote Speaker: Angela Kleiman Essex Property Trust, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Essex Property Trust, Inc. is a fully integrated REIT that acquires, develops, redevelops, and manages apartment communities located in highly desirable, supply-constrained markets.  Ms. Kleiman led the overall transaction management of Essex’s merger with BRE Properties at the end of last year, creating the largest West Coast multi-family REIT. Ms. Kleiman oversees the Private Equity, Capital Markets, Economic Research, Accounting, Financial Planning and Investor Relations departments. She joined Essex in 2009 to manage the company’s Private Equity Platform and grew it to $3 billion in gross assets. Prior to joining Essex, Ms. Kleiman served as Senior Equity Analyst and Vice President at Security Capital and as Vice President with J. P. Morgan Real Estate and Lodging Investment Banking Group. Ms. Kleiman received her Bachelor’s from Northwestern University and her MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.	3:20 p.m. - 3:50 p.m.
Featured Panel 2:  Risk and Resiliency in Financial and Real Estate Markets The US economy has rebounded from the real estate and market crashes in 2007 and there continues to be abundant opportunity for real estate investors, developers and entrepreneurs.   At the same time real estate professionals are faced with new and not-so-new challenges in the rapidly changing real estate/financial industries and world economies.   This panel will discuss how real estate entrepreneurs, investors and financiers identify and manage opportunity and risk in the evolving economy. Moderator: Jeff Weber, Senior Managing Director, Eastdil Secured Panelists: Bill Hosler, COO, Catellus Mark Myers, Executive VP & Group Head of Commercial Real Estate, Wells Fargo Sam Hooker, Principal, Embarcadero Partners LLC

The market for robotics talent

The labor market for computer scientists is thriving.

The collaboration between Uber and Carnegie Mellon University on driverless-car technology has some unusually competitive dimensions, when it comes to hiring. The WSJ has the story:
Carnegie Mellon Reels After Uber Lures Away Researchers--Uber staffs new tech center with researchers poached from its collaborator on self-driving technology

"Carnegie Mellon University is scrambling to recover after Uber Technologies Inc. poached 40 of its researchers and scientists earlier this year, a raid that left one of the world’s top robotics research institutions in a crisis.

In February, Carnegie Mellon and Uber trumpeted a strategic partnership in which the school would “work closely” with the ride-hailing service to develop driverless-car technology.

Behind the scenes, the tie-up was more combative than collaborative.

Uber envisions autonomous cars that could someday replace its tens of thousands of contract drivers. With virtually no in-house capability, the San Francisco company went to the one place with enough talent to build a team instantly: Carnegie Mellon’s National Robotics Engineering Center, or NREC.

Flush with cash after raising more than $5 billion from investors, Uber offered some scientists bonuses of hundreds of thousands of dollars and a doubling of salaries to staff the company’s new tech center in Pittsburgh, according to one researcher at NREC."

The WSJ story ends with a nice quote about CMU:

"Carnegie Mellon likes “to focus on the fringe of science, not the center of it,” Mr. Thrun said. “It is easier to do something crazy and get it done. You could do almost anything at Carnegie Mellon and get away with it.”

The residency match in Otolaryngology

A recent paper looks at the resident match in Otolarygology, in the context of the overall resident match.

State of Otolaryngology Match: Has Competition Increased since the ‘‘Early’’
Match?  by Cristina Cabrera-Muffly, Jeanelle Sheeder, and Mona Abaza, in the journal Otolaryngology--Head Neck Surgert 2015 Feb 24

"Over the past 60 years, the United States residency match process and characteristics of medical students applying to the match have changed considerably. Centralized matching of postgraduate training positions was successfully implemented nationwide in 1952.1 At that time, just over 10,000 positions were offered through the match. In the 2013 match cycle, there were almost 50 different specialties that offer PGY-1 positions through the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP) match and a total of 26,392 positions offered.2

In 2006, in response to concerns about physician shortages, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) recommended an increase in the number of medical student postions.3 There was an overwhelming response among allopathic programs in both new schools (13 have matriculated their first class since 2006) and larger class sizes in established schools, with rosters expanding 15% to 18%.3,4 Meanwhile, osteopathic medical schools have doubled in number from 15 to 30 over the past 20 years.3 Therefore, the overall number of graduating medical students has increased considerably, reaching an all-time high in 2013.5 This has a direct effect on the quantity of medical students seeking any residency position, including otolaryngology.

The otolaryngology match has also undergone several iterations since its beginnings. In late 1977, otolaryngology and ophthalmology specialties officially separated.6 In 2006, the otolaryngology match transitioned from coordination by the San Francisco match (SF match) to become part of the NRMP. This transition altered the timeline of the application process in otolaryngology and potentially affected the applicant pool. Prior to 2006, the interview season for early match was generally from October to December, with the rank list submission deadline in early January. Match notification occurred in mid-January.7 This allowed applicants who did not match to complete a separate application for other specialties, although interview periods often overlapped. Once the NRMP began coordinating the otolaryngology match in 2006, the interview season was delayed to November through January, with the rank list submission deadline at the end of February. Match notification now occurs in mid-March.8

The change from the SF match to the NRMP match occurred as the required general surgery intern year became integrated with otolaryngology residencies, eliminating the need to separately interview for a preliminary general surgery position.9 Since 2006, otolaryngology programs have an integrated intern year, eliminating the need for a separate match. The early timing of the otolaryngology match allowed for applicants who did not match into otolaryngology to apply for a different specialty during the regular match of the same year through the NRMP. Applicants participating in the couples match during the early match likely found it more difficult to coordinate match cities when one partner applied to otolaryngology and the other to a regular match specialty. It is unclear whether the competitive nature or the couples match situation was considered when the match timing was changed.

...

"Over the past 16 years, we have seen an increase in the number of US seniors applying to residency. Fortunately, during the same time period, the number of first-year residency positions in all NRMP specialties increased as well. This rate of growth of residency positions appears to be consistent with the recommendation by the Council on Graduate Medical Education, who recommended increasing the number of first-year residents to 27,000 per year by 2015.4 In the same time frame, the number of unfilled NRMP residency positions has decreased by 55.8%. These positions are being filled by non–US seniors since the overall rate of applications and matches increased while the rate of US senior applications and matches stayed constant. Non–US seniors include prior US medical school graduates and IMG. IMG includes both US citizens attending medical school outside the United States and citizens of other countries attending international medical schools. Data suggest that the IMG portion of this group is filling the additional residency positions. In 2002, 18.6% of all NRMP positions were filled by IMG, while in 2013, IMG matched into 24.8% of NRMP positions. Meanwhile, the percentage of NRMP positions filled by prior US graduates has remained stable (between 2% and 3%). The decrease in percentage of unfilled positions is also due to increased IMG matching.

...

"The advantages of the otolaryngology conventional match are the elimination of one of the interview processes (since the preliminary general surgery intern year is now included), as well as improved ability for couples to match together."

Matching and Market Design at INFORMS in San Francisco, Monday, Nov 10

More matching and market design today:

Cluster :	Auctions
Session Information		: Monday Nov 10, 13:30 - 15:00
Title:	Analysis of Matching Markets
Chair:	Thayer Morrill,NC State University, NC, thayer_morrill@ncsu.edu
Abstract Details
Title:	New Algorithms for Fairness and Efficiency in Course Allocation
	Presenting Author:	Hoda Atef Yekta,PhD Candidate, University of Connecticut, School of Business, 2100 Hillside Road Unit 1041, Storrs CT 06269, United States of America, Hoda.AtefYekta@business.uconn.edu
	Co-Author:	Robert Day,University of Connecticut, 2100 Hillside Road, U-1041, Storrs CT, United States of America, Bob.Day@business.uconn.edu
Abstract:		This research formulates the course allocation problem as a multi objective mathematical model considering both efficiency and measures of fairness. Results of four proposed heuristic algorithms are compared with existing mechanisms and we show that our new algorithms can improve both efficiency and fairness of the results.
Title:	Internally Stable Matchings and Exchanges
	Presenting Author:	Yicheng Liu,liuyicheng1991@hotmail.com
	Co-Author:	Pingzhong Tang,Assistant Professor, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, kenshinping@gmail.com
Abstract:		We propose an alternative notion of stability for matchings and exchanges, coined internal stability, which only requires stability among matched agents. For internal stability, we analyze the social welfare bounds and computational complexity. Our results indicate that internal stability addresses both the social welfare and computational difficulties associated with traditional stability.
Title:	The Secure Boston Mechanism
	Presenting Author:	Thayer Morrill,NC State University, NC, thayer_morrill@ncsu.edu
	Co-Author:	Umut Dur,umutdur@gmail.com
		Robert Hammond,robert_hammond@ncsu.edu
Abstract:		We introduce a new algorithm that is a hybrid between the Boston and Deferred Acceptance algorithm. While not strategy-proof, this ``secure’’ Boston algorithm significantly reduces the incentive for students to strategically manipulate their reported preferences while maintaining the desirable feature of the Boston mechanism of assigning as many students as feasible to their favorite school. We run an experiment in order to test the performance of our new assignment procedure.
Title:	Two-sided Matching with Incomplete Information
	Presenting Author:	Sushil Bikhchandani,UCLA Anderson School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles CA, United States of America, sushil.bikhchandani@anderson.ucla.edu
Abstract:		Stability in a two-sided matching model with non-transferrable utility (NTU), interdependent preferences, and one-sided incomplete information is investigated. The notion of incomplete-information stability used here is similar to that of Liu et al. (2014). With anonymous preferences, all strictly individually-rational matchings are incomplete-information stable. An ex post incentive-compatible mechanism exists for this model. Extensions to two-sided incomplete information are investigated.

Cluster :	Applied Probability Society
Session Information		: Monday Nov 10, 08:00 - 09:30
Title:	Matching in Markets
Chair:	Ciamac Moallemi,Barbara and Meyer Feldberg Associate Professor of Business, Columbia Business School, 3022 Broadway, Uris 416, New York NY 10027, United States of America, ciamac@gsb.columbia.edu
Co-Chair:	Costis Maglaras,Columbia Business School, New York NY, United States of America, cm479@columbia.edu
Abstract Details
Title:	Dynamic Matching Markets with an Application in Residential Real Estate
	Presenting Author:	Hua Zheng,Columbia Business School, 3022 Broadway, Uris 4S, New York NY 10027, United States of America, hzheng14@gsb.columbia.edu
	Co-Author:	Costis Maglaras,Columbia Business School, New York NY, United States of America, cm479@columbia.edu
		Ciamac Moallemi,Barbara and Meyer Feldberg Associate Professor of Business, Columbia Business School, 3022 Broadway, Uris 416, New York NY 10027, United States of America, ciamac@gsb.columbia.edu
Abstract:		We study a dynamic microstructure model of a dynamic market where buyers and sellers arrive stochastically over time, and are heterogeneous with respect to their product characteristics and preferences and their idiosyncratic financial information. We analyze its dynamics, market depth, and buyer/seller bidding strategies. The motivating application stems from residential real estate.
Title:	Optimal Allocation without Money: An Engineering Approach
	Presenting Author:	Itai Ashlagi,MIT, 100 Main st., Cambridge MA, United States of America, iashlagi@mit.edu
	Co-Author:	Peng Shi,MIT, 70 Pacific St, Apt. 348C, Cambridge MA 02139, United States of America, pengshi@mit.edu
Abstract:		We study the allocation of heterogeneous services to agents without monetary transfers under incomplete information. The social planner's goal is to maximize a possibly complex public objective. We take an ``engineering'' approach, in which we solve a large market approximation, and convert the solution into a feasible finite market mechanism that still yields good results. We apply this framework to real data from Boston to design a mechanism that assigns students to public schools.
Title:	Managing Congestion in Dynamic Matching Markets
	Presenting Author:	Nick Arnosti,Stanford University, Stanford CA, United States of America, narnosti@stanford.edu
	Co-Author:	Ramesh Johari,Stanford University, Huang 311, Stanford CA, United States of America, ramesh.johari@stanford.edu
		Yash Kanoria,Columbia Business School, 404 Uris Hall, New York NY 10027, United States of America, ykanoria@columbia.edu
Abstract:		It is often costly for agents in matching markets to determine whether potential partners are interested in forming a match. This creates friction in the marketplace, lowering welfare for all participants. We use a dynamic model to quantitatively study this effect. We demonstrate that by reducing visibility, the market operator may benefit both sides of the market. Somewhat counter-intuitively, benefits of showing fewer sellers to each buyer are greatest when there is a shortage of sellers.

Cluster :	Auctions
Session Information		: Monday Nov 10, 16:30 - 18:00
Title:	Dynamic Matching Markets
Chair:	John Dickerson,CMU, 9219 Gates-Hillman Center, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA 15213, United States of America, dickerson@cs.cmu.edu
Abstract Details
Title:	Dynamic Matching Using Approximate Dynamic Programming
	Presenting Author:	Nikhil Bhat,Columbia University, nbhat15@gsb.columbia.edu
	Co-Author:	Ciamac Moallemi,Barbara and Meyer Feldberg Associate Professor of Business, Columbia Business School, 3022 Broadway, Uris 416, New York NY 10027, United States of America, ciamac@gsb.columbia.edu
Abstract:		We provide tractable algorithms for a large number of challenging dynamic decision making problems such as 1) Allocation of cadaveric kidneys to patients, 2) Matching ads with impressions, 3) Cyclic paired transfer of kidneys, by analyzing them using a general model. Our policies are easy to compute and interpret, and further come with approximation guarantees. With simulation experiments on kidney allocation, we show that we obtain gain over existing algorithms in literature.
Title:	Dynamic Matching Market Design
	Presenting Author:	Mohammad Akbarpour,Stanford University, 579 Serra Mall, 265F, Stanford CA 94305, United States of America, mohamwad@stanford.edu
	Co-Author:	Shengwu Li,Stanford University, 579 Serra Mall, 265B, Stanford CA 94305, United States of America, shengwu@stanford.edu
		Shayan Oveis Gharan,UC Berkeley, Berkeley Ca 94105, United States of America, oveisgharan@berkeley.edu
Abstract:		We show that, in dynamic matching markets, waiting to thicken the market can be substantially more important than increasing the speed of transactions. In particular, simple local algorithms that wait to thicken the market can perform very close to optimal algorithms. We prove our claims by analyzing a simple but illuminating model of dynamic matching in networked markets where agents arrive and depart stochastically.
Title:	The Roles of Common and Private Information in Two-Sided Matching with Interviews
	Presenting Author:	Sanmay Das,Associate Professor, Washington University in St. Louis, sanmay@seas.wustl.edu
	Co-Author:	Zhuoshu Li,Washington Univ. in St. Louis, One Brookings Dr, CB 1045, Saint Louis MO 63130, United States of America, zhuoshuli@wustl.edu
Abstract:		We consider two sided matching markets where employers have a fixed budget for the number of applicants they may interview. Employers receive noisy signals of how good each applicant is, and these signals include common and private components. We analyze how the strengths of these two components affect matching outcomes (both differentially across different quality candidates, and in the aggregate number of matches) when decisions about whom to interview are strategic.
Title:	FutureMatch: Learning to Match in Dynamic Environments
	Presenting Author:	John Dickerson,CMU, 9219 Gates-Hillman Center, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA 15213, United States of America, dickerson@cs.cmu.edu
	Co-Author:	Tuomas Sandholm,Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh PA 15213, United States of America, sandholm@cs.cmu.edu
Abstract:		Kidney exchange, an innovation where willing but incompatible donor-patient pairs can exchange organs, is inherently dynamic. We present FutureMatch, an empirical framework for learning to match in a general dynamic model. We validate it on real data. Not only does dynamic matching result in more expected transplants than myopic, but even dynamic matching under economically inefficient (equitable) objectives can result in significant increases in social welfare over efficient myopic matching.