Wiseguy Tickets

If I were planning to break the laws on ticket resales, I think I would refrain from calling my company Wiseguy Tickts: 4 Charged in Concert Ticket Resale Scheme

"Federal prosecutors in New Jersey said on Monday that four men operating under the name Wiseguy Tickets had broken into online sites, buying more than one million tickets to some of the country’s most popular musical and sporting events and then reselling them for more than $25 million in profit.
In its 43-count indictment, the prosecutors say the men built a computer network that created thousands of fake accounts and built a program that could outsmart the ticketing software that creates oddly shaped letters intended to require human verification.
The events affected by the scheme cut across a wide swath of the entertainment business, from Hannah Montana concerts to Broadway shows and New York Yankees playoff games. The verification systems of many major online ticket vendors, including Ticketmaster, Telecharge and Major League Baseball, were breached."

B2B finance

Page 14 of a recent report by Morgan Stanley focuses on The Receivables Exchange, about which I have posted previously. (The Morgan Stanley report emphasizes: " This is not a research report and was not prepared by Morgan Stanley research department. It was prepared by Morgan Stanley sales, trading, banking and other non-research personnel. Past performance is not necessarily a guide to future performance.") Here it is.

The report has some recent performance statistics, and says "The Receivables Exchange, a private company, started trading on November 18, 2008 to bring private capital to the market for SME [small/medium enterprise] credit. Via The Receivables Exchange, an SME can auction its receivables to the highest bidder(s) for a substantial advance rate. The Receivables Exchange provides straight-through processing and acts as collateral agent and servicer, using an innovative approach to mitigate default risk."

Here are my previous posts about the Receivables Exchange, which strikes me as quite an interesting venture in disintermediation of credit. (Full disclosure; I'm on their advisory board.)

New clearinghouse for new doctors in Scotland

There have been some changes in the SCOTTISH FOUNDATION ALLOCATION SCHEME, the program that matches new medical graduates to their first positions (which would be called residencies in the US) in Scotland.

Two features stand out in comparison to the American system (the NRMP).

First, employers may not submit preferences, but rather are all constrained to rank potential employees by their exam scores.

Second, couples cannot submit preferences over pairs of positions. Instead, each member of the couple submits a rank ordering of individual positions, and the algorithm combines these into a joint preference over pairs that is a function of the submitted rank order list and a table of compatibilities of positions.

"To accommodate linked applicants, a joint preference list is formed for each such pair, using their individual preference lists and the programme compatibility information. If such a pair, a and b, have individual preferences p1, p2, . . . , p10 and q1, q2, . . . , q10 respectively (with a the higher scoring applicant), then the joint preference list of the pair (a,b) is (p1,q1), (p1,q2), (p2,q1), (p2,q2), (p1,q3), (p3,q1), (p2,q3), (p3,q2), . . ., (p9,q10), (p10,q9), (p10,q10) (except that incompatible pairs of programmes are omitted)
In the main body of the algorithm, the members of a linked pair are handled together, so the match of the pair (a,b) to the programmes (p,q) will be accepted only if each of these programmes either has an unfilled place or a lower scoring applicant who can be displaced. A complication arises when one member x of a linked pair has to be withdrawn from a programme p because his/her partner was displaced from their current assigned programme. In this case, some other applicants may have been rejected by p because of the presence of x, and any such applicant a must be withdrawn from their current programme, if any, and have their best achievable preference reset to p. (A corresponding, but more complex reset operation is needed if a is a member of a linked pair). This reset operation thereby allows a further opportunity for applicant a to be matched to programme p.
The algorithm terminates when every single applicant and linked pair is either matched or has been rejected by, or displaced from, every entry in their preference list with no possibility of reconsideration by a programme that has had a withdrawal.
The final matching is stable for single applicants, as before, but also for linked pairs, in the sense that:
there can be no linked pair (a,b) of applicants who would prefer to be matched to compatible programmes (p,q), and at the same time, each of p and q has an unfilled place or an assigned applicant with a lower score than a and b respectively."

HT: Rob Irving, who has designed and implemented the algorithm.

Here are some related papers by members of the Scottish matching group.

Keeping partners together: algorithmic results for the hospitals/residents problem with couples by Eric J. McDermid and David F. Manlove in
Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, (2009)

R.W. Irving, D.F. Manlove and S. Scott, The stable marriage problem with master preference lists, Discrete Applied Mathematics vol. 156 (2008), pp. 2959-2977.

New school choice system in San Francisco

Board Approves New Student Assignment System for San Francisco Schools (now here)

Most of the last minute discussion was about what priorities different kinds of students will have at different kinds of schools. That is something that is likely to be adjusted from year to year. But the nice thing is that the underlying choice architecture will make it safe for parents to state their true preferences however the priorities are adjusted.

From the press release: "The choice algorithm was designed with the help of a volunteer team of market design experts who have previously been involved in designing choice algorithms for school choice in Boston and New York City. Volunteers from four prominent universities contributed to the effort, including Clayton Featherstone and Muriel Niederle of Stanford University, Atila Abdulkadiroglu of Duke University, Parag Pathak of MIT, and Alvin Roth of Harvard.
“We are pleased that the district has decided to adopt a choice architecture that makes it safe for parents to concentrate their effort on determining which schools they prefer, with confidence that they won’t hurt their chances by listing their preferences truthfully,” said Niederle and Featherstone, the Stanford research team."

Here are Rachel Norton's comments (she's a school board member with a blog), and here's the story from the SF Chronicle. Here are some of my recent posts on school choice; many of the recent ones tell the SF story as it unfolded.

Now, on to implementation.

Raffle for a human egg

The Times of London reports: IVF doctors to raffle human egg

"A FERTILITY clinic is raffling a human egg in London to promote its new “baby profiling” service, which circumvents British IVF (in vitro fertilisation) laws.
The winner will be able to pick the egg donor by racial background, upbringing and education. Payment for profit is illegal in Britain, but the £13,000 of free IVF treatment will be provided in America. "
...
"The eggs are provided by American donors aged between 19 and 32, all of whom are university students or graduates. Overweight women or smokers are not accepted onto the donation programme Before picking a donor, the British women scan detailed anonymised profiles, including the donors’ motives for selling. The profiles include recordings of the women talking about their attitudes, as well as pictures taken of them in their childhood. They only provide an up-to-date photo if they enter serious negotiations.
Women egg donors in America can make $10,000 (£6,600) a time if they are well educated and with desirable physical characteristics.
The sale of their eggs was condemned yesterday by Josephine Quintavalle, founder of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, a pressure group, who said the infertility market had plumbed new depths.
“In no other branch of medicine would the ruthless exploitation of the vulnerable be tolerated. These women selling their eggs are taking a huge risk with their health and future fertility simply because they need the money.”
In Britain, donors have to agree to be identified and contacted by any resulting offspring when they reach the age of 18.
Payments are restricted to a maximum fee of £250 for expenses, and as a result donors are in extremely short supply. "
...
"The lure of payment means there is no shortage of would-be egg donors in America. GIVF receives up to 500 applications a month, but only about five will pass the two-month screening programme. "
...
"In Britain, only 956 of the 36,861 women who had IVF in 2007 received donor eggs. Half of those were egg sharers and of the remainder many were friends or relatives of the women being treated.
The number of donors is boosted by an arrangement whereby women receive free treatment if they agree to share their eggs with another patient who has no useable eggs at all. The drawback is that anyone undergoing fertility treatment necessarily has inferior eggs, so the chances of pregnancy for both women is relatively poor.
Egg donation is a protracted and painful process that requires treatment with potentially dangerous drugs. A donor has to undergo a course of treatment aimed at stimulating her ovaries to produce a dozen or more eggs in one menstrual cycle, instead of the single ripe egg released every month in natural conditions.
Bridge Centre staff admit they were bemused by the GIVF free egg offer from America. “They are much more market-driven than we are, and they do have some rather more creative techniques,” said Michael Summers, a senior consultant in reproductive medicine at the Bridge."

The debate over whether it's ok for women to sell eggs is not over in America. Kim Krawiec at Faculty Lounge asks How Is An Egg Donor Like A Prostitute?
"A few weeks ago, House Bill 3077, which would make it illegal to compensate women for oocyte donation, easily passed the Oklahoma house by a vote of 85-8. Said Rep. Rebecca Hamilton, D-Oklahoma City, the bill’s author, fertility clinics "could use donor eggs all they want; they just can’t go out and solicit women with money.” According to news reports, Hamilton has likened the practice to prostitution, claiming that “it turns doctors into predators.”
The debate harkens back to an exchange in September, in which Dr. Naomi Pfeffer drew fire for a statement to the Motherhood in the 21st Century Conference at the University College London that compared egg donors to prostitutes. As reported in The Times:
British couples who travel abroad for IVF treatment and buy other women’s eggs are engaging in a form of prostitution, a fertility conference was told yesterday. . .
Professor Pfeffer, who researches controversial developments in medicine, told the Motherhood in the 21st Century Conference at University College London: “The exchange relationship is analogous to that of a client and a prostitute. It’s a unique situation because it’s the only instance in which a woman exploits another woman’s body….
These women are being encouraged to take real risks with their health through ovarian stimulation and egg retrieval. It commodifies women’s bodies and treats their reproductive capacities as a service.
So, what sort of crazy person would compare an egg donor to a prostitute?
I would. But not for the reasons that either Hamilton or Pfeffer have in mind.
As I argue in the recently posted, A Woman’s Worth, an egg donor is much like a prostitute in the following sense: both are selling something that is often expected or encouraged to be given for free or at a reduced price, despite its high economic value. "

School choice in Britain

A story in the Telegraph appears to report the remarkable fact that some schools in Britain are more popular than others, and are over-demanded: School admissions: half lose out in some areas
"Half of children in some areas have been rejected from their preferred secondary school amid fierce competition for the most sought-after places. "
...
"In Birmingham, only two-third of children gained places in their preferred school, a fall compared with last year.
The squeeze on places has led some over-subscribed schools to run controversial “lotteries” in which names are effectively picked from a hat.
The system is employed to stop middle-class parents jumping the queue for the best schools by buying homes in the catchment area.
Lotteries are believed to be used in at least one school in a third of local authorities. Hertfordshire council told the Telegraph yesterday that seven schools had employed the system.
Michael Gove, shadow schools secretary, said: “Unfortunately too often too many parents don’t get the school they want. The reality is that it is only the rich who can guarantee the kind of education they want for their children.” "

Congressional briefing on market design

CONSORTIUM OF SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATIONS

You are invited to a Congressional Briefing on

“Better Living through Economics: How Fundamental Economic Research Improves People’s Lives”
March 15, 2010, 12:00-1:30

B338 Rayburn House Office Building

Better Living Through Economics (Harvard University Press 2010) illustrates the fundamental contributions of economic research to important public policy decisions through twelve case studies. A panel of distinguished scholars will discuss some of these examples of how basic economic research by academic economists has improved people’s lives and continues to impact policy decisions.

Speakers:

Brigitte Madrian, Harvard Kennedy School: “More Saving and Better Retirements.”

Lawrence Ausubel, University of Maryland, “The Greatest Auction in History: Raising Billions from the Communications Spectrum”

Alvin Roth, Harvard University, “Improved Markets for Doctors, Organ Transplants and School Choice”

John Siegfried, Vanderbilt University, “Cheaper Airfares, Welfare Reform and an All-Volunteer Military”

Sponsored by: The Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA)
A box lunch will be served. This is a widely attended event!
Positive RSVPs to cossa@cossa.org or 202/842-3525.

Elliott Spitzer on government’s role in the market

Government’s proper role in the market, in the Boston Review.

Spitzer writes from the point of view of a former Attorney General of New York (as opposed to real estate heir, former Governor, or Greek tragedian).

"To sum up, I want to leave you with ten points:
• Only government can enforce integrity and transparency in the marketplace; self-regulation is a failure.
• Only government can take necessary steps to overcome market failures, such as negative externalities or monopoly power.
• Only government can act to preserve certain core values in the market, such as prohibitions on discrimination.
• Too-big-to-fail is too-big-not-to-fail.
• We’re suffering from the Peter Principle on Steroids, and it will get us into deeper trouble.
• Taxpayers have been getting the short end of the stick in everything we’ve been doing. The Treasury Department is not negotiating for us.
• Risk is real, and no complex scheme of financial instruments can make it go away.
• We have de-leveraged the wrong way, by socializing risks and privatizing benefits. The government has accepted all the debt obligations of the private sector, and taxpayers now owe this money.
• The only way to reform corporate governance is to get the owners—the shareholders—of companies involved and actually paying attention.
• All of this is very tough: being able to diagnose a problem is a whole lot easier than mustering the will to fix it. "

Wikis

My busy sometimes co-blogger Peter writes:


"I was just reading about the company "Wikia," which is owned by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Interestingly, he #2 most active wiki is an academic jobs info wiki:

http://academicjobs.wikia.com/wiki/Humanities_and_Social_Science_Postdocs_2009-2010

(The most active wiki is lostpedia, the wiki about the TV Series LOST)

Law faculty recruitment

The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) helps organize law faculty recruitment, with services including a database of candidates called the Faculty Appointments Register, a job advertisement service called the Placement Bulletin, and a dedicated Faculty Recruitment Conference (different from the annual meeting of the organization), which this year took place Nov 5-7.


Here's an account of the experience from a survivor: One Candidate's Experience in the AALS Hiring Process

"As you can imagine, my experience at the hiring conference mainly consisted of running up and down staircases, from one building to the next and back again. I scheduled 15 interviews on Friday and began my day with seven back-to-back. My eight years of competitive speech tournaments, which also consisted of running from room to room talking all day long, were good preparation. I think the best advice that I got about the hiring conference was from Dean Blake Morant, who advised the candidates at an opening session to “be our most authentic selves” and “bring up the energy level in the room” during each interview. "
...
"One of the most interesting and craze-inducing aspects of the hiring process was the law school hiring discussion on Prawfs Blawg. The four threads, which began on August 19th, have received well over 1300 comments. I admit that I read the threads nearly every day in the weeks before and after the hiring conference. I’m not sure that I know why, except that I felt that I was part of a large anonymous community of people who were just as freaked out and insecure as I was. I suppose its better to be in such a community of such people than be alone.
If I have learned anything from this process, it is that nobody really knows the secret to success and, in fact, the process is so individualized to particular hiring committees in a particular year at a particular school, that there likely is no secret. This is extremely frustrating to wanna-be law professors because we are analytical people. We (sometimes desperately) want to know the rules and the facts so that we can weigh our odds and predict our futures.
One big gaping hole getting in the way of our analysis is the lack of data on the members of the candidate pool. A few schools do a great job advising their alumni and keeping track of those in the process (shout out to Akiba Covitz!). Most don’t, and nobody aggregates that data. It appears that AALS doesn’t release it either (other than to the schools in the FAR forms themselves). So the candidates are left to guess who their competition is and how they stack up."


HT: faculty lounge

Baby Markets

I've just ordered this new book (only in part to find out why the ratio of female to male authors is drawn from such a different distribution than most discussions of market design and repugnance...):

Baby Markets
Money and the New Politics of Creating Families
Edited by Michele Bratcher Goodwin
University of Minnesota
Published February 2010
View Table of Contents as PDF (94KB) Baby Markets
Cambridge University Press
9780521513739

Contents
PART ONE. WHAT MAKES A MARKET? EFFICIENCY, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND RELIABILITY OR GETTING THE BABIES WE WANT

1 Baby Markets
Michele Bratcher Goodwin

2 The Upside of Baby Markets
Martha Ertman

3 Price and Pretense in the Baby Market
Kimberly D. Krawiec

4 Bringing Feminist Fundamentalism to U.S. Baby Markets
Mary Anne Case

5 Producing Kinship through the Marketplaces of Transnational Adoption
Sara Dorow

PART TWO. SPACE AND PLACE: REPRODUCING AND REFRAMING SOCIAL NORMS OF RACE, CLASS, GENDER, AND OTHERNESS

6 Adoption Laws and Practices: Serving Whose Interests?
Ruth-Arlene W. Howe

7 International Adoption: The Human Rights Issues
Elizabeth Bartholet

8 Heterosexuality as a Prenatal Social Problem: Why Parents and Courts Have a Taste for Heterosexuality
José Gabilondo

9 Transracial Adoption of Black Children: An Economic Analysis
Mary Eschelbach Hansen and Daniel Pollack

PART THREE.SPECTRUMS AND DISCOURSES: RIGHTS, REGULATIONS, AND CHOICE

10 Reproducing Dreams
Naomi Cahn

11 Why Do Parents Have Rights?: The Problem of Kinship in Liberal Thought
Maggie Gallagher


12 Free Markets, Free Choice?: A Market Approach to Reproductive Rights
Debora L. Spar

13 Commerce and Regulation in the Assisted Reproduction Industry
John A. Robertson

14 Ethics within Markets or a Market for Ethics?: Can Disclosure of Sperm Donor Identity Be Effectively Mandated?
June Carbone and Paige Gottheim

PART FOUR.THE ETHICS OF BABY AND EMBRYO MARKETS

15 Egg Donation for Research and Reproduction: The Compensation Conundrum
Nanette R. Elster

16 Eggs, Nests, and Stem Cells
Lisa C. Ikemoto

17 Where Stem Cell Research Meets Abortion Politics: Limits on Buying and Selling Human Oocytes
Michelle Oberman, Leslie Wolf, and Patti Zettler

PART FIVE.TENUOUS GROUNDS AND BABY TABOOS

18 Risky Exchanges
Viviana A. Zelizer

19 Giving In to Baby Markets
Sonia Suter

Concluding Thoughts
Michele Bratcher Goodwin


HT: Kim Krawiec

Kidney exchange news from Britain

David Manlove writes:

Dear Al,

I just wanted to pass on some KE news: the first 3-way kidney exchange in the UK has just been announced:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8552162.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8554930.stm
http://www.hta.gov.uk/newsandevents/htanews.cfm/837-First-pooled-transplants-performed-in-the-UK.html

Also I've been successful with a grant proposal to NHS Blood and Transplant and they will be funding us (i.e., me and former PhD student Gregg O'Malley; hopefully Peter Biro will be involved too) to work for a year on delivering a software package to enable them to carry out the quarterly matching runs for themselves, without having to send the data to us. The NHSBT collaboration builds on the work we've been doing together over the last 3 or so years (we've been involved in the quarterly matching runs since July 2008): http://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/ukt/about_transplants/organ_allocation/kidney_(renal)/living_donation/paired_donation_matching_scheme.jsp.

Our paper describing some aspects of this work appeared in the new journal Discrete Mathematics, Algorithms and Applications (vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 499-517, 2009, here. Also here are some slides from a talk I gave at a workshop in Bristol last year: http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/Research/Algorithms/BAD09/Talks/BAD09-Manlove.pdf. I will be giving an updated version at a workshop on Matching Theory and Mechanism Design organised by Elena Inarra in Oxford next Tuesday.

Hopefully NHSBT will be bringing in domino paired chains triggered by altruistic donors in the near future - we are still trying to convince them of the merits of never ending altruistic chains!

Best regards,
David
The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401

Reading, writing and apologizing about repugnant transactions: Repugnance at multiple levels

A story in Al Jazeera concerns conflicting views of repugnant transactions--things that some people think other people shouldn't do--on multiple levels. The story concerns judicial flogging of women for adultery in Malaysia, a newspaper editorial against that practice by a non-Muslim editor, a government threat to close the newspaper for publishing the editorial, and a religious ruling that Muslims should not read the editorial.

The Al Jazeera story is here: Malaysia - Caning the messenger?

The Malaysian newspaper, The Star, has withdrawn the editorial from its website, but the Al Jazeera story concludes with this paragraph containing a link to a copy of the offending editorial:

"For people who want to make up their own mind about the issue, the text is still available here, but here's a clear warning, this article has already been deemed unacceptable by some Muslims. Those who agree with Mais - that non-Muslims should not comment on matters pertaining to shariah law - are strongly advised not to follow the link."

The multiple levels of repugnance remind me of another recent story in the news: Danish newspaper provokes uproar with apology over Muhammad cartoon
"A Danish newspaper was accused yesterday of betraying the freedom of the press after it apologised to Muslims for offence caused by its reprinting a cartoon showing the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban.
Politiken, a leading Danish newspaper, had printed the cartoon as a gesture of solidarity after three people were arrested for planning to kill the cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard. "

I guess I'll have to add reading and apologizing to my growing list of repugnant transactions, which already included adultery and publishing.

"Tissue rights"

Who has the rights to a cell line created from cancerous tissue? The NY Times reviews the book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” (Crown Publishers), by the journalist Rebecca Skloot.

A Lasting Gift to Medicine That Wasn’t Really a Gift

"The notion of “tissue rights” has inspired a new category of activists. The question that comes up repeatedly is, if scientists or companies can commercialize a patient’s cells or tissues, doesn’t that patient, as provider of the raw material, deserve a say about it and maybe a share of any profits that result? Fewer people these days may be willing to take no for an answer. "

Price gouging and proposed legal remedies

Some more interesting posts on price gouging from Michael Giberson at Knowledge Problem :

A private right of action on price gouging and Price gouging in Haiti.

Embryo exchange in Georgia

It's not what it sounds like, and it doesn't have tax consequences:

Embryo Exchanges and Adoption Tax Credits by
Sarah B. Lawsky and Naomi Cahn

Abstract: The “Option of Adoption Act,” a Georgia law that was introduced by a staunchly anti-abortion Georgia state representative, establishes procedures for genetic donors to relinquish their rights to embryos before birth and permits, but does not require, embryo recipients to petition a court for recognition that they are the legal parents of a child born to them as a result of an embryo transfer. This article clears up what seems to be widespread confusion about a fairly straightforward question of tax law related to such embryo “adoptions.” Notwithstanding various sources' claims to the contrary, neither a Georgia adoption tax credit nor a federal adoption tax credit is available for “adopting” an embryo.

Matching for adoption

"In most cases, a successful domestic adoption is the result of a match between a birth mother (BMO hereafter) who seeks to relinquish her child, and prospective adoptive parents (PAPs hereafter). The underlying matching process involves a bilateral search characterized by several layers of mediation: Typically, adoption agencies represent BMOs, while PAPs work vis-à-vis adoption agencies, lawyers, or facilitators. In this paper, we exploit the unique nature of a new data set documenting the operations of an adoption facilitator. We analyze the preferences of PAPs over the attributes of babies relinquished for adoption, the BMOs’ choices, and the factors that determine ultimate outcomes (i.e., a successful adoption, a decision to parent by the BMO, or the child’s placement in foster care).

That is from the paper Gender and Racial Biases: Evidence from Child Adoption, by Mariagiovanna Baccara , Allan Collard-Wexler, Leonardo Felli , and Leeat Yariv.

The paper has a market design aspect:
"Despite the social value of a well-functioning matching process that delivers suitable parents to every child, adoption has not received much attention by the economics literature. Our analysis of parents’ preferences, combined with the identification of factors facilitating an ultimate match, opens the door to policy interventions aimed at increasing the efficiency of this process."

Same sex marriage in Mexico City: starting today

Gay Marriage Puts Mexico City at Center of Debate : "A new Mexico City law goes into effect March 4 that will allow same-sex couples to marry and adopt children, propelling the city to the forefront of the global gay rights movement."
The law seems to have survived the expected judicial challenge: Mexico's Supreme Court Upholds Gay Marriage Law , and here's a nice story about the (ongoing) debate in yesterday's Washington Post, With same-sex marriage law, Mexico City becomes battleground in culture wars

Here are my other posts on same sex marriage, which strikes me as an excellent example of how views and laws can change regarding repugnant transactions.

Same sex marriage in Washington D.C., starting yesterday

Gay Marriage Is Now Legal in Washington
"Gay-rights advocates hailed the day as a milestone for equal rights and a symbolic victory as same-sex marriage became legal in the nation’s capital.
Washington is now the sixth place in the nation where same-sex marriages can take place. Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont also issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Despite failing in court, opponents of the law vowed to fight another day. "

And here is the failure in court:
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 09A807
HARRY R. JACKSON ET AL. v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BOARD OF ELECTIONS AND ETHICS ET AL. ON APPLICATION FOR STAY
[March 2, 2010] CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS, Circuit Justice.

"Petitioners in this case are Washington D. C. voters who would like to subject the District of Columbia’s ReligiousFreedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009 to a public referendum before it goes into effect... Without addressing the merits of petitioners’ underlying claim, however, I conclude that a stay is not warranted. "

Same sex unions in the Anglican church

Across the pond: Anglican bishops back end to ban on gay civil partnerships in church "Gay couples could soon be allowed to “marry” in church after a decision by Anglican bishops and other clergy to support a relaxation of the ban. Senior bishops in the Lords have told The Times that they will support an amendment to the Equality Bill next month that will lift the ban on civil partnership ceremonies in religious premises. The amendment would remove the legislative prohibition on blessings of homosexual couples and open the door to the registration of civil partnerships in churches, synagogues, mosques and all other religious premises." ... "The Church of England, which along with the wider Anglican Communion is divided over gay ordinations and same-sex blessings, will maintain its official ban. But if the legislative prohibition is lifted, as seems likely, the Church’s own ban is likely to be ignored by some clergy." ... "The Quakers have called for the law to be changed to give same-sex partners the same status in their ceremonies as heterosexual couples. They joined forces with Liberal Judaism and the Unitarians to support an amendment to the Equality Bill giving religious organisations the freedom to register civil partnerships. Lord Alli’s amendment would remove the bar in the Civil Partnership Act 2004 on religious premises being used for civil partnerships — and also the prohibition on religious language being used in such ceremonies. This would in effect end any remaining distinction between civil partnerships and marriage and increase the pressure on the established Church to take a more liberal line on same-sex relationships. It would also deepen the schism in the Anglican Communion over gay blessings and gay ordination."

Academic job markets in the Humanities

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has issued a new report as a result of a set of surveys of Humanities departments. Here is the announcement:

"Challenges to Humanities Revealed in New Survey
The humanities continue to play a core role in higher education and student interest is strong, but to meet the demand, four-year colleges and universities are increasingly relying on a part-time, untenured workforce. Those are among the findings from the Humanities Departmental Survey. The survey includes data collected from English, foreign language, history, history of science, art history, linguistics, and religion departments at approximately 1,400 colleges and universities. It is the first comprehensive survey to provide general cross-disciplinary data on humanities departments. "

"Across the humanities, but especially in English and combined English/foreign language departments, the professoriate at four-year colleges and universities is evolving into a part-time workforce. During the 2006-2007 academic year, only 38 percent of faculty members in these departments were tenured. English departments had the greatest proportion of non-tenure-track faculty (49 percent)."

HT: Paul Karoff

Assisted suicide, the debate continues in England and Switzerland

Assisted suicide, a widely repugnant transaction, continues to be the subject of public discussion in England. The Telegraph reports a new poll: Assisted suicide: 4 in 5 say do not prosecute.

"The public’s support for a change in the law on assisted suicide and euthanasia was uncovered by the YouGov poll following a succession of high profile court cases.
Three quarters of those polled said the law should be amended to allow assisted suicide, a crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison. "...

"Sir Terry Pratchett, the author who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, is due to deliver a lecture in which he will call for assisted suicide "tribunals" that would give the terminally ill permission to end their lives. In the Richard Dimbleby Lecture, he will offer himself as a test case for just such a tribunal... Sir Terry, who prefers the term "assisted death", will say that permission to end his life will make each day more precious, and that doctors should not be forced to help the terminally ill to die. ... "If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice." "

The WSJ has an article about the Swiss assisted suicide clinic Dignitas, and the debate going on in Switzerland about the the laws governing assisted suicide:
Assisted-Suicide Pioneer Stirs a Legal Backlash

"From the start, Mr. Minelli has kicked up controversy for his willingness to help foreigners die. Most groups in Switzerland don't assist foreigners. Dignitas only helps foreigners. The number of foreigners Dignitas helps each year—132 in 2007, compared to 91 in 2003—has increasingly left the Swiss uncomfortable with the country's growing reputation for "suicide tourism." As of the end of last year, Dignitas had helped a total of 1,046 people to commit suicide. "...

"Under Swiss law, it is illegal for a person to assist a suicide for their own "selfish" reasons. But there are otherwise no limits on helping someone to die. By contrast, most countries allowing assisted suicide require the person to be terminally ill or demand that a doctor assist the suicide. Switzerland is also the only country permitting right-to-die organizations to help foreigners die.
"At the moment, there is really no law," says Andreas Brunner, a Zurich prosecutor who has fought for greater restrictions on right-to-die organizations, particularly Dignitas. "You have to have some rules and standards. The worst solution is what we have now."
As medical advances prolong lives even for the seriously ill, the debate over assisted suicide is surging elsewhere.
In Oregon—the one state in the U.S. where assisted suicide is legal—doctors are allowed to help only state residents who are expected to die within six months.
The U.K., which has restrictive laws on euthanasia, was forced in a court case last fall to clarify whether it would prosecute Britons who help family members make the trip to Switzerland to die. (It won't.) Luxembourg legalized euthanasia last year. Activists in Belgium and the Netherlands are pushing to broaden the group of patients who can avail themselves of assisted suicide to the elderly, minors and chronically ill. "...

"In 2008, when neighbors' complaints forced Dignitas out of the rented apartment it had long used for suicides, Zurich city officials refused permission for a new venue.
So, Mr. Minelli organized suicides in cars, a hotel room and his own home, drawing the ire of local officials. For a time, he was forced to use the industrial site criticized by Mr. Gall. "Someone who is used to a five-star hotel can't come to Dignitas and expect the same," Mr. Minelli says.
The Zurich prosecutor's office spoke with family members who complained about the 10,000-Swiss-franc fee Mr. Minelli charges people to die, but found insufficient grounds to open an inquiry. One rival right-to-die organization asks for nothing beyond a 45-Swiss-franc membership fee, while another charges 4,000 Swiss francs. Mr. Minelli says the fee helps with his legal and lobbying expenses. "...

"Mr. Minelli argues that making assisted suicide available removes a taboo around suicide, helping people who want to kill themselves open a dialogue and seek help. About 70% of people who get the green light from Dignitas for an assisted suicide never contact the group again, proving the palliative effect of knowing help is available, he says. "
...
"A vote is planned in March on a bill that would sharply restrict the activities of right-to-die organizations. For instance, two doctors must testify that a person is terminally ill, thus ruling out assistance for the chronically or mentally ill. The person seeking help must have given long consideration to his wish to die before doctors can prescribe lethal drugs. Moreover, right-to-die groups would be barred from accepting payments beyond those covering the costs of the suicide. The government also tabled a second bill that would ban assisted suicides altogether. "

The debate has taken a dramatic turn, beginning with a BBC narrator stating on air “I killed someone once.”
The Prime Minister has weighed in too: Gordon Brown: don't legalise assisted suicide.

Economics job market scramble

If you are a new economics Ph.D. and the market is going slowly, hang in there. Similarly if you are a department or other employer who is still trying to fill a position. There's still lots of action left in the market.

If you are still on the market near the end of March, you should think about registering for the 2010 Job Market Scramble

Important Dates:
March 23: Registration will Open
March 30: Registration will Close
April 1-12: Scramble Website will open for viewing by registered participants only
April 12: Scramble Viewing will Close

See the Scramble Guide for more detailed information.

Brief Description:
Occasionally prospective employers of new Ph.D. economists exhaust their candidates before hiring someone during the winter/spring "job market" period. Similarly, new economics Ph.D.s seeking a job sometimes find that all of the prospective employers with whom they have interviewed have hired someone else before they have secured an appointment.
To address these problems, the AEA has established a "Job Market Scramble" web site to facilitate communication between employers and job seekers in late spring. In March, employers that continue to have an open position previously listed in Job Openings for Economists (JOE) may post a short notice of its availability (with a link to the JOE listing). Similarly, new or recent economics Ph.D. job seekers still looking for a position may post a short announcement of their continued availability, with a link to their application materials (C.V., papers, references). The web site will open for viewing to those who have listed a position or availability soon after listings close. There is no charge for the "Job Market Scramble."

In each of the last four years between 67 and 100 employers have participated in the scramble, and (despite low response rates to the post scramble survey of participants) the AEA's Ad Hoc Committee on the Job Market (which I chair) has been able to confirm that more than 10% of the jobs offered through the scramble have been filled through contacts initiated via the scramble.

The market for cooked food (and thoughts of D'Artagnan at Maastricht)

The market for pleasure boats ranges from canoes to yachts, and air transport ranges from economy class to big private jets, but the market for cooked food must rival them in its range. Here's an account of an enterprise yacht/jumbo jet meal: The D’Artagnan Anniversary Party.

"To mark the 25th anniversary of her company, D’Artagnan, Ariane Daguin, a native of the Gascon region in the southwest of France, flew in over two hundred of her countrymen for a week-long celebration in New York. ... What’s more, throughout the week Ms. Daugin installed a handful of Michelin-starred Gascon chefs in some of the most venerated kitchens in the city. The collaborations between the visiting chefs and their hosts culminated last Sunday in what D’Artagnan billed as, “The 32 Star Dinner: A Progressive Dining Experience.” Thirty-two is the total number of Michelin and New York Times stars achieved by the group of chefs responsible for the meal, which, true to the epicurean spirit of the evening, was served not in one restaurant, but in four: cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and the first two courses at Daniel, the next at Jean-Georges, two more at Per Se, and dessert at Le Bernardin. The buses that chauffeured us from stop to stop were filled with Gascon Armagnac."

(The headline of the article had led me to think it might be about the historical D'Artagnan, whose experience of Maastricht, in 1673, was more unfortunate than mine in 2009:)

Living Liver and Kidney Donation

The American Journal of Transplantation has assembled a "virtual issue" of articles they have published on various aspects of live donation, including kidney exchange. It seems to be ungated.

Living Liver and Kidney Donation

Guest Editor: Dr. Jonathan Bromberg
"This virtual issue of the American Journal of Transplantation is focused on living donation. For practical purposes, the articles are restricted to only liver and kidney donation. It would not be an overstatement to say that donation has probably been the number one issue to dominate the field for the last decade, as organ quality and availability determine all activities in transplantation. The breadth of importance and ramifications of donation are reflected in the wide variety of articles and topics that cover this area of interest. Novel sources of donors, such as altruistic, anonymous, and non-directed donation among others are covered in the first section. While considered even unusual a few years ago, many of these sources are now firmly partly of the mainstream of living donation. Exchanges, swaps, chains, and dominos are included in the second section, reflecting the evolution of the field as ever more complex donor and recipient algorithms are implemented, and their attendant ramifications on quality, cost, and outcomes. The third section covers organ utilization and outcomes, with an emphasis on matching the optimal donor with the correct recipient, and comparing deceased to living donor organs. The fourth section covers regulatory issues at the national and local levels, and their influence on donation and outcomes. The fifth section comprises issues relating to the donor and donor safety. The work-up process, safeguards, operative techniques, short term outcomes, and very long term outcomes are major issues the have dominated recent trends. The sixth and last section covers educational issues as they related to donor and family knowledge and attitudes toward donation, and that affects donation rates. These reports should provide the reader with a comprehensive view of issues in living liver and kidney donation, and the diverse paths taken that have moved the field forward."

Novel Donor Sources:
Twenty-Two Nondirected Kidney Donors: An Update on a Single Center's ExperienceC. L. Jacobs, D. Roman, C. Garvey, J. Kahn, A. J. Matas
Altruistic Living Donors: Evaluation for Nondirected Kidney or Liver DonationM.D. Jendrisak, B. Hong, S. Shenoy, J. Lowell, N. Desai, W. Chapman, A. Vijayan, R.D. Wetzel, M. Smith, J. Wagner, S. Brennan, D. Brockmeier, D. Kappel
Living Anonymous Liver Donation: Case Report and Ethical JustificationL. Wright, K. Ross, S. Abbey, G. Levy, D. Grant
Successful Expansion of the Living Donor Pool by Alternative Living Donation ProgramsJ. I. Roodnat, J. A. Kal-van Gestel, W. Zuidema, M. A. A. van Noord, J. van de Wetering, J. N. M. IJzermans, W. Weimar
Elective Surgical Patients as Living Organ Donors: A Clinical and Ethical InnovationG. Testa, P. Angelos, M. Crowley-Matoka, M. Siegler
Kidney Donor Exchanges, Chains, and Dominos:
A Comparison of Populations Served by Kidney Paired Donation and List Paired DonationS. E. Gentry, D. L. Segev, R. A. Montgomery
The Dutch National Living Donor Kidney Exchange ProgramM. de Klerk, K. M. Keizer, F. H. J. Claas, M. Witvliet, B. J. J. M. Haase-Kromwijk, W. Weimar
Characterization of Waiting Times in a Simulation of Kidney Paired DonationD. L. Segev, S. E. Gentry, J. K. Melancon, R. A. Montgomery
Attitudes of Minority Patients with End-Stage Renal Disease Regarding ABO-Incompatible List-Paired ExchangesP. D. Ackerman, J. R. Thistlethwaite Jr, L. F. Ross
Incompatible Kidney Donor Candidates' Willingness to Participate in Donor-Exchange and Non-directed DonationA. D. Waterman, E. A. Schenk, A. C. Barrett, B. M. Waterman, J. R. Rodrigue, E. S. Woodle, S. Shenoy, M. Jendrisak, M. Schnitzler
Utilizing List Exchange and Nondirected Donation through 'Chain' Paired Kidney DonationsA. E. Roth, T. Sönmez, M. U. Ünver, F. L. Delmonico, S. L. Saidman
Expanding Kidney Paired Donation Through Participation by Compatible PairsS. E. Gentry, D. L. Segev, M. Simmerling, R. A. Montgomery
Successful Three-Way Kidney Paired Donation with Cross-Country Live Donor Allograft TransportR. A. Montgomery, S. Katznelson, W. I. Bry, A. A. Zachary, J. Houp, J. M. Hiller, S. Shridharani, D. John, A. L. Singer, D. L. Segev
The Roles of Dominos and Nonsimultaneous Chains in Kidney Paired DonationS. E. Gentry, R. A. Montgomery, B. J. Swihart, D. L. Segev
Asynchronous, Out-of-Sequence, Transcontinental Chain Kidney Transplantation: A Novel ConceptF. K. Butt, H. A. Gritsch, P. Schulam, G. M. Danovitch, A. Wilkinson, J. Del Pizzo, S. Kapur, D. Serur, S. Katznelson, S. Busque, M. L. Melcher, S. McGuire, M. Charlton, G. Hil, J. L. Veale
Clinical Outcomes of Multicenter Domino Kidney Paired DonationY. J. Lee, S. U. Lee, S. Y. Chung, B. H. Cho, J. Y. Kwak, C. M. Kang, J. T. Park, D. J. Han, D. J. Kim
Organ Utilization and Outcomes:
Living-Donor Liver Transplantation for HepatoblastomaM. Kasahara, M. Ueda, H. Haga, H. Hiramatsu, M. Kobayashi, S. Adachi, S. Sakamoto, F. Oike, H. Egawa, Y. Takada, K. Tanaka
Living Donor Liver Transplantation for Biliary Atresia: A Single-Center Experience with First 100 CasesC.-L. Chen, A. Concejero, C.-C. Wang, S.-H. Wang, C.-C. Lin, Y.-W. Liu, C.-C. Yong, C.-H. Yang, T.-S. Lin, Y.-C. Chiang, B. Jawan, T.-L. Huang, Y.-F. Cheng, H.-L. Eng
Association Between Waiting Times for Kidney Transplantation and Rates of Live DonationD. L. Segev, S. E. Gentry, R. A. Montgomery
Regional and Racial Disparities in the Use of Live Non-Directed Kidney DonorsD. L. Segev, R. A. Montgomery
Recipient Morbidity After Living and Deceased Donor Liver Tranasplantation: Findings from the A2ALL Retrospective Cohort StudyC. E. Freise, B. W. Gillespie, A. J. Koffron, A. S. F. Lok, T. L. Pruett, J. C. Emond, J. H. Fair, R. A. Fisher, K. M. Olthoff, J. F. Trotter, R. M. Ghobrial, J. E. Everhart
Incidence and Severity of Acute Cellular Rejection in Recipients Undergoing Adult Living Donor or Deceased Donor Liver TransplantationA. Shaked, R. M. Ghobrial, R. M. Merion, T. H. Shearon, J. C. Emond, J. H. Fair, R. A. Fisher, L. M. Kulik, T. L. Pruett, N. A. Terrault
Resource Utilization of Living Donor Versus Deceased Donor Liver Transplantation Is Similar at an Experienced Transplant CenterJ. C. Lai, E. M. Pichardo, J. C. Emond, R. S. Brown Jr.
Organ Donation and Utilization in the United States: 1998–2007J. E. Tuttle-Newhall, S. M. Krishnan, M. F. Levy, V. McBride, J. P. Orlowski, R. S. Sung
Unique Early Gene Expression Patterns in Human Adult-to-Adult Living Donor Liver Grafts Compared to Deceased Donor GraftsJ. de Jonge, S. Kurian, A. Shaked, K. R. Reddy, W. Hancock, D. R. Salomon, K. M. Olthoff
Regulatory:
Incentive Models to Increase Living Kidney Donation: Encouraging Without CoercingA. K. Israni, S. D. Halpern, S. Zink, S. A. Sidhwani, A. Caplan
Limiting Financial Disincentives in Live Organ Donation: A Rational Solution to the Kidney ShortageR. S. Gaston, G. M. Danovitch, R. A. Epstein, J. P. Kahn, A. J. Matas, M. A. Schnitzler
Public Attitudes Toward Incentives for Organ Donation: A National Study of Different Racial/Ethnic and Income GroupsL. E. Boulware, M. U. Troll, N. Y. Wang, N. R. Powe
The Association of State and National Legislation with Living Kidney Donation Rates in the United States: A National StudyL. E. Boulware, M. U. Troll, L. C. Plantinga, N. R. Powe
The Evolution and Direction of OPTN Oversight of Live Organ Donation and Transplantation in the United StatesR. S. Brown, Jr, R. Higgins, T. L Pruett
Stimulus for Organ Donation: A Survey of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons MembershipJ. R. Rodrigue, K. Crist, J. P. Roberts, R. B. Freeman Jr., R. M. Merion, A. I. Reed
Donor Procedures, Outcomes and Safety:
Obesity in Living Kidney Donors: Clinical Characteristics and Outcomes in the Era of Laparoscopic Donor NephrectomyJ. K. Heimbach, S. J. Taler, M. Prieto, F. G. Cosio, S. C. Textor, Y. C. Kudva, G. K. Chow, M. B. Ishitani, T. S. Larson, M. D. Stegall
Laparoscopic Procurement of Kidneys with Multiple Renal Arteries is Associated with Increased Ureteral Complications in the RecipientJ. T. Carter, C. E. Freise, R. A. McTaggart, H. D. Mahanty, S.M. Kang, S. H. Chan, S. Feng, J. P. Roberts, A. M. Posselt
Pre-donation Assessment of Kidneys by Magnetic Resonance Angiography and Venography: Accuracy and Impact on OutcomesS. A. Ames, M. Krol, K. Nettar, J. P. Goldman, T. M. Quinn, D. M. Herron, A. Pomp, J. S. Bromberg
Long-Term Consequences of Live Kidney Donation Follow-Up in 93% of Living Kidney Donors in a Single Transplant CenterJ. Gossmann, A. Wilhelm, H.G. Kachel, J. Jordan, U. Sann, H. Geiger, W. Kramer, E.H. Scheuermann
More on Parental Living Liver Donation for Children with Fulminant Hepatic Failure: Addressing Concerns About Competing Interests, Coercion, Consent and Balancing ActsA. Spital
Predictive Capacity of Pre-Donation GFR and Renal Reserve Capacity for Donor Renal Function After Living Kidney DonationM. Rook, H. S. Hofker, W. J. van Son, J. J. Homan van der Heide, R. J. Ploeg, G. J. Navis
Laparoscopic-Assisted Right Lobe Donor HepatectomyA.J. Koffron, R. Kung, T. Baker, J. Fryer, L. Clark, M. Abecassis
Cold Ischemia Time and Allograft Outcomes in Live Donor Renal Transplantation: Is Live Donor Organ Transport Feasible?C. E. Simpkins, R. A. Montgomery, A. M. Hawxby, J. E. Locke, S. E. Gentry, D. S. Warren, D. L. Segev
Evaluating Living Kidney Donors: Relationship Types, Psychosocial Criteria, and Consent Processes at US Transplant ProgramsJ. R. Rodrigue, M. Pavlakis, G. M. Danovitch, S. R. Johnson, S. J. Karp, K. Khwaja, D. W. Hanto, D. A. Mandelbrot
The Medical Evaluation of Living Kidney Donors: A Survey of US Transplant CentersD. A. Mandelbrot, M. Pavlakis, G. M. Danovitch, S. R. Johnson, S. J. Karp, K. Khwaja, D. W. Hanto, J. R. Rodrigue
Rescue of a Living Donor with Liver TransplantationB. Ringe, G. Xiao, D. A. Sass, J. Karam, S. Shang, T. P. Maroney, A. E. Trebelev, S. Levison, A. C. Fuchs, R. Petrucci, A. Ko, M. Gonzalez, J. C. Reynolds, W. C. Meyers
Nephrectomy Elicits Impact of Age and BMI on Renal Hemodynamics: Lower Postdonation Reserve Capacity in Older or Overweight Kidney DonorsM. Rook, R. J. Bosma, W. J. van Son, H. S. Hofker, J. J. Homan van der Heide, P. M. ter Wee, R. J. Ploeg, G. J. Navis
Pregnancy and Birth After Kidney Donation: The Norwegian ExperienceA. V. Reisæter, J. Røislien, T. Henriksen, L. M. Irgens, A. Hartmann
Pregnancy Outcomes After Kidney DonationH. N. Ibrahim, S. K. Akkina, E. Leister, K. Gillingham, G. Cordner, H. Guo, R. Bailey, T. Rogers, A. J. Matas
Education:
Preferences, Knowledge, Communication and Patient-Physician Discussion of Living Kidney Transplantation in African American FamiliesL. E. Boulware, L. A. Meoni, N. E. Fink, R. S. Parekh, W. H. L. Kao, M. J. Klag, N. R. Powe
Organ Donation Decision: Comparison of Donor and Nondonor FamiliesJ. R. Rodrigue, D. L. Cornell, R. J. Howard
Increasing Live Donor Kidney Transplantation: A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Home-Based Educational InterventionJ. R. Rodrigue, D. L. Cornell, J. K. Lin, B. Kaplan, R. J. Howard
Emigration from the British Isles to Southeastern Spain: A Study of Attitudes Toward Organ DonationA. Ríos, P. Cascales, L. Martínez, J. Sánchez, N. Jarvis, P. Parrilla, P. Ramírez
Virtual Issue compiled online 2 Feb 2010

Herb Scarf explains mathematical economics

Herb Scarf (who certainly knows) explains what is mathematical economics to a Humanities audience. His powerpoint slides for that talk are here, along with videos of some other talks (that I wasn't able to download, however).

His examples include matching of medical residents, school choice, and kidney exchange.

The Future of Same Sex Marriage

The University of San Francisco Law Review's Spring Symposium, held today, is on The Future of Same-Sex Marriage.

I like the sound of the first panel discussion, called
Crunching the Numbers: Examining empirical data regarding the material consequences of denying or recognizing same-sex marriage.

Stability may be hard to achieve in decentralized matching

So says a paper by Muriel Niederle and Leeat Yariv: Decentralized Matching with Aligned Preferences

Abstract. We study a simple model of a decentralized market game in which firms make directed offers to workers. We focus on markets in which agents have aligned preferences. When agents have complete information or when there are no frictions in
the economy, there exists an equilibrium that yields the stable match. In the presence of market frictions and preference uncertainty, harsher assumptions on the richness of the economy have to be made in order for decentralized markets to generate stable outcomes in equilibrium.

Compatible pairs in kidney exchange

The question of whether compatible patient-donor pairs should be invited to take part in kidney exchange is gaining some exposure with recent articles and news items in the medical literature. The issue is that if kidney exchange is restricted to patients who are incompatible with their live donors, we will be seeing many fewer blood type O donors than are in the general population, so exchanges will be more difficult to find, and there will be fewer transplants than if there weren't such a shortage. (Since O donors don't have a blood type incompatibility with any recipient, most of them will be compatible with their intended recipients; O donors are only incompatible if there is some other, immunological incompatibility.)

Here's a story from the most recent, Feb 2010 Nephrology Times: Dramatic Increase in Transplant Rates Projected if Compatible Pairs Are Included in Kidney Swaps

It follows up on a recent article by Lloyd Ratner, of Columbia University/New York–Presbyterian Hospital, reporting such a three-way exchange (Transplantation, 2010;89:15-22). The story also interviews some of the other pioneering surgeons involved in kidney exchange, including Frank Delmonico, Bob Montgomery and Steve Woodle.

Inviting compatible pairs to participate in exchanges seems like a very good idea indeed. (An early discussion, with simulations to provide quantitative estimates of the effect of including compatible pairs (which is quite large), was reported in Table 1 of:
Roth, Alvin E., Tayfun Sonmez, and M. Utku Unver, "A Kidney Exchange Clearinghouse in New England" American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, 95,2, May, 2005, 376-380. )

Market design at Yahoo!

Here's a project description from Yahoo! Research: Microeconomics and Market Design
By Michael Schwarz and David Reiley


What are the effects of complexity in mechanism design? Participating in an auction mechanism (or any market institution) requires time and effort on the side of the buyers. That in turn may lead some buyers to bid very conservatively, or not to participate at all, in order to economize on effort. We lack a theory for quantifying the complexity of a mechanism.


Auction theory and matching theory offer models and algorithms for allocating goods or matching market participants. However, the majority of markets do not use structured mechanisms (such as auctions and matching algorithms). Why are some markets (such the medical residency match) using centralized matching procedure while other markets (such as the purchases of automobiles with various options packages) do not? Answering this question may help to design structured market mechanisms for the markets where chaotic negotiations rule the day.

Understanding when and how reputations emerge, and how to improve the designs of structured reputation systems. Reputations of individuals and businesses play an important role in economic and personal life. With some exceptions, most notably in electronic commerce, the mechanisms for accumulating reputation are informal rather than structured.

How should a firm set posted prices for a menu of products? Although economics offers a theoretical framework for how to set prices, most theory assumes omniscience about demand. To build a practical pricing engine, one needs a system that generates exogenous price variation and then uses it to calculate appropriate prices going forward. Yahoo! offers thousands, even millions, of different advertising products, so estimating a demand system suffers from the curse of dimensionality as well as practical constraints (perceived fairness, etc.) in generating price variation. We are looking for better theory and econometrics for the problem of building a pricing engine.

Choosing schools (in NYC and SF)

I've written elswhere about the school choice process for public schools in San Francisco and for high schools in New York City. But, regardless of whether the process is a good one or not, the problem facing parents who have to decide how much they like each school can be a tough one, especially if there are a lot of schools.

Two articles help you feel the pain:

New Plan on School Selection, but Still Discontent discusses San Francisco, and
It’s a nightmare to apply for high schools in city discusses New York.

Some more background information here.

HT: Parag Pathak

Determining death for deceased organ donation

Darshak Sanghavi, writing a while ago in the NY Times Sunday Magazine, discusses When Does Death Start?

"Organ transplantation must abide by the so-called dead-donor rule: a person has to be declared dead before any vital organs can be removed. Yet organs have to be alive if there is any hope of successful transfer to a recipient. Medical professionals have handled this paradoxical situation — finding a dead body with live organs — by fashioning a category of people with beating hearts who are said to be brain-dead, usually after a traumatic head injury, and who are considered just as dead as if they had rigor mortis.
To diagnose brain death, doctors typically go through a checklist of about a dozen items, including assessing reflexes like blinking, coughing and breathing, which are all controlled by the brainstem. The criteria are extremely strict, and only a tiny fraction of severely brain-injured people meet them."

Before brain death, the traditional definition of death involved irreversible cessation of heart beat, and you can also donate after cardiac death (DCD), but things have to move fast, since once circulation stops the organs begin to die. "D.C.D. requires doctors to confront the shadowy question of exactly when somebody dies after the heart stops."

In the U.S., we seem to be converging on a 5-minute rule.

Kim Krawiec on selling virginity

Kim Krawiec has a post commenting on recent news stories and linking to a new paper: Like A Virgin? We Sell That Here!

"A few days ago, an anonymous 19-year-old New Zealand student offered her virginity to the highest bidder on the Web site http://www.ineed.co.nz/ under the name "Unigirl," saying she would use the money to pay for her tuition. According to Unigirl, more than 30,000 people have viewed her ad and over 1,200 made bids before she accepted a $32,000 offer. Story from NPR. (HT: Tonja Jacobi)
Though the story is creating a ruckus, including international press, the attention pales in comparison to that bestowed on the very similar story of “Natalie Dylan,” a pseudonym adopted by a 22-year old UC San Diego graduate who auctioned her virginity on the website of the Moonlight Bunny Ranch, a Carson City brothel, in January of 2009 in order to foot the bill for graduate research in women’s studies. In contrast to Unigirl’s paltry returns, Dylan reportedly received over 10,000 bids, the highest of which was $3.8 million, receiving both condemnation and praise in the auction process. Critics have argued that she is degrading herself and women generally, risks exporting Nevada’s poor morals to the rest of the country, and is selling something (virginity) for profit that should be cherished and freely given.
In an article I posted to SSRN over the weekend, A Woman’s Worth, I consider the reactions to Dylan’s virginity auction plan and the possible motivations underlying those reactions. What drives the attention and controversy generated by the Dylan auction? What are the perceived harms associated with Dylan’s actions, and in what ways are they greater than the harms associated with similar common activities? "

And here's the abstract to her paper on SSRN:

A Woman's Worth
Kimberly D. Krawiec Duke University - School of LawFebruary 6, 2010 North Carolina Law Review, Forthcoming

Abstract: This Article examines three traditionally “taboo trades”: (1) the sale of sex, (2) compensated egg donation, and (3) commercial surrogacy. The article purposely invokes examples in which the compensated provision of goods or services (primarily or exclusively by women) is legal, but in which commodification is only partially achieved or is constrained in some way. I argue that incomplete commodification disadvantages female providers in these instances, by constraining their agency, earning power, and status. Moreover, anticommodification and coercion rhetoric is sometimes invoked in these settings by interest groups who, at best, have little interest in female empowerment and, at worst, have economic or political interests at odds with it.

Keywords: Sex Work, Virginity, Prostitution, Oocyte Donation, Sperm Markets, Surrogacy, Medical Marijuana

See also her related post Chicago Students Have All the Fun

Beer legally for sale in another Mississippi county

Another repugnant transaction bites the dust: A Voting Result That Faulkner Could Drink To


"NEW ALBANY, Miss. — There was a vote here last month. It was hard-fought, with dueling newspaper advertisements and yard signs, tableside debates in restaurants, a prayer rally and a fusillade of last-minute phone calls.
But only one side could win, and the victory was a historic one: in a couple of months, a person will be able to buy a beer legally here in William Faulkner's birthplace for the first time in more than 50 years.
Liquor and wine, of course, are still illegal, because the vote concerned only the sale of beer and wine coolers. But there is no shortage of bad news for teetotalers.
At a post-election meeting of the Board of Aldermen, people opposed to alcohol urged, among other things, that beer not be sold on Sundays, or in single bottles, or even refrigerated. They recommended that cases of beer be available only warm, as they are in the city of Oxford 30 miles down the road, requiring a degree of premeditation on the part of the discriminating beer buyer.
The aldermen ruled against them on all counts."
...
"Mississippi, the first state to ratify Prohibition, has a peculiar history when it comes to temperance. Liquor was banned here long after federal Prohibition was repealed in 1933, under an arrangement that pleased everyone: the Baptists, the bootleggers and the state, which, curiously enough, levied taxes on illegal alcohol. "

A National kidney exchange takes another tentative step forward

UNOS issued the following press release on Friday: Participants Named for National Pilot Project for Kidney Paired Donation

"Four organizations representing more than 80 kidney transplant programs nationwide have been selected to enroll patients and potential living donors in a national pilot project to facilitate kidney paired donation (KPD) transplants. Kidney paired donation involves the coordinated matching of living donors with medically compatible recipients in cases where the original intended recipient is not compatible with his or her potential donor.

The national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN), operated under federal contract by United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), will coordinate the project. Its goals include assessing whether more compatible matches are made possible through a large pool of donors and candidates, as well as studying the feasibility of implementing a national program.

The following organizations, each affiliated with a number of additional transplant programs, will participate in the initial phase of the pilot:

Alliance for Paired Donation, Maumee, Ohio
Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md.
New England Program for Kidney Exchange, Newton, Mass.
UCLA Medical Center/California Pacific Medical Center, Los Angeles and San Francisco, Calif.

"Each group was chosen for its experience with kidney paired donation and its willingness to broaden the availability of this procedure to a much wider group of people needing transplants," said James Wynn, M.D., president of the OPTN and UNOS and chair of the OPTN/UNOS Board of Directors. "Kidney paired donation offers the possibility of hundreds more transplants per year, perhaps over a thousand per year as the transplant community gains more experience. In turn this may enhance opportunities for more candidates to get deceased donor transplants."

Participants replied to an OPTN request for proposal and were selected by a group drawn from the OPTN/UNOS Kidney Transplantation Committee, the Kidney Paired Donation Work Group and OPTN/UNOS leadership. No member of the selection group was directly affiliated with any of the applicants. In addition, all information identifying the specific applicants was blinded to allow the group to focus on objective criteria in each application.

"In addition to the thousands of hours of volunteer expertise donated by kidney professionals and the living donation community," said Dr. Wynn, "this program depends on the gracious support of project partners, charitable gifts and in-kind donations. The software to be used in the matching process has been donated by various institutions, and we continue to be guided by the people and programs with the greatest expertise in kidney paired donation."

The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) is operated under contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Division of Transplantation by the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). The OPTN brings together medical professionals, transplant recipients and donor families to develop organ transplantation policy."

A number of tough challenges remain, among them how to organize the national exchange to attract full participation from hospitals and exchange networks, so as to have a thick pool of donors and patients (and not just those who hospitals find hardest to match).

Sipping lattes while bearing arms

A NY Times editorial suggests that coffee drinking while carrying is repugnant. (Background: it's legal to carry unconcealed weapons in California, and in a number of other states, under some restrictions.)

"Two sizable chains, Peet’s Coffee & Tea and California Pizza Kitchen, have banned patrons carrying guns, and a struggle is under way at the prized Starbucks coffee shops.
Should customers be free to sip Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Lattes at their laptop screens while brandishing a gleaming Ruger .357? So far, Starbucks executives say yes, claiming they are quite safety-minded within a policy that “supports the federal, state and local laws in the communities in which we do business.”
Fortunately, Californians are treating the showdown at Starbucks as far from settled. Thousands are signing petitions from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, wisely begging the chain not to jangle its trademark caffeine serenity by tolerating firearms. Starbucks should listen."

Books about markets for body parts (for and against)

Below are a mix of books, some scholarly some popular, mostly harvested by clicking on the Amazon links "people who bought this book also bought," from one book to the next. The descriptions are from Amazon:

Body Shopping: Converting Body Parts to Profit by Donna Dickenson
Product Description
According to law, you don't actually own your own body, and you might be shocked by the cunning ways everyone from researchers and entrepreneurs to doctors, insurers, and governments are using that fact to their advantage. Thanks to developments in biotechnology and medicine, cells, tissues, and organs are now viewed as both a valuable source of information and as the raw material for new commercial products.This 'currency of the future' might be fueling the new biotechnology industry, but the former owners of that flesh and bone aren't entitled to one fraction of the proceeds. In "Body Shopping", award-winning writer Donna Dickenson makes a case against the newfound rights of businesses to harvest body parts and gain exclusive profit from the resulting products and processes. To illustrate her case, she presents a series of compelling stories of individuals injured or abused by the increasingly rapacious biotechnology industry. Some cases have become public scandals, such as the illicit selling of the late broadcaster Alastair Cooke's bones by a body parts ring involving surgeons and undertakers.Others are hardly known at all, including the way in which for-profit umbilical cord blood banks target pregnant women with offers of a 'service' that professional obstetrics bodies view as dangerous, the leukemia patient who tried and failed to claim property rights in a $3 billion cell line created from his tissue, and the real risks facing women who provide eggs for the global market in baby-making. "Body Shopping" offers a fresh, international, and completely up-to-date take on the evolving legal position, the historical long view, and the latest biomedical research - an approach that goes beyond a mere recital of horror stories to suggest a range of new strategies to bring the biotechnology industry to heel. The result is a gripping, powerful book that is essential reading for everyone from parents to philosophers, and from scientists to lawmakers - everyone who believes that no human should ever be reduced to the sum of their body parts.


Black Markets: The Supply and Demand of Body Parts by Michele Goodwin, 2006
From Publishers Weekly
Law professor and bioethicist Goodwin sheds much needed light in this disturbing examination of yet another failure of the American health care system: an organ donation process that leads to the sale of human organs. Despite some highly technical sections, the author artfully uses case law and tragic stories of people caught in the machinery of an organ marketplace that favors the well connected. Even readers well versed in current events are likely to be shocked by the prevalence of "presumed consent" legislation in 28 states that shifts the choice to donate away from potential donors —corneas, for instance, are routinely harvested by local coroners unless a specific prior refusal has been communicated (and sometimes even despite such a directive). The author does a good job of linking this country's history of medical scandals that victimized African-Americans to that community's misgivings about serving as either donors or seekers of a spot on the coveted transplant waiting lists. Her controversial recommendations, which include lifting the taboo on selling cadaveric organs to address the organ deficit, should spark much discussion. (Mar.)


Tissue Economies: Blood, Organs, and Cell Lines in Late Capitalism (Science and Cultural Theory) ~ Catherine Waldby (Author), Robert Mitchell (Author)
Product Description
As new medical technologies are developed, more and more human tissues—such as skin, bones, heart valves, embryos, and stem cell lines—are stored and distributed for therapeutic and research purposes. The accelerating circulation of human tissue fragments raises profound social and ethical concerns related to who donates or sells bodily tissue, who receives it, and who profits—or does not—from the transaction. Catherine Waldby and Robert Mitchell survey the rapidly expanding economies of exchange in human tissue, explaining the complex questions raised and suggesting likely developments. Comparing contemporary tissue economies in the United Kingdom and United States, they explore and complicate the distinction that has dominated practice and policy for several decades: the distinction between tissue as a gift to be exchanged in a transaction separate from the commercial market and tissue as a commodity to be traded for profit.
Waldby and Mitchell pull together a prodigious amount of research—involving policy reports and scientific papers, operating manuals, legal decisions, interviews, journalism, and Congressional testimony—to offer a series of case studies based on particular forms of tissue exchange. They examine the effect of threats of contamination—from HIV and other pathogens—on blood banks’ understandings of the gift/commodity relationship; the growth of autologous economies, in which individuals bank their tissues for their own use; the creation of the United Kingdom’s Stem Cell bank, which facilitates the donation of embryos for stem cell development; and the legal and financial repercussions of designating some tissues “hospital waste.” They also consider the impact of different models of biotechnology patents on tissue economies and the relationship between experimental therapies to regenerate damaged or degenerated tissues and calls for a legal, for-profit market in organs. Ultimately, Waldby and Mitchell conclude that scientific technologies, the globalization of tissue exchange, and recent anthropological, sociological, and legal thinking have blurred any strict line separating donations from the incursion of market values into tissue economies.


Body Brokers: Inside America's Underground Trade in Human Remains (Paperback)~ Annie Cheney 2006
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Here's one with the potential to keep folks up nights, wondering whether the urn on the mantel contains 100-percent Uncle Fred or a blend. Before journalist Cheney began an assignment for My Generation magazine, she had never suspected there might be diverse career opportunities for cadavers, that whatever one wants to be when one grows up, options continue to exist postmortem. But consider the ever-popular organ donor program. And then there's the option of donating one's body to a medical school for the betterment of mankind through science. Once that latter choice is made, Cheney learned, alternatives multiply, and a corpse can follow one of several roads. On a lower thoroughfare, big bucks are waiting for the cold-blooded entrepreneur ready to carve human bodies up like chickens and parcel them out to the highest bidder for such uses as military bomb test dummies, lifelike operative subjects for medical seminars, and resource troves for the machine-tooling of bones into orthopedic apparatus. Even if one never willingly donates one's body, there are enough unscrupulous morticians and morgue workers who will surreptitiously carve out an ulna or a femur and replace it with a PVC pipe, then sell the goods on the not-so-open open market. This is a chilling expose of the grisly industry of body trading. Donna ChavezCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


Kidney for Sale by Owner: Human Organs, Transplantation, and the Market )~ Mark J Cherry, 2005
Product Description
Over the past decade in the United States, nearly 6,000 people a year have died waiting for organ transplants. In 2003 alone, only 20,000 out of the 83,000 waiting for transplants received them - in anyone's eyes, a tragedy. Many of these deaths could have been prevented, and many more lives saved, were it not for the almost universal moral hand wringing over the concept of selling human organs. Bioethicist Mark Cherry explores the why of these well-intentioned misperceptions and legislation and boldly deconstructs the roadblocks that are standing in the way of restoring health to thousands of people. If most Americans accept the notion that the market is the most efficient means to distribute resources, why should body parts be excluded? Kidney for Sale by Owner contends that the market is indeed a legitimate - and humane - way to procure and distribute human organs. Cherry stakes the claim that it may be even more just, and more compatible with many Western religious and philosophical traditions, than the current charity-based system now in place. He carefully examines arguments against a market for body parts, including assertions based on the moral views of John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and Thomas Aquinas, and shows these claims to be steeped in myth, oversimplification, and contorted logic. Rather than focusing on purported human exploitation and the irrational "moral repugnance" of selling organs, Cherry argues that we should focus on saving lives. Following on the thinking of the philosopher Robert Nozick, he demonstrates that, with regard to body parts, the important core humanitarian values of equality, liberty, altruism, social solidarity, human dignity, and, ultimately, improved health care are more successfully supported by a regulated market rather than by well meant but misguided, prohibitions.


The Ethics of Organ Transplants: The Current Debate (Contemporary Issues (Buffalo, N.Y.).) (Paperback 1999)~ Arthur L. Caplan (Author, Editor), Daniel H. Coelho (Editor)
From Library Journal
Renowned bioethicist Caplan (Ctr. for Bioethics, Univ. of Pennsylvania) and medical writer Coelho have selected 35 articles that are representative of the ethical issues surrounding organ transplantation. Scarcity of organs and the high costs involved in these procedures force difficult legal, philosophical, scientific, and economic choices. What are the sources of organs used in transplantation? How can we make the procurement system more efficient? Should we pay for organs? Should someone who has already received one transplant be allowed a second? Should alcoholics be given liver transplants? Are transplants really worth the tremendous costs? These are just a few of the questions discussed here. In many cases, the editors have selected companion articles that illustrate contrasting viewpoints on a particular issue. Although some articles are slightly dated, the issues are still relevant. This well-balanced, reasonably priced compilation is recommended for all libraries.ATina Neville, Univ. of South Florida at St. Petersburg Lib.Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The U.S. Organ Procurement System: A Prescription for Reform (AEI Evaluative Studies.) (Hardcover) by David L. Kaserman and A. H. Barnett
Product Description
Experts make a compelling and persuasive case for markets in human organs.

Kieran Healy, Last Best Gift. Altruism and the Market for Human Blood and Organs. Chicago University Press, 2006


The Baby Business: How Money, Science, and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception (Hardcover)~ Debora L. Spar
From Publishers Weekly
Among the troubling aspects of new reproductive technologies is the takeover of reproduction by the marketplace. This probing study accepts the free market process while casting a discerning and skeptical eye at its pitfalls. Harvard business prof Spar (The Cooperative Edge: The Internal Politics of International Cartels) explores many aspects of the high-tech commodification of procreation: the fabulous revenues commercial fertility clinics earn from couples' desperate desire for children and the ensuing conflicts between medical ethics and the profit motive; the premiums paid for sperm and eggs from genetically desirable donors; the possible exploitation of poor, nonwhite and Third World surrogate mothers paid to gestate the spawn of wealthy Westerners; the fine line between modern adoption practices and outright baby selling; and the new entrepreneurial paradigm of maternity, in which the official "mother" simply finances the assemblage of sperm, purchased egg and hired womb and lays contractual claim to the finished infant. Spar considers most of these developments inevitable and not undesirable (they provide kids to parents who want them), but calls for government regulation to curb excesses and protect the interests of all involved. Her sanguinity will not satisfy all critics, but she offers a lucid, nuanced guide to this brave new world. (Feb. 14) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

College admissions in England

In England, universities faced with unexpectedly many applicants are raising the grades required for admission, which is apparently regarded as somewhat suspect:

A-level entry requirement shock for university applicants


"LEADING universities have been accused of unjustly raising A-level entry requirements at the last minute because of a surge in applicants and severe government cuts. "

SF School Board Meeting, Feb 17: new choice system

At the latest public meeting of the San Francisco Board of Education (last night, Wednesday, Feb. 17), the commissioners and the public were engaged in a detailed discussion of the algorithms and priorities being proposed for the new school choice system.

Muriel Niederle explains and answers questions about the new Assignment with Transfers school choice plans being proposed (with variations for elementary school, middle school, and high schools). She comes on just after minute 36 of this video of the 3 hour meeting, and her presentation, interspersed with questions and answers, continues for a little over an hour (to minute 1:39), although she's back answering questions at the end again. Also presenting the general plan and answering questions is Orla O'Keefe, the SFUSD official leading the effort to design the new school choice system.

There's something very encouraging about seeing the public policy discussion focusing on choice systems that are non-wasteful (Pareto efficient, for you economists), strategically simple for parents (so that truthful preference revelation is a dominant strategy), and flexible (so that the school board can tweak the system in years to come without harming the first two properties). The 'political' issues are the priorities that different children have at different schools.

Another attractive aspect of the proposal (discussed by Ms. O'Keefe following Muriel's presentation) is that data would be collected each year for continual monitoring of how the choice and assignment system is working.

The discussion touches on a number of interesting questions. (Even if the algorithm makes truthful preference revelation the best strategy, there are still issues of checking e.g. addresses in any system in which priorities at schools depend on home address...). But it looks like SF is well launched on adopting a sensible, workable, well thought out and flexible framework.