Two new labor market matching mechanisms in Israel: for psychologists, and doctors

Assaf Romm writes from Israel about the newly instituted stable matching clearinghouse for psychologists, and more briefly about the new match for Israeli doctors.

"Hello Al,

First, it was good seeing you in Israel, and it seems like you were very strategic with choosing the dates for the summer school... We are fine here, even if slightly alarmed by all the alarms. Hopefully we'll reach a cease-fire soon enough.

More market design related, let me tell you about the Israeli psychologists match, which Avinatan Hassidim and I have helped redesigning over the last year. Last Thursday (July 10) was "match day" for the Israeli psychologists match. 970 registered students were matched to 52 MA programs in 12 institutions (universities and "michlalot"). Out of the 970 students that participated, 540 were matched to a program. Out of those, 314 (58.15%) got their first choice, and 518 (95.93%) got their fifth choice or better. From what we heard from programs, they were also very pleased with the process and the results, and would like to continue using the automated matching system for years to come. Furthermore, some of them specifically mentioned that using the new system allowed them stop being strategic, and receiving students that they wouldn't have received otherwise, because they were too much of a long shot (and so, not a good strategic choice under the old system).

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The Israeli psychology match comes to solve a problem that the psychology departments had when competing over students for clinical psychology studies (in Israel, MA in psychology represent the first step in becoming a psychotherapist). While seats in clinical programs are in very high demand, there are two things that make the process slightly difficult. The first is the restrictions on accepting students (the state enforces quotas), and the second is the competition over top students.

This created in the past a problem of unraveling that was partially solved by a gentlemen agreement among all the psychology departments. The agreement consisted of three scheduled rounds of acceptance and wait listing, such that no department may accept a candidate in any other fashion. This system required the departments to be very strategic in offering acceptances, and often ended with a blitz of calling people from waiting lists before they were being called by others.

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In May 2013 we approached the heads of the psychology departments, got them to convene and initiated a pilot run for an automated system of admissions for all the MA degrees in psychology in Israel (not including some less competitive programs, and including all the institutions that previously were part of the gentlemen agreement). After a year of designing, implementing, announcing, and finally actually managing the preferences submission process, we finally successfully reached the deadline and the pilot was a great success.

The main obstacles we encountered during the process were:

* Convincing programs that the new matching system will not be biased in favor of large/small programs.

* Convincing applicants that the system is strategyproof, and that it is better for them compared to the old system.

* Dealing with extensive courting behavior (i.e. scholarships being offered under the table, etc.).

* Supporting complicated preferences by the programs (minority quotas, several tracks within the same program).

* Couples (since there aren't many couples, we deferred dealing with couples to next year, and we will implement the algorithm suggested by Ashlagi, Braverman and Hassidim, forthcoming).

* Dealing with politics that have to do with programs approaching candidates and informally "admitting" them prior to the match (in theory, this should have almost zero influence, but in practice it creates a race of arms between the departments).

Up until now we only received a handful of emails from students who participated in the match, and it seems that in retrospect they understood the advantages of a fast and automated system, even if it wasn't clear to them in advance why they now have to submit their preferences without knowing where they were accepted. We plan on sending surveys soon to get a better feeling of the students' experience throughout this process, and possibly we will send a similar survey to the departments that participated.

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This successful redesign is the second in Israel to happen this year. Earlier this year we (Slava Bronfman and Avinatan Hassidim being the main protagonists, with Arnon Afek, the current director-general of the ministry of health, and myself as side-kicks) have finished redesigning the Israeli medical internship match. If you are interested, I will write a different email explaining the details of that other match, and specifically the theoretical problems we have encountered and how we solved them."

Unraveling of private equity recruiting

Can competition by speed play a big role in a market in which there's also a lot of competition by price? You bet it can. The NY Times has the story: A Mad Scramble for Young Bankers Wall Street Banks and Private Equity Firms Compete for Young Talent

"A battle is raging on Wall Street as never before, with powerful factions scrambling for control of a precious resource.

On one side are the giant investment banks, with names like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Lined up against them, but also warring among themselves, are the giants of private equity — Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Apollo Global Management and the Blackstone Group, to name just three. And the private-equity firms just happen to be the banks’ clients.

The prize they are fighting for is young talent.

This summer, dozens of junior bankers in their early to mid-20s will start jobs in private equity after spending their first two years out of college working at investment banks. Private-equity firms use billions of dollars of cash and plenty of debt to buy entire companies. They are seen by many young strivers as the next rung on an elite career ladder, promising higher status and more pay — around $300,000 a year, including salary and bonus, roughly double what a second-year banker might earn at Goldman.

But for junior bankers, who are known as analysts, securing such a job means stepping into the middle of a Wall Street struggle that has intensified since the financial crisis.

The whirlwind process of interviews, which this year started in February, far earlier than many in private equity had expected, requires analysts to sneak around and often miss work. It bears little resemblance to the orderly on-campus career fairs they attended in college.

...

To recruit young talent today, the private-equity firms make offers as long as 18 months before a job begins.

This timing is repellent to many bank executives, and not only because their workers are being poached. Promising to take a job with a particular firm can create a conflict of interest for an investment bank analyst, especially one assigned to work with private-equity firms on deals, bankers say.

Goldman Sachs, for example, requires junior workers to resign soon after accepting a job at a private-equity firm. Such a rule is at odds with private equity’s recruiting timeline, leaving many junior bankers to ignore it. And the recruiting process, despite a recent attempt to change it, has grown only more frenzied.

This year, on a Thursday night in February, a handful of investment bank analysts saw their cellphones light up. Amity Search Partners, a major recruiter, told the analysts to prepare to interview the next morning, for jobs that would start in summer 2015.

Already, these analysts — fresh graduates of elite universities who were only about six months into their first jobs on Wall Street — had attended cocktail events and breakfasts sponsored by private-equity firms. But now it had emerged that smaller firms were already interviewing. So one of the biggest players in private equity, Apollo Global Management, which had hired Amity, was quietly taking its own process to the next level, weeks earlier than its rivals had expected. (Representatives of Apollo and Amity declined to comment.)

Word spread quickly, sending other recruiters into strategy sessions that stretched into the wee hours. Recruiters are often paid fees equivalent to about a third of the first-year compensation of workers they place.

One private-equity firm, Silver Lake, scrambled to set up interviews for that afternoon. Kohlberg Kravis Roberts scheduled interviews for that Saturday.Bain Capital, which had planned a preliminary get-to-know-us event for Friday evening, received a number of cancellations from analysts already interviewing elsewhere.

The machine was in motion — a situation that made hardly anyone happy.

...

“It’s bad for the candidates because they have to make decisions really early,” Mr. Sheyner said. “It’s really bad for the banks. They just hired those people a few months ago. And it’s bad for private equity because they don’t have a track record to go on.”

...

Wall Street has tried before to bring some order to private-equity recruiting. The six major private-equity firms, after years of interviewing candidates far in advance, decided two years ago to wait.

The companies — Apollo, Bain, K.K.R., the Blackstone Group, TPG and the Carlyle Group — all chose to wait until January 2013 to recruit the workers who would start that summer, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation, who would discuss private business matters only on condition of anonymity.

But the détente soon fell apart. Smaller private-equity firms had done their recruiting on the earlier schedule. The giants grew concerned that they might be missing out on the most desirable candidates.

...

In April 2013, the six biggest companies returned to their early schedules, and the next cycle began, with junior bankers getting offers to start in the summer of 2014.

...

Such policies have pushed recruiting further into the shadows. At Goldman, analysts whisper about the time in 2012 when the firm cracked down.

That year, certain analysts, whom Goldman believed had job offers from private-equity firms or hedge funds, were pulled into conference rooms and asked, point blank, about their employment plans, according to an analyst in that class and another person briefed on the matter.

“The majority of us lied,” the analyst said, insisting on anonymity so as not to damage his relationship with Goldman.

Goldman ended up dismissing several analysts who acknowledged they had accepted offers, sending ripples of anxiety through Wall Street’s junior ranks. The financial gossip blog Dealbreaker ran a post with the headline, “Goldman Sachs Does Not Look Kindly Upon First Year Analysts Who Plan In Advance.”

Assisted suicide and the Church of England: signs of dissent

Lord Carey: I support assisted dying--The intervention of the former Archbishop of Canterbury is a dramatic departure from the official line of the Church of England

"Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, is supporting moves to legalise assisted dying, it has emerged.
His intervention is a dramatic breach with the official line of the Church of England. It comes days before the House of Lords considers a Bill tabled by Lord Falconer allowing doctors to prescribe terminally ill patients a lethal dose of drugs.
Lord Carey argues that upholding the sanctity of human life without regard to suffering caused in the process could go against the spirit of Christian teaching.
He will point to the fact that Christians already rely on the ethical principle of “double effect” to justify giving terminally ill patients doses of painkillers which will ultimately kill them.
In an article last night, he said that advancing medical technology posed a “ethical turning point” and he believed that showing mercy and dignity in death should be “enshrined in law”, adding: “The fact is that I have changed my mind. The old philosophical certainties have collapsed in the face of the reality of needless suffering.”
...
"Opponents of the Bill said they were “flabbergasted” at Lord Carey’s change of position. Dr Peter Saunders, of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said: “There is no biblical precedent or justification for compassionate killing.
“There is a world of difference – ethically, legally, philosophically and theologically – between helping someone to kill themselves with a lethal drug on the one hand and proportionate pain relief or withdrawal of meddlesome treatment on the other.” Bishop Michael Nazir Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, and a friend of Lord Carey, said: “We must not assume that we know when people are going to die. Lord Carey himself knows of individuals, that I also know of, who were given six months to live and lived for years afterwards.”
A spokesman for the Church of England said: “The Church of England is opposed to assisted suicide.” He said that the General Synod passed a motion in February 2012 which “expresses its support for the current law on assisted suicide as a mean of contributing to a just and compassionate society in which vulnerable people are protected”.
*********
Update:
Church of England calls for review on assisted dying
Church's unprecedented stance comes after former Archbishop of Canterbury backs change in the law to allow assisted dying
"The Church of England has taken the unprecedented step of calling for a major review on whether to allow assisted dying after Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, stunned senior bishops by declaring his support for a change in the law.
In the wake of Lord Carey’s dramatic intervention, the Bishop of Carlisle, the Rt Rev James Newcome, said that the Church would now back a royal commission to re-examine the issue.
Bishop Newcome, who speaks for the Church in the Lords on health issues, said that while bishops had been “surprised” by the content and timing of the former Archbishop’s article, it had highlighted “just what an important issue this is”.

Guns on campus: both a protected and a repugnant transaction?

On July 1 the new Idaho law explicitly allowing guns on college campuses went into effect.  Weapons on campus are now allowed in several states, and explicitly prohibited in others, so it is both a protected transaction and a repugnant one. Below is a sampling of stories.

Gov. Butch Otter signed a law making Idaho the seventh state to allow concealed weapons on college campuses.
"Idaho now joins six other U.S. states that allow the “concealed carry” of weapons on public college and university campuses. All 50 states have laws permitting the carrying of concealed guns in public, but the restrictions differ significantly from state to state. In 21 states carrying a concealed weapon on campus is affirmatively banned."

Here's an (outdated) map showing which states are which as of 2013.

Outgunned, for Now

When May I Shoot a Student?

Here's the concealed weapons FAQ from the Idaho attorney general.

And here's the relevant section of the law:

18-3309. Authority of Governing Boards of Public Colleges and Universities Regarding Firearms 
(This Law Becomes Effective July 1, 2014)

(1) The board of regents of the university of Idaho, the boards of trustees of the state colleges and universities, the board of professional-technical education and the boards of trustees of each of the community colleges established under chapter 21, title 33, Idaho Code, hereby have the authority to prescribe rules and regulations relating to firearms.

(2) Notwithstanding any other provision of state law, this authority shall not extend to regulating or prohibiting the otherwise lawful possession, carrying or transporting of firearms or ammunition by persons
licensed under section 18-3302H or 18-3302K, Idaho Code.

 (a) However, a person issued a license under the provisions of section 18-3302H or 18-  3302K, Idaho Code, shall not carry a concealed weapon:

 (i) Within a student dormitory or residence hall; or

 (ii) Within any building of a public entertainment facility, provided that proper signage is  conspicuously posted at each point of public ingress to the facility notifying attendees of  any restriction on the possession of firearms in the facility during the game or ev

A long kidney chain at U. Alabama Birmingham

A long nonsimultaneous kidney exchange chain, which began in December, is underway at the University of Alabama at Birmingham hospital. Here's an update: Nation’s largest single-site kidney transplant chain, underway at UAB

"Twenty-one living donors have changed the lives of 21 recipients so far as part of the nation’s longest ongoing single-center paired kidney transplant chain, which is under way at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital. The UAB kidney chain is scheduled to resume with six more transplants the week of July 7."

More information, including an informative video at http://www.uab.edu/kidneychain/

Harold Kuhn 1925-2014

Harold Kuhn, Game Theory Pioneer, Dies at 88

"Harold Kuhn, a Princeton University mathematician who advanced game theory approaches to economics, died of congestive heart failure on July 2. He was 88 years old.

...

"While Kuhn was working on his dissertation, he began exploring the emerging field of game theory, which focuses on the behavior of decision makers whose choices affect each other. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, he was involved in organizing many conferences in game theory. John Nash was a classmate, and in 1994 Kuhn was invited by the Nobel Prize committee to chair a panel discussion of Nash’s work on the occasion of Nash’s award of the Nobel Prize in economics.

“Game theory blossomed in Princeton in the mid-20th century. Kuhn was a key member of a brilliant group that ushered it in, which included the genius John von Neumann and Nobel Prize winners John Nash, Lloyd Shapley and Robert Aumann, amongst other greats,” said Dilip Abreu, a professor of finance and economics at Princeton. “Kuhn’s now-standard formulation of extensive form games completely eclipsed von Neumann’s own, and his results on imperfect recall, mixed and behavioral strategies continue to stimulate, intrigue and delight.”

More here:
"Kuhn wrote a dissertation in geometric group theory advised by Professor Ralph Fox. Concurrently, he began a long collaboration with Professor Albert Tucker and fellow graduate student David Gale exploring and developing the emerging fields of nonlinear optimization and game theory, which focuses on the behavior of decision makers whose choices affect each other. Another fellow student was John Nash, and in 1994, Kuhn was invited by the Nobel Prize committee to chair a panel discussion of Nash's work, on the occasion of Nash's award of the Nobel Prize in economics.

In 1951, Kuhn and Tucker described what are known as the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions for nonlinear programming, now an economics staple that address optimization within constraints. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Kuhn was involved in organizing conferences in game theory. "

Here are two pictures I snapped of Kuhn, one with his wife Estelle, and one with the late Bill Lucas, at a festival in honor of Lloyd Shapley at Stony Brook in July 2003.

Midway Market Design Workshop, July 9–11, 2014 University of Chicago Booth School of Business

This has been a good summer for market design conferences, and here's another:

Midway Market Design Workshop

July 9–11, 2014

University of Chicago Booth School of Business

ORGANIZERS

ALI HORTAÇSU, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

ERIC BUDISH, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO BOOTH SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

SCOTT DUKE KOMINERS, HARVARD SOCIETY OF FELLOWS

NICOLE IMMORLICA, MICROSOFT RESEARCH

JASON HARTLINE, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

This conference will bring together researchers from economics and computer science to study the design of online and offline markets in a variety of settings. Rigorous modelling of incentives, strategic behavior, and asymmetric information will be the common thread among these researchers. Diverse applications ranging from securities trading to school choice mechanisms will be considered.

Wednesday, July 9

11:00am – 12:00pm

Market Design: Topics and Techniques

Nicole Immorlica

Microsoft Research

12:00pm – 1:00pm

Breakout Session

1:00pm – 2:00pm

Lunch

2:00pm – 3:00pm

Breakout Session

3:00pm – 4:00pm

Empirics of Multi-Unit Auctions

Ali Hortaçsu

University of Chicago

4:00pm – 5:00pm

Breakout Session

Thursday, July 10

9:00am – 9:50am

Inverse Optimization for the Recovery of Market Structure from Market Outcomes: An Application to the MISO Electricity Market

Michael Pavlin

Wilfrid Laurier University

9:50am – 10:40am

Semi-Robust Estimation and Redesign of Manipulable School Choice Mechanisms: the Case of Seoul

Sam Hwang

University of Chicago

10:40am – 11:10am

Break

11:10am – 12:00pm

Pragmatic Algorithmic Game Theory

Kevin Leyton-Brown

University of British Columbia

12:00pm – 1:00pm

Lunch

1:00pm – 1:50pm

Managing Congestion in Dynamic Matching Markets

Ramesh Johari

Stanford University

1:50pm – 2:10pm

Break

2:10pm – 3:00pm

Strategy-Proofness, Investment Efficiency, and Marginal Returns: An Equivalence

John Hatfield

University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business

3:00pm – 3:50pm

Double Auction with Interdependent Values: Incentives and Efficiency

Fuhito Kojima

Stanford University

Friday, July 11

9:00am – 9:50am

Need for Speed? Exchange Latency and Market Quality

Albert Menkveld

VU University Amsterdam

9:50am – 10:40pm

Price Constraints, Speed Competition, and Market Quality

Mao Ye

College of Business at Illinois

10:40am – 11:10am

Break

11:10am – 12:00pm

The High-Frequency Trading Arms Race: Frequent Batch Auctions as a Market Design Response

Eric Budish

University of Chicago Booth School of Business

12:00pm – 1:00pm

Lunch

- See more at: http://bfi.uchicago.edu/events/midway-market-design-workshop#sthash.hkWGY3Te.dpuf