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Here's an (outdated) map showing which states are which as of 2013.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