Uber, surge pricing, and the Red Cross

Uber, faced with criticism that it raised prices in Sydney during an emergency, but wanting to keep drivers incentivized to be available when needed, has announced that in such cases it will charge high prices but donate its share to the Red Cross: PARTNERSHIP WITH AMERICAN RED CROSS TO SUPPORT CITIES AND CITIZENS DURING DISASTERS

"Uber is proud to announce a national partnership with the American Red Cross to help cities and citizens during disasters. The partnership took effect last week as this season’s first tropical storm, Arthur, developed.

Uber is partnering with the American Red Cross1 to help communities’ disaster relief efforts.

• During disasters and relevant states of emergency, Uber is committing to donate its commissions on surge trips to the American Red Cross.
• That means that for trips with elevated pricing, 20% of the total fare will be donated to the American Red Cross’ disaster relief efforts.
• Uber will also support ongoing community events like blood drives and donation drives with safe, affordable and reliable transportation options for American Red Cross’ volunteers and participating community members."

************

 HT Carmen Wang

Differential Privacy: an appreciation of Cynthia Dwork

On Thursday I heard Cynthia Dwork talk about differential privacy in San Diego, and here is an appreciation of her at the CS blog called Godel's lost letter and P=NP by Dick Lipton and Ken  Regan:

Cynthia Dwork and a Brilliant Idea

Here's their introductory paragraph:
"This concept is brilliant. It is, in our opinions, one of the greatest definitions of this century. Okay the century is just fifteen years old, but it is a terrific notion. She deserves credit for seeing that this simple one would have such far reaching consequences and for following through on it. Her paper—still in the 12-page ICALP 2006 proceedings format—begins with three prose pages of motivation that are a breath of fresh air. The definition originated from work with Frank McSherry in a prior paper also with Kobbi Nissim and Adam Smith, and has grown to fill a book joint with Aaron Roth."

Some history of kidney exchange

Here's a retrospective paper on kidney exchange and how technology has changed to keep up with the changing environment, just out in Interfaces. (You can also find a video of the presentation by scrolling down here.)

Kidney Exchange and the Alliance for Paired Donation: Operations Research Changes the Way Kidneys Are Transplanted

Ross Anderson
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
rma350@gmail.com,

Itai Ashlagi
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
iashlagi@mit.edu,

David Gamarnik
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
gamarnik@mit.edu,

Michael Rees
The Alliance for Paired Donation, Maumee, Ohio 43537
michael.rees2@utoledo.edu,

Alvin E. Roth
Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305
alroth@stanford.edu,

Tayfun Sönmez
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02467
sonmezt@bc.edu,

M. Utku Ünver
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02467
unver@bc.edu

Permalink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.2014.0766

Published Online: February 3, 2015

Page Range: 26 - 42

• Abstract
• Full Text
• References
• Supplemental
• PDF

Abstract

Many end-stage renal disease sufferers who require a kidney transplant to prolong their lives have a relative or friend who has volunteered to donate a kidney to them, but whose kidney is incompatible with the intended recipient. This incompatibility can sometimes be overcome by exchanging a kidney with another incompatible patient-donor pair. Such kidney exchanges have emerged as a standard mode of kidney transplantation in the United States. The Alliance for Paired Donation (APD) developed and implemented nonsimultaneous extended altruistic donor (NEAD) chains, an innovative technique that allows a previously binding constraint (of simultaneity) to be relaxed; thus, it permits longer chains and better-optimized matching of potential donors to patients, greatly increasing the number of possible transplants. Since 2006, the APD has saved more than 220 lives through its kidney exchange program, with more than 75 percent of these achieved through nonsimultaneous chains. Other kidney exchange programs have adopted the technology and methods pioneered by APD, resulting in more than 1,000 lives already saved, with the promise of increasing impact in coming years. In 2013, the percentage of transplants from nonsimultaneous chains reached more than six percent of the number of transplants from living donors. In this paper, we describe the long-term optimization and market design research that supports this innovation. We also describe how a team of physicians and operations researchers worked to overcome the skepticism and resistance of the medical community to the NEAD innovation.

Large matching markets as limits

One popular way to study large markets is to look at limits as market size goes to infinity. This is often the only tool we have to develop theory for large markets (computer simulations are another story, and a useful complementary tool).

One difficulty of using limit theorems or other models of infinitely large markets to study the actual, finite markets that we are interested in is that, depending on how the limit is taken, the limit market may have properties that are not shared by the finite markets that concern us. So, a lot of care has to be taken in formulating how the market goes to a limit, and in interpreting the theorems that result (or perhaps I should say in discerning which of theorems about the limit market are informative about the finite markets).

A nice example of taking a limit in a thoughtful way is in a recent paper by Konrad Menzel of NYU, called LARGE MATCHING MARKETS AS TWO-SIDED DEMAND SYSTEM. (I don't understand the estimation issues well enough to comment on them, but I liked the way the large market was modeled as a limit.)

He looks at matching markets in which each agent gets a utility payoff based on the observable properties of the person they are matched with, plus a random component drawn from a distribution with full support. So the danger in such a model is that in the limit the random draws will all allow everyone to get a great match (with someone for whom they have a very large random match quality), and no one will be unmatched. But the finite markets in which he's interested don't have that property: some people are unmatched. So, in taking the limit, the outside options that each agent enjoys have to increase proportionally with their growing opportunities to match to someone with whom, randomly, they are a mutually great match...

Here's how he describes that part of his model.

"The rationale for modeling the outside option as the maximum of J independent draws for the idiosyncratic taste shifters is that as the market grows, the typical agent can choose from an increasing number of potential spouses. Since in our setup the shocks ηij and ζji generally have unbounded support, any alternative with a fixed utility level will eventually be dominated by one of the largest draws for the increasing set of potential matching partners. Hence, by allowing the agent to sample an increasing number of independent draws for the outside option, it can be kept sufficiently attractive to ensure that the share of unmatched
agents remains stable along the sequence."

This reminds me of issues that Itai Ashlagi and I  (with Mike Rees and David Gamarnik in various papers) have run into when using limit theorems to understand kidney exchange, while keeping the compatibility graphs as sparse as those in the finite clinical exchanges we wish to study.

This post profits from a discussion with Jacob Leshno, when he and I recently were involved in a very finite, very practical matching event in Southern California.  The dress code was semi-formal:

Information theory and applications

I'll be speaking today in San Diego at a conference on Information theory and applications

 Here's the program.

I'll give a lunchtime talk on "Market Design," in which I'll introduce some of the big themes of market design, with the focus on creating marketplaces in which a lot of private information that is distributed among many participants can be aggregated to help arrive at efficient outcomes.

That will be followed by a session on Matching Based Market Design, organized by Vijay Vazirani,:

Chair: Aranyak Mehta, Google Research
2:15 “Recent developments in kidney exchange,” Alvin Roth
2:35 “Online Matching and Ad Allocation,” Aranyak Mehta
 2:55 “Simple Auctions with Simple Strategies,” Nikhil Devanur*, Jamie Morgenstern, Vasilis Syrgkanis, Matt Weinberg
3:15 “School choice,” Atila Abdulkadiroglu

Mike Rees launches "Reverse transplant tourism" at the Alliance for Paired Donation

Philippine couple receives first operation in Reverse Transplant Tourism

NBC videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1ZA3uQslFc 

"TOLEDO -- A couple from the Philippines is preparing to return to their country after undergoing life-saving transplant surgery here in Toledo.

They have been through an amazing journey so far. But the biggest accomplishment from their ordeal may be yet to come, and may benefit thousands of people around the world.

Jose is undergoing one of his last dialysis treatments before his kidney transplant. He is the first organ recipient in a pioneering program developed by University of Toledo Medical Center surgeon Dr. Mike Rees.

Being the first person to benefit from Revese Transplant Tourism, Jose is almost the ultimate lottery winner. "This has never happened before," said Dr. Rees. "And through a series of chance encounters, he’ll be the first to benefit from this."

Those encounters all began in the city of San Pablo, in the Philippines. In October, 2013, Jose’s kidneys began to fail. Dialysis or transplantation would cost ten times Jose’s income as a debt collector combined with that of his wife, Kristine, an accountant.

Jose was ready to stop treatments and resign himself to death. But his son, eight-year-old John, insisted he hold on.

“He asked, if you go through this surgery maybe we will be father and son again," Jose told NBC 24. "And you had to keep on going.”

In their hometown of San Pablo in the Philippines, Jose and Kristine sold their possessions. They sold their house. They even pawned their ATM card to pay for his treatments. And then, when they had used up all their resources, something like a miracle happened.”

Dr. Don Paloyo, Jose’s doctor in Manila, had been introduced to Dr. Rees through a mutual friend. Jose and Kristine had just the right pairing of blood types, and just the economic circumstance, to benefit from Dr. Rees’s program. “I said, you know, I think that’s the way for one of my patients to go," said Dr. Paloyo.

It took months to raise the needed 150-thousand dollars to pay for Jose and Kristine’s trip to America and arrange a series of organ donations.

Ultimately, Jose would receive a kidney from a donor in Georgia, Kristine would donate her kidney to a recipient in Minnesota. The Minnesota recipient had a willing kidney donor, been offered a kidney by an acquaintance, but they had at was an incompatible tissue match. So, instead that donated kidney will go to a recipient in Seattle.

The unique twist in Dr. Rees’ program is what makes it affordable. He is working to convince American insurance companies to pay for a transplant and follow-up care because the insurance companies will actually save money.

"You can pay for three kidney transplants for the cost of one patient to get dialysis," said Dr. Rees.

And recruiting a foreign donor makes sense because the cost of follow up care is less in countries like the Philippines.

"So the amount of money that we would have to put up to pay for an American to get a transplant would be significantly more than we would have to pay for a recipient in the Philippines," said Dr. Rees.

Dr. Rees calls his program Reverse Transplant Tourism. And in addition to saving private insurers enough to pay for itself, it could reduce the cost of treatment through Medicare by billions. "We’ve actually achieved a holy grail of health care reform," said Dr. Rees.

"It’s revolutionary," said Dr. Paloya. "It’s a game changer I think."

And for the poorest of poor patients around the world, it could also be a life-saver.

Dr. Rees’s Reverse Transplant Tourism program could require changes in current transplant laws, especially when it comes to making it eligible for Medicare or Medicaid insurance. But Rees and his foundation, the Alliance for Paired Donation, are working to lay the groundwork for that."

Joel Klein and New York Schools, at the World Bank

Joel Klein, the former Chancellor of the New York City School system, recently spoke at the World Bank about his new book "Lessons of Hope: How To Fix Our Schools.". Here's an account of the talk/discussion of the book by Harry Patrinos, who was his discussant at the World Bank event. (Klein was the Chancellor in whose administration  Parag Pathak and Atila Abdulkadiroglu and I helped design a new school choice process for NYC high schools, which is briefly mentioned in the book and in the article.)

A System of Great Schools: Joel Klein’s Legacy in New York City  

Organ donation in Turkey

The religious debate about organ donation in Turkey may have reached a turning point. Here's a story from the Daily Sabah:

Imams to lead organ donation efforts in Turkey

"Yesterday, Turkey's Presidency of Religious Affairs (DİB) launched a new campaign for imams to raise awareness about organ donation, while DİB head Mehmet Görmez urged imams to donate their organs first before advising the congregation to do so.

"DİB, the top religious authority in the country, quashed a religious debate on whether donating organs is permissible in Islam by introducing a new campaign to raise public awareness about organ donation.

"Görmez and Minister of Health Mehmet Müezzinoğlu attended a meeting in order to inform religious figures on the matter in the Turkish capital Ankara.

"Görmez called upon imams, muftis and other members of the religious authority "to practice what they preached" and donate their own organs. "Sometimes, clerics fail to act in line with advice they dispense to their congregation. On this issue, we should lead the people. I call on my colleagues to tell their congregation in the sermons that they have donated their organs," Görmez said. "This will make people attending mosques heed your advice," he added.

"It is the greatest alms one can deliver from the heart," he said. Görmez said he found it odd that organ donation has been the subject of contention for decades among clerics. "Life, value of a human being's life are at the center of all religions," Görmez said. He quoted a verse from the Quran that says that killing someone is equal to killing humanity and giving life to another is equal to giving life to humanity."

World Congress of the Econometric Society : 17th to 21st August 2015 in Montreal

11th World Congress of the Econometric Society : 17th to 21st August 2015
Montréal, Canada

There's lots of market design among the featured lectures so far:

Econometric Society: 
https://www.econometricsociety.org/
Paper submission (Deadline for submissions: February 15, 2015):
https://editorialexpress.com/

Scientific Program Committee

• Bo Honoré (Princeton University)
• Ariel Pakes (Harvard University)
• Monika Piazzesi (Stanford University)
• Larry Samuelson (Yale University)

Local Organizing Committee:

• Jean-Marie Dufour, Chair (McGill University)
• Marine Carrasco (Université de Montréal)
• Rui Castro (Université de Montréal)
• Russell Davidson (McGill University)
• Georges Dionne (HEC Montréal)
• Prosper Dovonon (Concordia University)
• Alain Guay (Université du Québec Montréal)
• Lynda Khalaf (Carleton University and CIREQ)
• Ngo van Long (McGill University)
• Marc Henry (Pensylvania State University and Université de Montréal)

Named Lectures:

• Predidential : Robert Porter (Nothwestern University)
      "Empirical Analysis in Auction Design" (Chair: Robert Wilson)
• Cowles Lecture: Elie Tamer (Nothwestern University)
      "Sensitivity Analysis in Econometric Models"
      (Chair: Donald W. K. Andrews)
• Frisch Lecture: Alvin E. Roth (Stanford University)
      "Kidney Exchange: New Developments and Frontiers" (Chair: Robert Wilson)
• Walras/Bowley Lecture - Per Krusell (Stockhom University):
      "Climate Change Around the World"
• Fisher-Schultz Lecture: Darrell Duffie (Stanford University)
      "The Design and Efficiency of Over-the-Counter Financial Markets" (Chair: John Geanakoplos)

Invited Talks:

• 1. Industrial Organization
Matthew Gentzkow (University of Chicago):
“Competition and Persuasion”
Michael D. Whinston (Massachusetts Institute of Technology):
“Recent Advances in the Empirics of Vertical Contracting”

Discussant: John Asker (University of California, Los Angeles)


• 2. Macroeonometrics
Ulrich Mueller (Princeton University)
"Ultra Low-Frequency Econometrics"
Harald Uhlig (University of Chicago):
“Shocks and Sharpe Ratios: Recent Advances in Empirical Macroeconomics”

Discussant: Frank Schorfheide (University of Pennsylvania)


• 3. Agency problems
Johannes Horner (Yale University):
“Learning and Experimentation”
Igal Hendel (Northwestern University):
“Dynamic Contracting in Insurance”

Discussant: Bernard Salanié (Columbia University)


• 4. Big Data
Serena Ng (Columbia University)
"Opportunities and Challenges: lessons from analyzing terabytes of data"
Jesse Shapiro (University of Chicago)
"Social Science with Big Data"

Discussant: Christian Hansen (Chicago Booth)


• 5. Matching
Fuhito Kohjima (Stanford University):
“Recent Developments in Matching Theory and their Practical Applications”
Parag Pathak (Massachusetts Institute of Technology):
“Designing School Assignment Mechanisms”

Discussant: Federico Echenique (California Institute of Technology)


• 6. Partially Identified Models
Azeem Shaikh (University of Chicago)
"Practical and theoretical advances in inference for partially identified models"
Kate Ho (Columbia University)
"Partial Identification in Applied Research: Benefits and Challenges"

Discussant: Jack Porter (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Penn State honors Bob Marshall

Dr. Robert C. Marshall Named Distinguished Professor

"Robert C. Marshall, Department of Economics recently was named Distinguished Professor by Penn State. Distinguished professors have demonstrated significant leadership in raising the standards of the University with respect to teaching, research or creative activity, and service; and contributed significantly to the education of students who subsequently have achieved recognition of excellence in their fields.

Dr. Marshall is Head of the Department of Economics and Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Auctions, Procurements, and Competition Policy at Penn State. He is a recognized leader in the areas of industrial organization, collusion, applied game theory, auctions, and procurements. His 2011 Michigan Law Review paper, “Plus Factors in Agreements in Antitrust Law” won the Jerry S. Cohen Memorial Fund Writing Award for best antitrust scholarship of 2011.

His book co-authored with Leslie M. Marx is titled The Economics of Collusion: Cartels and Bidding Rings (MIT Press, 2012). He has served on two panels for the National Research Council and he is on the editorial board of the Journal of Antitrust Enforcement."

Continued troubles in German organ donation and transplantation

From Spiegel online: Vor Organspende: Schwerer Fehler bei Hirntod-Diagnose  (Before Organ Donation: A fatal error occurred brain death diagnosis) translation via Google Translate

The article goes on to speak of a transplant that was canceled (at some point) because of "ambiguity with regard to the diagnosis of brain death and its documentation".


HT: Rosemarie Nagel

Financial compensation for living kidney donation: survey at departments of motor vehicles

Here's another contribution to the ongoing discussion...

Am J Transplant. 2015 Jan;15(1):265-73. doi: 10.1111/ajt.13004. Epub 2014 Nov 25.

Does financial compensation for living kidney donation change willingness to donate?

Gordon EJ1, Patel CH, Sohn MW, Hippen B, Sherman LA.

Author information

Abstract

The potential use of financial compensation to increase living kidney donation rates remains controversial in potentially introducing undue inducement of vulnerable populations to donate. This cross-sectional study assessed amounts of financial compensation that would generate motivation and an undue inducement to donate to family/friends or strangers. Individuals leaving six Departments of Motor Vehicles were surveyed. Of the 210 participants who provided verbal consent (94% participation rate), respondents' willingness to donate would not change (70%), or would increase (29%) with compensation. Median lowest amounts of financial compensation for which participants would begin to consider donating a kidney were $5000 for family/friends, and $10 000 for strangers; respondents reporting $0 for family/friends (52%) or strangers (26%) were excluded from analysis. Median lowest amounts of financial compensation for which participants could no longer decline (perceive an undue inducement) were $50 000 for family/friends, and $100 000 for strangers; respondents reporting $0 for family/friends (44%) or strangers (23%) were excluded from analysis. The two most preferred forms of compensation included: direct payment of money (61%) and paid leave (21%). The two most preferred uses of compensation included: paying off debt (38%) and paying nonmedical expenses associated with the transplant (29%). Findings suggest tolerance for, but little practical impact of, financial compensation. Certain compensation amounts could motivate the public to donate without being perceived as an undue inducement.

Sandholm on kidney exchange

Tuomas Sandholm writes:

"I just today updated my web page with my new papers.  Here are the main kidney exchange papers that I have been involved with.  This is not a complete list, but these are the main ones."

• Dickerson, J. and Sandholm, T. 2015. FutureMatch: Combining Human Value Judgments and Machine Learning to Match in Dynamic Environments. In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Extended version with appendix.
• Hajaj, C., Dickerson, J., Hassidim, A., Sandholm, T., and Sarne, D. 2015. Strategy-Proof and Efficient Kidney Exchange Using a Credit Mechanism. In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
• Dickerson, J. and Sandholm, T. 2014. Multi-Organ Exchange: The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts. In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Early version in IJCAI-13 workshop on Constraint Reasoning, Planning and Scheduling Problems for a Sustainable Future (GREEN-COPLAS).
• Dickerson, J., Procaccia, A., and Sandholm, T. 2014. Price of Fairness in Kidney Exchange. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS).
• Dickerson, J. and Sandholm, T. 2014. Balancing Efficiency and Fairness in Dynamic Kidney Exchange. In Proceedings of the Modern Artificial Intelligence for Health Analytics (MAIHA) workshop at AAAI-14.
• Dickerson, J., Procaccia, A., and Sandholm, T. 2014. Empirical Price of Fairness in Failure-Aware Kidney Exchange. Towards Better and more Affordable Healthcare: Incentives, Game Theory, and Artificial Intelligence (HCAGT) workshop at AAMAS-14.
• Leishman, R., Stewart, D., Monstello, C., Cherikh, W., Sandholm, T., Formica, R., Aeder, M. 2014. The OPTN Kidney Paired Donation Pilot Program (KPDPP): Reaching the Tipping Point in 2013. World Transplant Congress (WTC). Abstract, presentation.
• Aeder, M., Stewart, D., Leishman, R., Sandholm, T., Formica, R. 2014. Early Outcomes of Transplant Recipients in the OPTN Kidney Paired Donation Pilot Program.
  World Transplant Congress (WTC). Abstract, presentation.
• Stewart, D., Leishman, R., Kucheryavaya, A., Formica, R., Aeder, M., Bingaman, A., Gentry, S., Sandholm, T., and Ashlagi, I. 2014. Exploring the Candidate/Donor Compatibility Matrix to Identify Opportunities to Improve the OPTN KPD Pilot Program's Priority Point Schedule. World Transplant Congress (WTC). Abstract, poster.
• Dickerson, J., Procaccia, A., and Sandholm, T. 2013. Failure-Aware Kidney Exchange. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce (EC). Extended version.
• Leishman, R., Formica, R., Andreoni, K., Friedewald, J., Sleeman, E., Monstello, C., Stewart, D., and Sandholm, T. 2013. The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) Kidney Paired Donation Pilot Program (KPDPP): Review of Current Results. American Transplant Congress (ATC). Abstract of talk.
• Leishman, R., Formica, R., Andreoni, K., Friedewald, J., Sleeman, E., Monstello, C., Stewart, D., and Sandholm, T. 2013. An Early Look at Transplant Outcomes from the OPTN KPD Pilot Program: Comparing Cold Times and DGF Rates with Other Living and Deceased Donor Transplants. American Transplant Congress (ATC). Abstract of talk.
• Stewart, D., Leishman, R., Sleeman, E., Monstello, C., Lunsford, G., Maghirang, J., Sandholm, T., Gentry, S., Formica, R., Friedewald, J., and Andreoni, K. 2013. Tuning the OPTN's KPD Optimization Algorithm to Incentivize Centers to Enter Their "Easy-to-Match" Pairs. American Transplant Congress (ATC). Abstract of talk.
• Dickerson, J., Procaccia, A., and Sandholm, T. 2012. Dynamic Matching via Weighted Myopia with Application to Kidney Exchange. In Proceedings of the National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).
• Dickerson, J., Procaccia, A., and Sandholm, T. 2012. Optimizing Kidney Exchange with Transplant Chains: Theory and Reality. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS).
• Woodle, S., Daller, J., Aeder M., Shapiro, R., Sandholm, T., Casingal, V., Goldfarb, D., Lewis, R., Goebel, J., and Siegler, M. 2010. Ethical Considerations for Participation of Nondirected Living Donors in Kidney Exchange Programs. American Journal of Transplantation 10: 1460-1467.
• Awasthi, P. and Sandholm, T. 2009. Online Stochastic Optimization in the Large: Application to Kidney Exchange. In Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI).
• Rees, M., Kopke, J., Pelletier, R., Segev, D., Fabrega, A., Rogers, J., Pankewycz, O., Hiller, J., Roth, A., Sandholm, T., Ünver, U., Nibhanubpudy, R., Bowers, V., VanBuren, C., and Montgomery, R. 2009. Six Nonsimultaneous Extended Altruistic Donor (NEAD) Chains. American Transplant Congress (ATC).
• Rees, M., Kopke, J., Pelletier, R., Segev, D., Rutter, M., Fabrega, A., Rogers, J., Pankewycz, O., Hiller, J., Roth, A., Sandholm, T., Ünver, U., and Montgomery, R. 2009. A Nonsimultaneous, Extended, Altruistic-Donor Chain. New England Journal of Medicine 360(11), 1096-1101.
• Abraham, D., Blum, A., and Sandholm, T. 2007. Clearing Algorithms for Barter Exchange Markets: Enabling Nationwide Kidney Exchanges. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce (EC).

Barcelona in June: experimental macro-economics and matching and market design (different events:)

Rosemarie Nagel writes to announce the

6th LeeX International Workshop co-organized with
Barcelona GSE Summer Forum on Theoretical and Experimental Macroeconomics, June 9/10, 2014.  Keynote speakers are: Roger Guesnerie (Collège de France), Pradeep Dubey (Stony Brook University).

The conference organizers are: John Duffy, University of California Irvine, Frank Heinemann, Technical University of Berlin, Rosemarie Nagel, ICREA and Universitat Pompeu Fabra, BGSE, and Shyam Sunder (Yale University). Deadline January 31, 2015 


 and

Barcelona LeeX Experimental Economics Summer School in Macroeconomics in Universitat Pompeu Fabra. 

June 8-14, 2015:

                                                                                               

Introduction    Program    Lecturers     Course Lectures    Accommodation    BCN Information    How to Subscribe   

More Summer Schools    Contact    Location

Macroeconomic theories have traditionally been tested using non-experimental "field" data. However, modern, micro-founded macroeconomic models can also be tested in the laboratory, and researchers have begun to pursue such experimental tests. This June, graduate students specializing in macroeconomics or experimental economics, as well as junior faculty members and researchers of macroeconomic are invited to attend the third LeeX summer school devoted to experimental macroeconomics research.  This year's program will focus on laboratory studies that are relevant to current global financial crisis. The intensive 5 days summer school will be held from June 8 to 14, 2015 at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in Barcelona. Students will be taught experimental methods and exposed to a number of macroeconomic applications that have been tested experimentally. Students will be asked to participate in experiments and to develop their own experimental macroeconomic projects. Faculty will assist with and critique these projects. The different links on the top of this page will give you access to details regarding the particulars of the summer school in experimental macroeconomics. We invite summer school students to present their ongoing research during the summer school. Such presentations may take the form of presentations during the summer school or a poster session during the associated conference workshop, depending on the number of students seeking to present their work. Such presentations will be at the discretion of the summer school organizers. Students can submit research proposals as part of their summer school application, though this is not a requirement for participation in the summer school.  Indeed, one purpose of the summer school is to think of macroeconomic topics and models that can be implemented in the laboratory in a way that advances our knowledge of behavior. Summer school students are also invited to attend the 2 day 6th LeeX International Workshop co-organized with Barcelona GSE Summer Forum on Theoretical and Experimental Macroeconomics  from June 10-11, 2015 that will also take place at UPF. The deadline for applications is Friday, April 10 2015.   Summer school in experimental macroeconomics faculty: Lecturers Charles Noussair (Tilburg University) Shyam Sunder (Yale University) John Duffy (University of Pittsburgh) Frank Heinemann (Technische Universität Berlin) Rosemarie Nagel (ICREA, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and  Barcelona GSE ) Summer school organizers John Duffy (University of Pittsburgh) Frank Heinemann (Technische Universität Berlin) Rosemarie Nagel (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) Shyam Sunder (Yale university) *********************************** While you're there, don't miss Barcelona GSE Summer Forum June 8-20, 2015 More Sharing Services Workshop: Matching in Practice Dates: June 8-9, 2015 This workshop will bring together the growing community of researchers in Europe working on the various aspects of assignment and matching in education and related labor markets, with a view to actively foster the interactions between the different strands of approaches used by these researchers (theory, experiments, analysis of field data, policy/market design) and aggregate expertise about the actual functioning of these markets in Europe. Download the call for papers Keynote Speaker Christopher Avery (Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University) Workshop Organizer Antonio Miralles (UAB and Barcelona GSE) Scientific Committee Dorothea Kübler (Berlin Social Science Center)​ Antonio Miralles (UAB and Barcelona GSE) Joana Pais (Lisbon School of Economics and Management) Speaker Schedule Summer Forum workshop schedules for 2015 will be posted as they become available. The workshop “Matching in Practice” is supported by the Severo Ochoa Research Program (SEV2011-0075).

The App Economy: at SIEPR

I'm looking forward to spending the day tomorrow at SIEPR, learning about how apps are changing the internet and the world. (That's one of the perks of working in Silicon Valley...)

SIEPR Policy Forum, The App Economy, Friday, January 30th, 2015.

Once again the Valley is buzzing with startups, new ventures, and concerns about a bubble.  Our next Forum will look at how the move to mobile and the explosion of entrepreneurial activity is once more driving innovation.

For the App Economy, we want to look at two big questions:

1.  What drives the Mobile and App Economy?   
2.  How is the rise of the App Economy - and mobile technology more generally - changing the rest of the economy?

Agenda

10:00-11:00:  The Mobile App Economy

Simon Khalaf, CEO, Flurry from Yahoo, "The App Economy 2015"

 

Tim Bresnahan, Stanford Economics & SIEPR, Pai-Ling Yin, SIEPR, "How Mobile Platforms Compete"

 

11:00-12:15:  Apps and Data

Erin Coffman, Chetan Sharma, and Alok Gupta:  AirBnB

 "How Mobile and Big Data Change Travel"

Amir Ghodrati, AppAnnie – "App + Data"
 

Steve Tadelis – UC Berkeley Economics, "Consumer Mobile Payments and Finance Big Data"

 

 

1:00-2:15:  The Next 3 Billion Users

Rick Osterloh, CEO, Motorola Mobility,  "Reaching The Next 3 Billion Users"

Ming Zeng, Chief Strategy Officer, Alibaba
Ethan Yeh, Lead Economist, Twitter,  "Apps for the Developing World"
 

 

 

2:15-3:15:  Apps and Profits

Anna Bager,  Senior VP, Internet Advertising Bureau,  "Mobile Ads and Video"

Liran Einav, Stanford Economics,  "Mobile's Impact on Ecommerce at EBay"

 

 

3:15-4:00: Investing in Connected Commerce

Ashwini Chhabra, Uber
Simon Rothman, Partner, Greylock Venture Capital 

 

Reception following conclusion. 


A printable agenda, with biography links, is here.

Registration is available here.    

All current Stanford students are welcome, as well as members of the Stanford community with a Stanford ID.  Others are welcome by invitation.   The event is free   It begins at 10am, Friday January 30th at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, 366 Galvez Street, Stanford.

New reports that China to stop harvesting executed prisoners' organs

But no word on how they propose to manage the transition from executed prisoners to developing a voluntary source of donated organs for transplant.

Here's a BBC story: China to stop harvesting executed prisoners' organs

China has promised to stop harvesting organs from executed prisoners by 1 January, state media report.

It has said for many years that it will end the controversial practice. It previously promised to do so by November last year.

Death row inmates have long served as a key source for transplants.

China has been criticised for taking their organs without consent, but has struggled to encourage voluntary donations due to cultural concerns.

Prisoners used to account for two-thirds of transplant organs, based on previous estimates from state media.

For years, China denied that it used organs from executed prisoners and only admitted to the practice a few years ago.

The Chinese authorities put more prisoners to death every year than the rest of the world combined - an estimated 2,400 people in 2013 - according to the San Francisco-based prisoners' rights organisation, Dui Hua.

'Fair, just and transparent'

State media reported on Thursday that the head of the country's organ donation committee Huang Jiefu said that by 1 January 2015, only voluntarily donated organs from civilians can be used in transplants.

So far 38 organ transplant centres around the country, including those in Beijing, Guangdong and Zhejiang, have already stopped using prisoners' organs, according to reports.

Dr Huang, who was addressing a seminar, said that every year about 300,000 people in China need transplanted organs, but only 10,000 operations are carried out.

Analysis: Celia Hatton, BBC News, Beijing

It's taken years for the Chinese authorities to end their own practice of harvesting organs from executed prisoners.

In 2006, Dr Huang admitted China must reduce its reliance on prisoners' organs. He repeated that again in 2009, when announcing the establishment of a national organ donation network. And finally, in 2012, Dr Huang surfaced in Chinese state media once more with a promise to end all prisoners' donations within a few years.

Why did it take so long? Thousands of people are on China's transplant waiting list in desperate need of organs, with no clear solution in sight. Attempts to address the need, by encouraging public organ donations, have faltered.

But many in China believe that bodies should remain intact after death. China's also home to a thriving illegal trade in body parts, making would-be donors nervous they will contribute to a wider problem.

A 2012 poll conducted in the southern city of Guangzhou revealed that 79% of respondents believed organ donation was "noble". However, 81% were concerned the donations "inevitably feed the organ trade."

Clearly, Chinese health officials have a lot of work to do to change public perceptions.

With a donation rate of only 0.6 per 1 million people, China has one of the world's lowest levels of organ donation. Dr Huang compared it to Spain, which has a rate of 37 per 1 million.

"Besides traditional beliefs, one of the major roadblocks to the development of our organ donation industry is that people are concerned that organ donation will be fair, just and transparent," he was quoted as saying.

Dr Huang, who used to be the vice minister for health, had last year pledged to phase out prisoner organ transplants by the end of 2013.

Amnesty International's William Nee told the BBC that halting prisoner organ transplants would be "a positive step forward in China's human rights record", although some challenges remain.

"It will be worth seeing not only how effective a new voluntary organ donation system is, but it will also be crucial that the government becomes fully transparent about the number of people sentenced to death, the number of executions per year, and how the executions are carried out," he said.

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MIT News reports on a forthcoming paper by Nikhil Agarwal:

An Empirical Model of the Medical Match | Online Appendix
American Economic Review, forthcoming
(NBER Working Paper 20767 - includes analysis of government interventions for rural programs)

Here's the MIT News report:

Is the medical match fair?

Study finds the demand for positions strongly influences medical residents’ salaries.

Peter Dizikes | MIT News Office
January 27, 2015

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When medical-school graduates apply for their residencies, they use a centralized clearinghouse that matches applicants with jobs. This system has sometimes been challenged, such as in a lawsuit several years ago that claimed salaries of residents were reduced by this centralized matching method.

But a forthcoming study by an MIT economist indicates that demand for a limited number of desirable residency positions can keep salaries low — and introduces a new way of assessing that demand despite incomplete data that has previously restricted analysis of the issue.

“Salaries will likely remain low unless residency programs can increase the number of positions,” says Nikhil Agarwal, an assistant professor of economics at MIT, and author of the paper on the subject.

On average, Agarwal’s study finds, salaries of medical residents are lowered by an average of $23,000 due to the demand for slots. As the study puts it, residents are willing to accept an “implicit tuition” in their wages in return for experience and prestige. In the long run, residencies may be a worthwhile tradeoff for doctors establishing themselves in the profession, even with seemingly reduced wages.  

Determining demand

Agarwal’s paper, to be published in the American Economic Review, is based on data from 2003 to 2011 gathered by the National Graduate Medical Education census.

The central clearinghouse — the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP) — matches about 25,000 medical residents annually. Incoming residents rank the positions they would most like to have, and an algorithm matches these choices with the ranked preferences of the medical programs.

A 2002 lawsuit asserted that the residents have limited bargaining power because they are assigned to positions and cannot receive multiple job offers, unfairly lowering their compensation. That suit was eventually dismissed in 2004, a few months after Congress passed an antitrust exemption for the NRMP system.

But that resolution of the lawsuit did not resolve the question of whether or not the clearinghouse does affect residency salaries. As of 2010, residents had a mean salary of about $47,000, compared to $86,000 for physician assistants, who do comparable work. Medical residents also have notably long workweeks and shifts, which themselves are the subject of intermittent public debate.

Agarwal’s study finds a new way of analyzing the compensation issue in the face of limited information. He did not have access to the ranked lists of jobs that applicants submit to the NRMP, nor to the lists of preferred candidates that medical programs submit. Even so, Agarwal was able to study the matched pairs of residents and positions, along with some additional descriptive data, such as geographic location, and determine demand on that basis.

The key to the analysis, Agarwal says, is “the fact that there are multiple residents in the same program. That tells you a lot about the residency program’s preferences for residents. Once you figure out that side of the market, you’re in business.”

For instance, Agarwal adds, “If a program [decides] to hire residents from [highly ranked] medical schools with similar licensing-exam test scores, then everybody it’s matched with will be similar on those characteristics. But if it doesn’t care about prestige of the medical school as much, there might be people from all kinds of medical schools, but their licensing-exam scores will be similar.” Partly by building a picture of those preferences and measuring it against the characteristics of the class of applicants, it is possible to estimate how many qualified applicants are available for residency positions.

An ‘imperfect’ market

An underlying implication of Agarwal’s conclusions is that the idea of a perfectly competitive, uniform market driving salaries does not ultimately hold up to scrutiny when it comes to medical residencies. There appear to be clumps of jobs considered particularly desirable, leading to uneven relationships between supply and demand within the overall residency job market.

“In [my] theory, you get a situation where people are not indifferent” in terms of job preferences, Agarwal notes.

For his part, Agarwal, who focuses on the growing field of market design, believes this method of determining preferences can be applied to other domains as well.  He is continuing to do research in the area of school choice, among other topics.