Matching Markets: EconTalk Episode with Alvin Roth--Hosted by Russ Roberts, a one-hour podcast/interview about my new book (which you can buy here:)
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Tim Harford reviews Who Gets What and Why in the FT
Tim Harford's review in the Financial Times is here: In search of the perfect match
His closing paragraph:
"Economists such as Alvin Roth are like engineers or doctors. They cannot settle for understanding a system in theory; they must solve practical problems too. It’s a hopeful direction for economics — and an essential one, if economists aren’t to be left on the shelf themselves."
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You can also read the piece on Harford's blog, The Undercover Economist
His closing paragraph:
"Economists such as Alvin Roth are like engineers or doctors. They cannot settle for understanding a system in theory; they must solve practical problems too. It’s a hopeful direction for economics — and an essential one, if economists aren’t to be left on the shelf themselves."
**********
You can also read the piece on Harford's blog, The Undercover Economist
Monday, July 6, 2015
Straw in the wind: Google's Waze is piloting a ridesharing marketplace in Israel
Ynet has the story:
Google's Waze to start carpooling pilot program in Israel
Mapping company launching RideWith, which will allow commuters to pay fellow drivers a small fee to share rides with the help of Waze's navigation system
"Google-owned online mapping company Waze is launching a carpooling pilot program in Israel where commuters pay fellow drivers a small fee for a ride to and from work.
"The new application, called RideWith, will use Waze's navigation system to learn the routes drivers most frequently take to work and match them up with people looking for a ride in the same direction.
...
""We're conducting a small, private beta test in the greater Tel Aviv area for a carpool concept, but we have nothing further to announce at this time," Waze told Reuters of its foray into the increasingly competitive field of ride-sharing.
Drivers will be limited to just two journeys a day and will not be able to earn a salary from RideWith, a source close to the company said, differentiating it from businesses such as Uber, where drivers can turn a profit.
Should RideWith be rolled out globally, this limitation could help it avoid the backlash Uber is facing in a number of countries that want to protect professional taxi drivers."
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Stay tuned...
Google's Waze to start carpooling pilot program in Israel
Mapping company launching RideWith, which will allow commuters to pay fellow drivers a small fee to share rides with the help of Waze's navigation system
"Google-owned online mapping company Waze is launching a carpooling pilot program in Israel where commuters pay fellow drivers a small fee for a ride to and from work.
"The new application, called RideWith, will use Waze's navigation system to learn the routes drivers most frequently take to work and match them up with people looking for a ride in the same direction.
...
""We're conducting a small, private beta test in the greater Tel Aviv area for a carpool concept, but we have nothing further to announce at this time," Waze told Reuters of its foray into the increasingly competitive field of ride-sharing.
Drivers will be limited to just two journeys a day and will not be able to earn a salary from RideWith, a source close to the company said, differentiating it from businesses such as Uber, where drivers can turn a profit.
Should RideWith be rolled out globally, this limitation could help it avoid the backlash Uber is facing in a number of countries that want to protect professional taxi drivers."
****************
Stay tuned...
New York City’s high school admissions process: an excerpt from Who Gets What and Why, in Chalkbeat
Chalkbeat has a brief excerpt from my new book, Who Gets What and Why:
Here's the link to what they have to say (or rather what they have me saying, in an excerpt from Chapter 9 "Back to School"):
Why New York City’s high school admissions process only works most of the time
Below are two paragraphs from the excerpt, concerning Neil Dorosin, who worked for the NYC Department of Education at the time, and is now the Johnny Appleseed of school choice as the director of the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice (IIPSC):
One reason that principals gained confidence was that DOE staffers did a good job communicating to them how the new system would work. Crucial in that effort was Neil Dorosin, the DOE’s director of high school operations. The task of informing everyone about the new algorithm fell to Neil and his colleagues in the Office of Enrollment Services. Among those he had to educate was his ultimate boss, Chancellor Joel Klein.
“One day I got called down to talk to him,” Neil recalls. “He was upset because he had a friend whose child didn’t get into their first-choice school. The friend had a cousin whose child had gotten into the school, and it was their last choice. I had to explain why the system had to function that way” (i.e., to make it safe to list true preferences).
Here's the link to what they have to say (or rather what they have me saying, in an excerpt from Chapter 9 "Back to School"):
Why New York City’s high school admissions process only works most of the time
Below are two paragraphs from the excerpt, concerning Neil Dorosin, who worked for the NYC Department of Education at the time, and is now the Johnny Appleseed of school choice as the director of the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice (IIPSC):
One reason that principals gained confidence was that DOE staffers did a good job communicating to them how the new system would work. Crucial in that effort was Neil Dorosin, the DOE’s director of high school operations. The task of informing everyone about the new algorithm fell to Neil and his colleagues in the Office of Enrollment Services. Among those he had to educate was his ultimate boss, Chancellor Joel Klein.
“One day I got called down to talk to him,” Neil recalls. “He was upset because he had a friend whose child didn’t get into their first-choice school. The friend had a cousin whose child had gotten into the school, and it was their last choice. I had to explain why the system had to function that way” (i.e., to make it safe to list true preferences).
Sunday, July 5, 2015
The lectures of the The 26th Jerusalem School in Economic Theory "Dynamic Games" - 2015, are available on video
Journal of Human Trafficking, Issue 1, 2015, on kidneys
Issue 1 of the Journal of Human Trafficking contains this article by Alexander Capron and Frank Delmonico. I've highlighted in the abstract two points worth noting--the first involves some untested, but testable empirical claims about what would happen if countries in the first world allowed compensation for donors. (It would be nice to have some empirical evidence...) The second point is that it is now agreed by everyone that financial disincentives for donating should be removed. (Let's get organized on that, shall we?)
DOI:10.1080/23322705.2015.1011491
Alexander M. Caprona & Francis L. Delmonico
pages 56-64
Published online: 28 Apr 2015
Abstract
Most countries now have national legislation that outlaws both human trafficking and organ trafficking. However, international conventions and domestic laws alone have not been enough to stop the trade in organs. As of 2007, a conservative estimate was that 5% of the approximately 100,000 organs transplanted annually were derived from exploiting the poorest and most vulnerable people in society; anti-trafficking efforts have since reduced, though not eliminated, this practice. The Declaration of Istanbul (DoI) was created in 2008 to engage medical professional societies to collaborate with governments and others in combating organ sales, transplant tourism, and trafficking in human organs. In 2010, the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group (DICG) was formed to actively promote and to monitor the implementation of the DoI principles. The removal of prohibitions on organ purchases, which is now being promoted in some wealthy nations, is unlikely to shorten transplant waitlists (because organ sales crowd out voluntary, unpaid donation) and would be based on the false view that such sales do not exploit the sellers. To combat such exploitation, the DICG advocates for ratification and enforcement of the new “Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs,” as a complement the Palermo Protocol to the United Nations organized crime convention that prohibits human trafficking for organ removal. To increase ethical organ donation by living related donors, the DICG encourages countries to adopt means to cover donors’ financial costs, which now discourage donation. It also works with the World Health Organization to encourage ministries of health to develop deceased donation to its maximum potential toward the goal of achieving national self-sufficiency in organ transplantation so that patients do not need to travel to foreign destinations to undergo organ transplantation using kidneys and partial livers purchased from poor and vulnerable people. Success in combating human trafficking for organ removal and organ trafficking will be greatly enhanced through organizations like the DICG forging strong relationships with human rights organizations.
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Refugee resettlement as a matching problem
There are a lot of displaced people in the world today, both outside their country of origin and within. The conflict in Syria is a big contributor. The poverty in Africa is another. Here's a recent NY Times story, about a UN report, whose headline summarizes the story well:
60 Million People Fleeing Chaotic Lands, U.N. Says
The international refugee accords place most responsibility for resettlement on the "country of first asylum." If you were smuggling yourself out of Africa, or Syria, you'd have good reason, therefore, to try to get to Sweden before declaring yourself a refugee, but it's a lot easier to get to Turkey or Greece or Italy. However some classes of refugee can seek resettlement elsewhere, and the U.S. takes a small number of these (around 70,000/year).
American policy is to try to settle refugees across the country, the idea being that this might ease assimilation, and avoid overburdening particular cities and towns. But, of course, once refugees get to the U.S., they are completely free to move around. So there's a matching problem of refugees and cities.
The case of Somali refugees makes this clear: although they've been resettled around the country, many of them quickly move to join the growing community in and around Lewiston, Maine. (Here's a nice story dated 2007...
Letter From Maine: New in Town--Somali refugees began arriving in Lewiston, Maine (pop. 36,000) six years ago. Word spread that Lewiston had good schools, a low crime rate and cheap housing — and the Somalis began arriving in droves.
And here's a Wikipedia page: History of the Somalis in Maine
The point of all this is that people aren't passive, you can't keep them where they are sent if they don't want to stay there (even if moving means giving up various kinds of refugee assistance).
Hillel Rapoport of the Paris School of Economics has been thinking of this in a European context, in which one of the questions is to which countries should refugees be resettled? How a tradable refugee-admission quota system could help solve the EU’s migration crisis. Even in Europe, I'm not sure how well refugees can be resettled in the countries to which they are assigned, but the barriers to moving are probably substantially higher than for moves in the U.S.
The EU is thinking about moving refugees, maybe in directions they want to go (although this isn't clear): see e.g. this recent story. EU leaders agree to relocate 40,000 migrants. "EU leaders holding late-night talks in Brussels have agreed to relocate tens of thousands of migrants who have arrived in Italy and Greece." But it's hard, and they aren't really reaching agreement: In Testy Debate, E.U. Leaders Fail to Agree on Quotas to Spread Migrants Across Bloc
So, we have a matching problem here. How to resettle refugees to places that they are willing to stay in, while meeting the other goals that we'd like to achieve?
It's not a bad question to ponder on the 4th of July, for a nation made up of immigrants, many of whom escaped from somewhere to come to the USA.
60 Million People Fleeing Chaotic Lands, U.N. Says
The international refugee accords place most responsibility for resettlement on the "country of first asylum." If you were smuggling yourself out of Africa, or Syria, you'd have good reason, therefore, to try to get to Sweden before declaring yourself a refugee, but it's a lot easier to get to Turkey or Greece or Italy. However some classes of refugee can seek resettlement elsewhere, and the U.S. takes a small number of these (around 70,000/year).
American policy is to try to settle refugees across the country, the idea being that this might ease assimilation, and avoid overburdening particular cities and towns. But, of course, once refugees get to the U.S., they are completely free to move around. So there's a matching problem of refugees and cities.
The case of Somali refugees makes this clear: although they've been resettled around the country, many of them quickly move to join the growing community in and around Lewiston, Maine. (Here's a nice story dated 2007...
Letter From Maine: New in Town--Somali refugees began arriving in Lewiston, Maine (pop. 36,000) six years ago. Word spread that Lewiston had good schools, a low crime rate and cheap housing — and the Somalis began arriving in droves.
And here's a Wikipedia page: History of the Somalis in Maine
The point of all this is that people aren't passive, you can't keep them where they are sent if they don't want to stay there (even if moving means giving up various kinds of refugee assistance).
Hillel Rapoport of the Paris School of Economics has been thinking of this in a European context, in which one of the questions is to which countries should refugees be resettled? How a tradable refugee-admission quota system could help solve the EU’s migration crisis. Even in Europe, I'm not sure how well refugees can be resettled in the countries to which they are assigned, but the barriers to moving are probably substantially higher than for moves in the U.S.
The EU is thinking about moving refugees, maybe in directions they want to go (although this isn't clear): see e.g. this recent story. EU leaders agree to relocate 40,000 migrants. "EU leaders holding late-night talks in Brussels have agreed to relocate tens of thousands of migrants who have arrived in Italy and Greece." But it's hard, and they aren't really reaching agreement: In Testy Debate, E.U. Leaders Fail to Agree on Quotas to Spread Migrants Across Bloc
So, we have a matching problem here. How to resettle refugees to places that they are willing to stay in, while meeting the other goals that we'd like to achieve?
It's not a bad question to ponder on the 4th of July, for a nation made up of immigrants, many of whom escaped from somewhere to come to the USA.
Podcast interview about Who Gets What and Why
Here's Episode 196 – Alvin Roth from Smartpeoplepodcast.com. The interview starts at around one and a half minutes from the beginning of the audio file.
Friday, July 3, 2015
Arrow Lecture in Jerusalem by Drew Fudenberg - Learning and Equilibrium in Games (video)
Drew begins his general-audience lecture by saying "I can't imagine anyone I would rather give a talk for than Ken Arrow." He then continues with a brief history of game theory.
Thursday, July 2, 2015
The Amsterdam court rules on school choice
Hessel Oosterbeek sends the following update on the school choice court case seeking to allow the exchange of school places that were allocated by a deferred acceptance algorithm with multiple tie breaking. He writes:
"Attached is a link to the decision of the judge in Amsterdam. Important considerations for the judge are that: i) trading would harm students who have a higher position on the waiting lists, and ii) allowing trade this year makes the system unusable in the future. The judge also writes that the rules were clear.
Overall it reads that the judge is well informed."
Google Translate allows you to make reasonable sense of the judge's decision in English...
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Here is a blog post, also in Dutch, but Google Translate does a good enough job so that you can see that this is a pretty detailed discussion of various algorithms, strategy-proofness, the judge's decision, etc. It seems that the public discussion is going on at a pretty high level:
Schoolstrijd in Amsterdam
Waarom ruilen niet mag, ook niet als beide partijen er beter van worden
(School Fight in Amsterdam
Why should not change, even if both parties are better off)
"Attached is a link to the decision of the judge in Amsterdam. Important considerations for the judge are that: i) trading would harm students who have a higher position on the waiting lists, and ii) allowing trade this year makes the system unusable in the future. The judge also writes that the rules were clear.
Overall it reads that the judge is well informed."
Google Translate allows you to make reasonable sense of the judge's decision in English...
****************
Here is a blog post, also in Dutch, but Google Translate does a good enough job so that you can see that this is a pretty detailed discussion of various algorithms, strategy-proofness, the judge's decision, etc. It seems that the public discussion is going on at a pretty high level:
Schoolstrijd in Amsterdam
Waarom ruilen niet mag, ook niet als beide partijen er beter van worden
(School Fight in Amsterdam
Why should not change, even if both parties are better off)
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Video conversation about Who Gets What on Yahoo! Finance
Below is a link to a Yahoo! Finance video interview (about 5 minutes), made when I was in NYC for the launch of Who Gets What and Why the first week in June. Unlike most of the interviews I've done, this one has video footage added, so instead of always looking at me and the interviewer, there are scenes of things that we're talking about--the stock exchange, an Amazon warehouse, etc..
Nobel Prize-winning economist on the elusive factors that make markets work
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Scott Kominers on market design (and a conference in August)
Prof. Scott Duke Kominers: ‘There are many new areas of market design worth exploring’
BY ON JUNE 18, 2015
0
Prof. Scott Duke Kominers is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, a Research Scientist at the Harvard Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, and an Associate of the Harvard Center for Research on Computation and Society. He also will be a General Co-Chair at AMMA 2015, The Third Conference on Auctions, Market Mechanisms and Their Applications. We talked with him about the upcoming conference and about the most interesting potential areas in market design and the challenges this field will face in the near future.
AMMA 2015 will be held August 8-9, 2015 in Chicago. What will the main focus of the conference be?
AMMA focuses on the theory and practice of market design, at the intersection of economics, computer science, operations research, and applied math.
What are, in your opinion, interesting potential areas researchers in the field of market design should take into account?
Market design has already proven useful in addressing real-life problems in settings like school choice, entry-level labor markets, kidney exchange, and auction design. Financial market design has flourished recently, as has the design of intellectual property markets. Personally, I am especially excited about “generalized matching,” which blends together ideas from matching and auction theory to show how markets with complex contract structure can be cleared using relatively simple mechanisms. I think there’s a lot of potential for generalized matching mechanisms to be useful in new real-world applications. In addition, there are many new areas of market design worth exploring: market designers are starting to think about the structure of healthcare marketplaces and adoption services. And of course, online platforms are everywhere. Furthermore, a popular press book on market design has just been published: http://www.hmhbooks.com/whogetswhat/index.html.
What challenges do you expect market design will face in the near future?
I think one of the greatest challenges going forward is about translation: we need to find good ways of teaching what we know about marketplace design to policymakers, entrepreneurs, and other practitioners. In some cases, there is work to be done in understanding how to simplify our mechanisms in ways that would make them more accessible to their users. Meanwhile, on the research side, market design has traditionally mixed powerful theory with empirical analysis, experiments, and computational methods. As we build more and more technical facility with our existing tools, and as we add new approaches to our toolkits, it is increasingly challenging – but also increasingly important – to make sure that we let real-world structure guide our methodological choices in applied work.
Monday, June 29, 2015
Changes in repugnance over time
Bloomberg news has some animated graphics showing the change over time in repugnance--as measured by laws at the state level--for six issues that were or are controversial in America: interracial marriage, prohibition, women’s suffrage, abortion, same-sex marriage, and recreational marijuana.
This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind, By Alex Tribou and Keith Collins
All of those have now had Federal rulings, except for recreational marijuana, which as of this writing has been legalized only in Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Stay tuned...
This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind, By Alex Tribou and Keith Collins
All of those have now had Federal rulings, except for recreational marijuana, which as of this writing has been legalized only in Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Stay tuned...
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Financial support for organ donors in New Zealand? A new bill proposed...
New Zealand's parliament will debate a bill to increase the financial support offered to organ donors.
Chris Bishop, National List MP based in the Hutt Valley, is delighted the Financial Assistance For Live Organ Donors Bill, a Member’s Bill in his name, has been drawn from the ballot and will be debated by Parliament.
Member’s Bill will boost financial support for organ donors |
Chris Bishop
National List MP based in the Hutt Valley
25 June 2015
Member’s Bill will boost financial support for organ donors
Chris Bishop, National List MP based in the Hutt Valley, is delighted the Financial Assistance For Live Organ Donors Bill, a Member’s Bill in his name, has been drawn from the ballot and will be debated by Parliament.
The purpose of the Bill is to increase the financial assistance provided to people who, for altruistic reasons, donate kidney or liver tissue for transplantation purposes.
The Bill will increase the support for donors from the equivalent of the sickness benefit to the equivalent of 80 per cent of the donor’s pre-operation earnings – the same formula applied to income support for ACC recipients. The Bill also provides for the payment of childcare assistance for those who require it during their convalescence.
“I was inspired to pick up this Member’s Bill, which was originally put forward by Hon Michael Woodhouse, after talking to Sharon van der Gulik at one of my first meetings as a candidate in the election last year,” Mr Bishop says. “She had been living with renal failure for more than two years and needed 15 hours of dialysis a week – before her son donated one of his kidneys to her.
“At the public meeting, Mrs van der Gulik spoke of the financial hardship that her son faced in the six weeks he spent recovering from the procedure. She argued he deserved more. I agree.
“If this Bill passes into law, greater support will be available to people like Mrs van der Gulik’s son.
“Organ donation rates in New Zealand are improving, but are still too low. It’s important they increase - live kidney donation is the least expensive form of treatment for end-stage renal failure, and significantly improves life expectancy.
“This Bill is a small but important and helpful step to increasing the number of people who donate organs.
“Wider work to increase the number of donors is being led by the Minister of Health. Budget 2014 allocated $4 million over four years to set up a National Renal Transplant Service to increase the number of live kidney donor transplantations. The funding covers donor liaison co-ordinators and continuation of the New Zealand Kidney Exchange programme. Last year's funding increase builds on the $4 million invested in Budget 2012 to raise awareness and encourage more people to donate organs,” says Mr Bishop.
Elias, Lacetera and Macis on the repugnance of paying for organs or prostitution: a survey experiment
Markets and Morals: An Experimental Survey Study
Julio J. Elias , Nicola Lacetera , Mario Macis
PLOS One. Published: June 1, 2015DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0127069
Abstract: Most societies prohibit some market transactions based on moral concerns, even when the exchanges would benefit the parties involved and would not create negative externalities. A prominent example is given by payments for human organs for transplantation, banned virtually everywhere despite long waiting lists and many deaths of patients who cannot find a donor. Recent research, however, has shown that individuals significantly increase their stated support for a regulated market for human organs when provided with information about the organ shortage and the potential beneficial effects a price mechanism. In this study we focused on payments for human organs and on another “repugnant” transaction, indoor prostitution, to address two questions: (A) Does providing general information on the welfare properties of prices and markets modify attitudes toward repugnant trades? (B) Does additional knowledge on the benefits of a price mechanism in a specific context affect attitudes toward price-based transactions in another context? By answering these questions, we can assess whether eliciting a market-oriented approach may lead to a relaxation of moral opposition to markets, and whether there is a cross-effect of information, in particular for morally controversial activities that, although different, share a reference to the “commercialization” of the human body. Relying on an online survey experiment with 5,324 U.S. residents, we found no effect of general information about market efficiency, consistent with morally controversial markets being accepted only when they are seen as a solution to a specific problem. We also found some cross-effects of information about a transaction on the acceptance of the other; however, the responses were mediated by the gender and (to a lesser extent) religiosity of the respondent—in particular, women exposed to information about legalizing prostitution reduced their stated support for regulated organ payments. We relate these findings to prior research and discuss implications for public policy.
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Ransom as a repugnant transaction--the U.S. relaxes its position
The U.S. is revisiting laws and policies against paying ransom to pirates, terrorists and other hostage takers.
In New Hostage Policy, U.S. Will Not Prosecute Families for Paying Ransom
"After a six-month review that included discussions with families of people held overseas, the White House said the government will continue its longstanding policy of not making concessions to hostage-takers.
But it will no longer threaten families who decide to pay ransoms. The government may communicate with hostage-takers and intermediaries, and it may help families who are trying to pay ransom, the White House said."
**********
Obama Announces New Hostage Response, but No U.S. Ransoms
"The president reasserted the main plank of U.S. policy that, unlike some allies, the government would not make concessions or pay ransom to hostage takers, saying this would enrich the militants and encourage further abductions.
However, he set out a more cooperative policy in which the government would work with the families, and said a special presidential envoy would be appointed to coordinate the efforts of law enforcement and diplomats.
Government officials would now be allowed to communicate and negotiate with hostage takers.
The new approach was drawn up over six months after complaints by families that their initiatives to free relatives had been discouraged and sometimes blocked by officials who threatened legal action if they raised a ransom privately.
He said - as did a separate statement from the Justice Department - that such threats should never happen again, and that no American had been prosecuted for paying a ransom.
The new approach, set out in a presidential directive, allowed "communication with hostage takers by our government, the families of hostages or third parties who help these families," Obama said."
**********
Kidnapped Missionary Was Freed as U.S. Tested Hostage Policy Shift - Family
"The family of a U.S missionary kidnapped in Nigeria earlier this year said on Thursday it paid a ransom to secure her release in March while receiving around-the-clock guidance from federal agents under a newly changed hostage-response policy."
In New Hostage Policy, U.S. Will Not Prosecute Families for Paying Ransom
"After a six-month review that included discussions with families of people held overseas, the White House said the government will continue its longstanding policy of not making concessions to hostage-takers.
But it will no longer threaten families who decide to pay ransoms. The government may communicate with hostage-takers and intermediaries, and it may help families who are trying to pay ransom, the White House said."
**********
Obama Announces New Hostage Response, but No U.S. Ransoms
"The president reasserted the main plank of U.S. policy that, unlike some allies, the government would not make concessions or pay ransom to hostage takers, saying this would enrich the militants and encourage further abductions.
However, he set out a more cooperative policy in which the government would work with the families, and said a special presidential envoy would be appointed to coordinate the efforts of law enforcement and diplomats.
Government officials would now be allowed to communicate and negotiate with hostage takers.
The new approach was drawn up over six months after complaints by families that their initiatives to free relatives had been discouraged and sometimes blocked by officials who threatened legal action if they raised a ransom privately.
He said - as did a separate statement from the Justice Department - that such threats should never happen again, and that no American had been prosecuted for paying a ransom.
The new approach, set out in a presidential directive, allowed "communication with hostage takers by our government, the families of hostages or third parties who help these families," Obama said."
**********
Kidnapped Missionary Was Freed as U.S. Tested Hostage Policy Shift - Family
"The family of a U.S missionary kidnapped in Nigeria earlier this year said on Thursday it paid a ransom to secure her release in March while receiving around-the-clock guidance from federal agents under a newly changed hostage-response policy."
Friday, June 26, 2015
An ancient repugnance crumbles: Same sex marriage is a right, in all 50 of the United States
Here's the NY Times headline: Same-Sex Marriage Is a Right, Supreme Court Rules, 5-4
"Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the 5 to 4 decision. He was joined by the court’s four more liberal justices."
We're all a little more equal today.
But the close vote means that understanding repugnant transactions--transactions that some people would like to engage in, and others wish to prevent--is important.
**********
Here's a graphic graphic from the Times, on the one-step-forward-two-steps-back progress of this latest civil right:
Gay Marriage State by State: From a Few States to the Whole Nation
************
Justice and Liberty are celebrating again...
"Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the 5 to 4 decision. He was joined by the court’s four more liberal justices."
We're all a little more equal today.
But the close vote means that understanding repugnant transactions--transactions that some people would like to engage in, and others wish to prevent--is important.
**********
Here's a graphic graphic from the Times, on the one-step-forward-two-steps-back progress of this latest civil right:
Gay Marriage State by State: From a Few States to the Whole Nation
Justice and Liberty are celebrating again...
School choice in Amsterdam goes to court over tie-breaking
Hessel Oosterbeek sends me this article in Dutch about the very current controversy playing out in Amsterdam over this year's school choice results:
Het beest in de Amsterdamse ouder is los,
which Google Translate renders as
The beast in Amsterdam's parent is loose
Some background to the current controversy can be found in a paper by Oosterbeek and his coauthors which was influential in the Amsterdam school choice design (which used student-proposing deferred acceptance with multiple tie-breaking):
"The performance of school assignment mechanisms in practice," by Monique de Haan, Pieter A. Gautier, Hessel Oosterbeek, and Bas van der Klaauw.
Abstract: "Theory points to a potential trade-off between two main school assignment mechanisms; Boston and Deferred Acceptance (DA). While DA is strategyproof and gives a stable matching, Boston might outperform DA in terms of ex-ante efficiency. We quantify the (dis)advantages of the mechanisms by using information about actual choices under Boston complemented with survey data eliciting students’ school preferences. We find that under Boston around 8% of the students apply to another school than their most-preferred school. We compare allocations resulting from Boston with DA with single tie-breaking (one central lottery; DA-STB) and multiple tie-breaking (separate lottery per school; DA-MTB). DA-STB places more students in their top-n schools, for any n, than Boston and results in higher average welfare. We find a trade-off between DA-STB and DA-MTB. DA-STB places more students in their single most-preferred school than DA-MTB, but fewer in their top-n, for n ≥ 2. Finally, students from disadvantaged backgrounds benefit most from a switch from Boston to any of the DA mechanisms"
The city of Amsterdam adopted multiple tie-breaking, with the consequence that some post-assignment trades now seem possible between students. And this is where the beast in Amsterdam's parents (some of whom are lawyers) has been loosed. Here's Google Translate again, on the news story:
"Moreover, there is a side effect that parents can not stomach: a class can sit next to each other two children who are both disappointed in the school they were assigned, whereas if they would swap, both overjoyed to be made with a spot on their favorite school. A child who is placed in a school where he really did not want it (tenth place on his preference list), through an exchange would nevertheless may still end up at No. 1. And yet you can not. There is, every year it again what in Amsterdam that the beast in the parent disconnect when it comes to the choice of school of the child.
...
"A father of a girl who wants to be very happy in music and dance, with a spot on the Geert Groot School, turned to Sprenkeling for an exchange. To facilitate this exchange, harnessed the lawyer with 32 other parents a lawsuit against the dome of high schools Osvo. The aim is to consider the new placement system this year as a test. Only next year should really not be exchanged. "
I understand from Hessel that a judge is expected to rule soon on whether families may exchange school places...
Het beest in de Amsterdamse ouder is los,
which Google Translate renders as
The beast in Amsterdam's parent is loose
Some background to the current controversy can be found in a paper by Oosterbeek and his coauthors which was influential in the Amsterdam school choice design (which used student-proposing deferred acceptance with multiple tie-breaking):
"The performance of school assignment mechanisms in practice," by Monique de Haan, Pieter A. Gautier, Hessel Oosterbeek, and Bas van der Klaauw.
Abstract: "Theory points to a potential trade-off between two main school assignment mechanisms; Boston and Deferred Acceptance (DA). While DA is strategyproof and gives a stable matching, Boston might outperform DA in terms of ex-ante efficiency. We quantify the (dis)advantages of the mechanisms by using information about actual choices under Boston complemented with survey data eliciting students’ school preferences. We find that under Boston around 8% of the students apply to another school than their most-preferred school. We compare allocations resulting from Boston with DA with single tie-breaking (one central lottery; DA-STB) and multiple tie-breaking (separate lottery per school; DA-MTB). DA-STB places more students in their top-n schools, for any n, than Boston and results in higher average welfare. We find a trade-off between DA-STB and DA-MTB. DA-STB places more students in their single most-preferred school than DA-MTB, but fewer in their top-n, for n ≥ 2. Finally, students from disadvantaged backgrounds benefit most from a switch from Boston to any of the DA mechanisms"
The city of Amsterdam adopted multiple tie-breaking, with the consequence that some post-assignment trades now seem possible between students. And this is where the beast in Amsterdam's parents (some of whom are lawyers) has been loosed. Here's Google Translate again, on the news story:
"Moreover, there is a side effect that parents can not stomach: a class can sit next to each other two children who are both disappointed in the school they were assigned, whereas if they would swap, both overjoyed to be made with a spot on their favorite school. A child who is placed in a school where he really did not want it (tenth place on his preference list), through an exchange would nevertheless may still end up at No. 1. And yet you can not. There is, every year it again what in Amsterdam that the beast in the parent disconnect when it comes to the choice of school of the child.
...
"A father of a girl who wants to be very happy in music and dance, with a spot on the Geert Groot School, turned to Sprenkeling for an exchange. To facilitate this exchange, harnessed the lawyer with 32 other parents a lawsuit against the dome of high schools Osvo. The aim is to consider the new placement system this year as a test. Only next year should really not be exchanged. "
I understand from Hessel that a judge is expected to rule soon on whether families may exchange school places...
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Unravelling of magnet school enrollment in Cincinnati: 16 days in a tent
Here's a story about a devoted dad in Cincinnati who slept outside of a school for 16 days, along with many other parents, to preserve his place in line for a kindergarten enrollment...
Waiting For Kindergarten
I slept outside for 16 days to enroll my son in Fairview-Clifton Elementary School
And some history:
"When there are more kids than spots in a popular school, how do you decide which kids get in?
CPS has tried to answer this question several times. In the 1990s, families enrolled in magnet programs via Super Saturday. CPS kept the enrollment locations (CPS schools) secret until the early morning on the last Saturday in January. After announcing the locations, lines formed quickly and schools accepted kids on a first-come, first-serve basis. Parents enlisted family and friends to patrol the city in cars so that the closest car could dash to the signup once revealed. Cars were manned in pairs, so that the passenger could get out and get in line without hunting for a parking spot. They communicated via pagers, walkie-talkies, and cellphones if they were lucky. There was more than a few fender benders in the process. Some families tried to guess the system, staking out schools for signs of “activity”, like building lights and cars.
Super Saturday ended sometime around 2000. For several years, parents enrolled their kids by taking a tour of the school and submitting a waiting list application up to 12 months before the first day of school. Your spot was not guaranteed however, and students were accepted partially on the basis of race and gender. Parents usually knew their result by December. Interestingly, this method was simple, straightforward and did not require waiting in line. However, due to demand from parents who wanted more control over their kids’ futures, as well as court decisions that outlawed the demographic basis of enrollment, CPS went to a first-come, first-serve enrollment around 2007. That first year, parents camped out in line for 24 hours.
To address the inherent unfairness in a totally first-come, first-serve enrollment method, CPS went to a hybrid system. Since 2011, 30% of open spots went to winners of a lottery system, with the rest still allocated via line. Families were eligible for the lottery only if their neighborhood school was underperforming."
HT: Pete Troyan
Waiting For Kindergarten
I slept outside for 16 days to enroll my son in Fairview-Clifton Elementary School
And some history:
"When there are more kids than spots in a popular school, how do you decide which kids get in?
CPS has tried to answer this question several times. In the 1990s, families enrolled in magnet programs via Super Saturday. CPS kept the enrollment locations (CPS schools) secret until the early morning on the last Saturday in January. After announcing the locations, lines formed quickly and schools accepted kids on a first-come, first-serve basis. Parents enlisted family and friends to patrol the city in cars so that the closest car could dash to the signup once revealed. Cars were manned in pairs, so that the passenger could get out and get in line without hunting for a parking spot. They communicated via pagers, walkie-talkies, and cellphones if they were lucky. There was more than a few fender benders in the process. Some families tried to guess the system, staking out schools for signs of “activity”, like building lights and cars.
Super Saturday ended sometime around 2000. For several years, parents enrolled their kids by taking a tour of the school and submitting a waiting list application up to 12 months before the first day of school. Your spot was not guaranteed however, and students were accepted partially on the basis of race and gender. Parents usually knew their result by December. Interestingly, this method was simple, straightforward and did not require waiting in line. However, due to demand from parents who wanted more control over their kids’ futures, as well as court decisions that outlawed the demographic basis of enrollment, CPS went to a first-come, first-serve enrollment around 2007. That first year, parents camped out in line for 24 hours.
To address the inherent unfairness in a totally first-come, first-serve enrollment method, CPS went to a hybrid system. Since 2011, 30% of open spots went to winners of a lottery system, with the rest still allocated via line. Families were eligible for the lottery only if their neighborhood school was underperforming."
HT: Pete Troyan
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