Top Trading Cycle algorithms in School Choice

Here is some theory of top trading cycles, together with our experience from school choice in New Orleans.

And here:
Minimizing Justified Envy in School Choice:The Design of New Orleans’ OneApp

Atila Abdulkadiroglu, Yeon-Koo Che, Parag A. Pathak,Alvin E. Roth, and Olivier Tercieux

March 2017

Abstract: In 2012, New Orleans Recovery School District (RSD) became the first U.S. district to unify charter and traditional public school admissions in a single-offer assignment mechanism known as OneApp.  The RSD also became the first district to use a mechanism based on TopTrading Cycles (TTC) in a real-life allocation problem.  Since TTC was originally devised for settings in which agents have endowments, there is no formal rationale for TTC in school choice.  In particular,  TTC is a Pareto efficient and strategy-proof mechanism,  but so are other mechanisms.  We show that TTC is constrained-optimal in the following sense:  TTC minimizes  justified  envy  among  all  Pareto  efficient  and  strategy-proof  mechanisms  when each school has one seat.  When schools have more than one seat, there are multiple possible implementations of TTC. Data from New Orleans and Boston indicate that there is little difference across these versions of TTC, but significantly less justified envy compared to a serial dictatorship

Interview in La Vanguardia

When I was in Barcelona I was interviewed by Lluis Amiguet for La Vanguardia:

Alvin Roth, premio Nobel de Economía, presidente de la Asociación Americana de Economía
"¿Edad? Ser viejo es estupendo si consideras la alternativa. He diseñado métodos de emparejar donantes y receptores de riñón y de que cada niño encuentre escuela en Nueva York y Boston. Soy flamante académico de la Racef, ahora en el Instituto de España, y asesoro a la Barcelona GSE"

The photo is by Kim Manresa:

Julio Rotemberg (1953-2017)

An email from Nitin Nohria at HBS brings the sad news that Julio Rotemberg passed away this weekend after his long struggle with cancer.

In January I had the privilege of welcoming him as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. The citation ended by noting that "he is among the preeminent macro- economists of his generation through his many research contributions and their influence on the policy community."

Here we were in Chicago, at the 2017 AEA/ASSA meetings, where he accepted the award.

Surrogacy (and transplantation) in Spain

The Director of Spain's National Transplant Organization has an article comparing transplants to surrogacy (presently illegal in Spain). He proposes that altruistic (unpaid) surrogacy be legalized in Spain, and makes a comparison with the current Spanish law allowing only unpaid kidney donation.

Trasplantes y gestación subrogada  (Transplants and gestational surrogacy).
RAFAEL MATESANZ
DIRECTOR DE LA ORGANIZACIÓN NACIONAL DE TRASPLANTES

Emanuel Vespa has kindly translated the critical paragraph as follows:

"Legislation guided by the Spanish transplant legislation, which is itself based on altruism and anonymity, would allow regulating a small portion of cases in which the surrogate is a family member of friend who is neither forced nor monetarily compensated. It may also be possible to recreate something akin to altruistic organ donation, where women who would offer themselves as surrogates would play the role of `good samaritans' in anonymous and altruistic fashion. It is admittedly hard to imagine, but not more difficult to conceive than people who donate a kidney in similar circumstances, and there are hundreds of such candidates."

The Central European University is worth defending from government pressure

The Central European University in Budapest is in danger of being forced to shut down.

World’s leading economists ask Hungary to withdraw anti-CEU legislation

"More than 150 prominent European and American economists, including Presidents of European Economic Associations and more than a dozen Nobel Prize Laureates, have signed an open letter asking Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government to withdraw legislation that would force Central European University to shut down in Budapest. "
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And here's a Statement of solidarity with Central European University, from their colleagues at the Center for Economic and Regional Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (CERS HAS).

Headlines that could have run on April 1

What was he thinking? Plane passenger stopped at Stansted with iPhone case shaped like a gun

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Pretender to France's non-existent throne embroiled in succession row 

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Icelandic president admits he does not have the legal authority to ban pineapple on pizza
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A Paid Hour a Week for Sex? Swedish Town Considers It

Barcelona Graduate School of Economics celebrates its 10th anniversary

The Barcelona Graduate School of Economics is 10!

There are a number of events and workshops.

The main celebration of this milestone will take place in Barcelona on March 31 and April 1, 2017.

FRIDAY, MARCH 31

Roundtable with members of the Barcelona GSE Scientific Council 
"The Practical Influence of Economic Research"

12:00, UPF Auditorium

Students, alumni, faculty, and friends are invited to attend this panel discussion with distinguished members of the Barcelona GSE Scientific Council:

• 
  
  Richard Blundell
  University College London
• 
  
  Matthew Jackson
  Stanford University
• 
  
  Anne Krueger
  Johns Hopkins University
• 
  
  Alvin Roth
  Stanford University
  NOBEL LAUREATE
• 
  
  Christopher Sims
  Princeton University
  NOBEL LAUREATE

Tribute and conversation with 2016 Nobel Laureates

Oliver Hart (Harvard University) and Bengt Holmström (MIT) are both members of the Barcelona GSE Scientific Council. There will be a brief tribute and conversation with Professors Hart and Holmström immediately following the roundtable.

• 
  
  Oliver Hart
  Harvard University
  NOBEL LAUREATE 2016
• 
  
  Bengt Holmström
  MIT
  NOBEL LAUREATE 2016

Barcelona GSE 10 years review

13:30, UPF Auditorium

• 
  
  Joaquín Almunia
  Honorary President of the Barcelona GSE
• 
  
  Ramon Marimon
  Chairman of the Board of Trustees
• 
  
  Andreu Mas-Colell
  Founder of the BGSE
• 
  
  Hugo Sonnenschein
  Honorary President of the BGSE Scientific Council

Lunch and Happy Birthday Barcelona GSE

14:00, outside UPF Auditorium

Research Workshops

16:00-17:30, UPF Building 40

Faculty, researchers, and Scientific Council members will participate in three concurrent research workshops:

Applied Economics Workshop (Room 40.008):

• Libertad González (UPF and BGSE) 
• Hannes Mueller (IAE-CSIC and BGSE)
• Marta Reynal-Querol (ICREA-UPF and BGSE)

Chair: Orley Ashenfelter (Princeton University and BGSE Scientific Council)

Macroeconomics Workshop (Room 40.010):

• Davide Debortoli (UPF and BGSE)
• Luca Gambetti (UAB and BGSE)
• Alberto Martin (CREI, UPF and BGSE)

Chair: Nancy Stokey (University of Chicago and BGSE Scientific Council)

Microeconomics Workshop (Room 40.012):

• José Apesteguía (ICREA-UPF and BGSE)
• Jordi Brandts (IAE-CSIC and BGSE)
• Pau Milán (UAB and BGSE)

Chair: Ariel Rubinstein (Tel Aviv University and BGSE Scientific Council)

Download the workshop program | Register to attend a workshop

Alumni Reunion and Network Activities

See the reunion page for details and registration.

SATURDAY, APRIL 1

Scientific Council Meeting

On Saturday, the Barcelona GSE Scientific Council Meeting will take place at the Institute for Economic Analysis (IAE-CSIC) at UAB Bellaterra Campus. 

Alumni Reunion and Network Activities

See the reunion page for details and registration.

---

Share your memories from the Barcelona GSE's first ten years: #BGSE10

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Here's a news story (courtesy of Google translate):
The center of the UPF and UAB, founded by Andreu Mas-Colell has trained 2,000 students from one hundred countries and ranks as one of the best economic research institutes in the world

BGSE 10th Anniversary celebration reunites more than 350 people who have shaped our first decade

Market design and kidney exchange at the Royal Academy of Economics and Finance in Barcelona

I'll speak at and become a foreign member of the Royal Academy of Economics and Finance (RACEF), in Barcelona this evening.

El Nobel de Economía Alvin Roth ingresa en la Real Academia de Ciencias Económicas y Financieras

Here's a recent article about RACEF, which is based in Barcelona, while the other Royal Spanish Academies are based in Madrid:
RACEF, la Academia con sede en Barcelona que ya cotiza en el Instituto de España
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And here's a photo (I'm the one in the blue shirt):

More photographs here.

Update: and here's a video, in English and Spanish.

Kidney exchange, in Spanish, from the BBC

Alvin Roth, el premio Nobel de economía que sin buscarlo acabó salvando miles de vidas, Redacción BBC Mundo 14 marzo 2017

G translate (from the text): "According to data the BBC Department of Blood and Transplants gave to BBC Mundo, in 2015, 123 chain transplants were made out of a total of 1025 live kidney donations.
In Spain , a world leader in organ transplantation, the first cross-transplant was also performed for the first time in 2009. In 2015 , 125 patients received a kidney with this system ."

I speak about school choice at The Economic Club of Indiana

I'll speak in Indianapolis about Market Design and Unified Enrollment School Choice.

Dr. Alvin Roth, Stanford University and Nobel Prize in Economics

Date:  March 28, 2017

Time:  12:00 pm

Location: Indiana Convention Center

 

Known for his emphasis on applying economic theory to solution for “real-world” problems, Dr. Alvin Roth serves as the Craig and Susan McCaw professor of economics at Stanford University and the Gund professor of economics and business administration emeritus at Harvard University. Roth has made many significant contributions to the fields of game theory, market design and experimental economics. In 2012, Roth won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences jointly with Lloyd Shapley “for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design.” Roth is a graduate of Columbia University and Stanford University
.

Columbia U. Economic Theory Workshop today: Stable matching in centralized and decentralized markets

I'll speak at Columbia today, partly on a paper with Qingyun Wu, and partly on the larger question of why stable matching mechanisms seem to be very important for centralized clearinghouses, but may provide less insight into how decentralized markets resolve themselves.

"Stable matching in centralized and decentralized markets"

MAR

27

Monday

FINANCE AND ECONOMICS: ECONOMIC THEORY WORKSHOP

Al Roth (Stanford) 

2:30 - 3:45  |  INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS BUILDING 1101

Blasphemy as a repugnant transaction in Pakistan

The Guardian has the latest:
Pakistan asks Facebook and Twitter to help identify blasphemers
Companies approached in effort to locate Pakistanis at home or abroad so they can be prosecuted or potentially extradited

"Under the country’s strict blasphemy laws, anyone found to have insulted Islam or the prophet Muhammad can be sentenced to death.

The interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, said an official in Pakistan’s Washington embassy had approached the two social media companies in an effort to identify Pakistanis, either within the country or abroad, who recently shared material deemed offensive to Islam.

He said Pakistani authorities had identified 11 people for questioning over alleged blasphemy and would seek the extradition of anyone living abroad.

Facebook said it reviews all government requests carefully, “with the goal of protecting the privacy and rights of our users”."

Kidney donation in Tennessee

Here's a story from the Tennessee Tribune, about Dr. Clarence Foster, an African-American transplant surgeon, who is trying to raise awareness among minority patients.

Minorities Wait for Kidney Transplants

"In 2016, 226 African American Tennesseans received a kidney transplant compared to 222 white and ten Hispanics, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The numbers are almost identical for 2015.

But, the list for Tennessee residents who need kidney transplant is far longer. Last year, 1, 283 African Americans, 1,166 Whites, 63 Hispanics and 29 Asians, 9 Native American and 29 Multi-Racial people waited for kidney transplants.

Jill Grandas confirmed that the numbers of African Americans waiting for a kidney are almost equal to white patients.

“Among patients in Tennessee waiting for a kidney, about 50 percent are African Americans and they are transplanted at almost the same rate – 48 percent of the patients who received a kidney were African American.”

However, in Tennessee, the number of African American kidney donors is far less than the need. Last year, 211 kidneys were donated by white donors, 43 by black donors, 11 by Hispanic donors and 2 Asian donors and these were from deceased donors.  Among living donors (usually a close family member) there were 55 white donors, 7 black, one Hispanic and one Asian.

“Among, 2,107,231 on the ‘Donate Life Tennessee Organ and Tissue Donor Registry,’ 9.2 percent are African Americans,” said Grandas.

“Our rate of donation from African Americans is much less than from other races. We would assume that if more African Americans would donate, more African American patients would receive an organ from an African American donor.”

“African Americans can safely be a living donor.  We need to overcome the mistrust between the community and the medical profession,” said Dr. Foster."

Bob Wilson and Game Theory: two very short videos

In connection with Bob Wilson's 2017 CME Group-MSRI prize, here's a short (2 minute)video in which Roger Myerson, Phil Reny, Bob Wilson, David Eisenbud, and I respond to the question "What is game theory?"  (Phil also remarks on what role it has played in his long happy marriage...)

And there's another short video (which I couldn't embed), talking about Bob Wilson, at this link to the CME prize page (scroll down til you see the game theory video, it's right next to it):
Robert Wilson Awarded the 2016 CME Group-MSRI Prize in Innovative Quantitative Applications

Match Day and the medical match as an economic game by Moblab

Not only is the medical Match important for doctors, now there's an in-class game from Moblab which econ instructors can use to introduce matching. Here's a post about it:

A Personal Note on Match Day and our KR Matching Game.
17 Mar 2017/ by Doug Norton 

Germany en route to annul historical convictions of gay men

Deutsche Welle has the story:
Germany set to annul historical convictions of gay men

"German men convicted on the basis of a 19th century law criminalizing homosexuality now have a chance at getting late justice in the wake of an expert study commissioned by the Anti-Discrimination Agency.

Their supposed crime was the same during the Nazi era as it was in the federal republic founded in 1949: They loved other men and had homosexual sex.

Those who were caught engaging in homosexual acts or who were denounced as homosexuals were spared no mercy by the state. The law containing the infamous Paragraph 175 outlawing sexual relations between men dates back to the 19th century, but it was applied especially zealously under Nazi rule. The law remained intact even after 1945. Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969, but Paragraph 175 was not abolished until 1994.

By that time, more than 50,000 men had been convicted for being gay, something that "violated the very core of their human dignity," said Christine Lüders, the head of the government's Anti-Discrimination Authority, in Berlin on Wednesday. At her side was Martin Burgi of the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. The legal expert has compiled a study on the rehabilitation of homosexuals convicted under the law. He's confident it can be done, saying there's no legal barrier to rehabilitating the men.

...

"For laypeople, it's hard to understand why men convicted under Paragraph 175 by the Nazis have been rehabilitated since 2002, while verdicts handed down in the post-war era are still being upheld. The logic is as appalling as it is banal: The Nazi dictatorship was declared an unjust state; the Federal Republic of Germany, on the other hand, is based on democratic principles. That means the men who had the misfortune to be found guilty of homosexuality in the post-war era still have criminal records.

But Burgi says that "collective rehabilitation" of those affected by the law can be achieved with the help of social and democratic principles."

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Here's the Associated Press story from ABC: German Cabinet OKs plan to annul homosexuality convictions

"Germany's Cabinet on Wednesday approved a bill that would annul the convictions of thousands of gay men under a law criminalizing homosexuality that was applied zealously in post-World War II West Germany.

The decision also clears the way for compensation for those still alive who were convicted under the so-called Paragraph 175 outlawing sexual relations between men.

The legislation was introduced in the 19th century, toughened under Nazi rule and retained in that form by West Germany, which convicted some 50,000 men between 1949 and 1969.

Homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969 but the legislation wasn't taken off the books entirely until 1994.

The bill approved Wednesday by Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet of conservatives and center-left Social Democrats still requires parliamentary approval. "
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This echoes recent events in England: see my earlier post on that

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Turing's law: UK posthumously pardons thousands of gay men

Unmarried sex is a crime in Abu Dhabi

The Telegraph has the story:
Expat couple arrested in Abu Dhabi for sex outside of marriage

"An expatriate couple have been detained in Abu Dhabi for almost six weeks after being arrested for having sex outside of marriage.

South African Emlyn Culverwell, 29, took his 27-year-old Ukrainian fiancée, Iryna Nohai, to a medical centre in the UAE city after she developed stomach cramps.

The doctor said she was pregnant and informed authorities after they could not provide marriage certificates. They were first brought to Yas Police Station, before being moved to Al Wathba Prison."   

Matching shipping containers to shippers

A matching problem that John Vande Vate is thinking about has to do with the large number of shipping containers that travel empty to their next destination after being unloaded. "Street turns" would match them to shipments near their previous destination.

Here's his report on the considerable upside to improved matching:
e‐Street‐Turns:TheEasyStreettoGreen

Congestion in SF public school choice

One thing that computerized school choice is supposed to do is reduce congestion that sometimes stops school districts from matching students to schools in a timely way. San Francisco has a computerized system, but they are nevertheless running into congestion this year. SFGate has the story:
High anxiety as SF public school assignments run late, By Nanette Asimov

"A school district glitch has parents biting their nails in San Francisco this week.
Thousands of dollars are on the line for families that are prepared to lay out hefty deposits for private schools by this week’s deadlines — but hope they won’t have to if they can get into a public school of their choice.
The trouble is, the San Francisco Unified School District may not be able to tell them about their public school options, from elementary through high school, before private-school down payments are due Wednesday through Friday. The district missed its March 17 deadline for sending out school-assignment letters because of “unforeseen staffing emergencies,” said spokeswoman Gentle Blythe.
“We have people who haven’t slept in days” trying to make sure that 83,000 school options for 14,000 students are all correct, Blythe said, adding that she can’t reveal more about the problem because of employee confidentiality.
...
"The deadline for private high school deposits is Wednesday at noon for parents applying for financial aid and Friday at noon for those paying full price. Private elementary and middle schools have a Thursday deadline. And although most private schools coordinated their deposit due dates with the public school district this year, the district’s glitch has thrown the careful planning into disarray."
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Update: SF school-assignment letters to be mailed out Monday night  By Nanette Asimov Updated 4:19 pm, Monday, March 20, 2017

"The San Francisco district sends out public-school assignments by U.S. mail because “the letters provide the documentation families need to register at school sites and serves to further verify their address,” spokeswoman Gentle Blythe said.
However, parents facing an imminent private-school deadline who haven’t gotten a letter by Tuesday can email enrollinschool@sfusd.edu.
“We will do what we can to help you after March 21,” says a notice on the district’s website."

A 5 pair internal kidney exchange at Ohio State

US News and World Report has the story
A five-way kidney exchange was successfully completed at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center.

"Rimmer and DeVoe were part of a five-way kidney exchange at Ohio State on Tuesday. All five recipients had a family member or friend willing to donate to them, but each was incompatible.
...
"More than 98,000 people in the United States, including about 2,200 in Ohio, are waiting for kidneys. Ohio State was the site of 209 kidney transplants in 2016, and roughly 40 percent were from living donors. A goal is to boost both numbers, said Washburn, who operated on two of the recipients, including Rimmer.

The five-way kidney exchange is the second largest of such procedures performed solely at Ohio State. Most such "internal" exchanges are smaller, but the university's largest, in 2011, involved 12 patients and six transplants. This week's exchange initially included 16 people, but one person was not well, so three pairs had to drop out.

Since 2010, 60 kidney transplants have been performed at Ohio State through similar internal exchange groups. Surgeons there also perform about 10 transplants annually through "external" exchanges that involve other hospitals."