Neale Mahoney interviews me abut Moral Economics on Econ to Go

 Neale Mahoney interviews me on Econ to go (with a transcript of our half hour conversation).

 "Neale Mahoney: Markets are often treated like natural objects, things that simply exist. But economist Al Roth sees them differently. To him, markets are human inventions, systems we design, shape, and sometimes struggle to agree on. Because when money and morality collide, things can get complicated. Who should be allowed to buy and sell? What should they be allowed to transact? and what happens when people want to trade things that others find morally unacceptable.

Alvin Roth: I think that one of the things we need to do is experiment on what we're morally obliged to do and reflect on it in connection with what we're actually able to do. 

Neale Mahoney: I'm Neale Mahoney, Economist and Director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. On this episode of "Econ To Go," I catch up with Stanford Economist and Nobel Laureate Al Roth over coffee on campus. We talk about what he calls moral economics, the study of markets where society struggles to agree on what should be bought and sold. From kidney exchange to commercial surrogacy, from prostitution laws to the surprising economics of matchmaking, Al shows us that markets don't just allocate goods. They also reflect our values. You've said that markets and marketplaces are human artifacts. They are not just features of the natural environment. Why is that a good starting place when we think about the study of economics?

Alvin Roth: Well, for a long time, economists sort of thought that markets were things that we just had to take as given. You know, we speak of economists thinking of people as price takers, but in fact, they also thought of us as market takers. There are these markets. But of course, markets are human artifacts. To a great extent they're collective human artifacts, but marketplaces are often artifacts of individual companies or designers, or small groups of participants who modify the marketplace to fit their needs over time, just in the way that Uber is a marketplace designed by the company Uber. But I think there's a good analogy, which is that languages are also human artifacts, and they're collective human artifacts. You and I can speak to each other in English because we both learned English in a conventional way, but there are lots of words in our English that weren't in the language 100 years ago, words like computer and internet and AI. So, we're constantly modifying the language to better suit our needs."

Here is the whole half hour interview on YouTube:

 

There's also a Stanford news story:

Sex, drugs & surrogacy: When morality and markets clash
Stanford’s Alvin Roth won the Nobel Prize for improving how markets work. In a new book, he introduces a new way of thinking about society’s most controversial transactions, from sex work to drugs to assisted dying.  byKrysten Crawford
 

WHO reports on the global growth of nicotine pouches

 The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a report written by Robert K. Jackler, Divya Ramamurthi and Cindy Chau (Stanford Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising), and Ranti Fayokun (Tobacco Free Initiative, Department of Health Determinants, Promotion and Prevention, WHO).

Exposing marketing tactics and strategies driving the global growth of nicotine pouches 

 

"Key messages of the report are:
• The global market for nicotine pouches is growing rapidly.
• Nicotine pouches can be highly addictive; furthermore, some have high concentrations of nicotine, and some increase the speed and intensity of nicotine delivery (e.g. “pearls technology”).
• Labelling of nicotine content is not standardized and can be confusing and misleading.
• Some nicotine pouch packaging mimics popular candy products and contain high nicotine levels. If they are ingested by children, they can pose a lethal risk.
• Nicotine pouches often contain various youth-appealing flavours (e.g. sweet, fruity, mint/menthol), such as Cherry Punch and Frosted Apple, and candy-like flavours (e.g. “bubble gum” and “gummy bears”), which are particularly attractive to children.
The flavours of numerous alcoholic drinks are also used, marketed as “After dark”.
• Nicotine pouches often promote high-intensity nicotine and flavours with slogans such as “nicotine like never before” and visual depictions of the user experiencing a cooling effect.

• Nicotine pouches are aggressively marketed and promoted to young people.
– They are heavily advertised on youth-frequented social and digital media platforms, including through influencers.
– They are frequently promoted with youthful themes, including fun times with friends, romance and sports.
– They are often promoted for “discreet” or stealthy use, making it difficult to detect by parents or teachers, and as a way of breaking the rules.
– Manufacturers of nicotine pouches commonly sponsor youth-oriented events, where nicotine pouches and branded merchandise are distributed by attractive, young “brand ambassadors”.
• Nicotine pouch advertisements often use the tobacco industry’s “playbook” for marketing conventional tobacco products, such as cigarettes, including:
– “lifestyle marketing” and “identity marketing”, the message sometimes portraying how a consumer wishes to be perceived by others;
– depictions of nicotine pouches as “modern” and “high-tech”; and
– portrayal of nicotine pouches as boosting energy when the user is tired and helping the user to relax when stressed. Marketers call this “elasticity of meaning”, depicting the product as something that works for everyone in any situation.
• Nicotine pouch manufacturers market and associate their brands with holidays (e.g. Christmas) and cultural symbols (e.g. patriotism) to evoke happy times and celebrations.
• Messaging in nicotine pouch advertisements can appear contradictory, expressing opposing views; however, this is carefully crafted and tailored to different target groups, such as:
– co-marketing of a nicotine pouch brand with promotion of a flagship cigarette (or other tobacco) brand, while also marketing of nicotine pouches and conveying anti-cigarette messaging (e.g. “goodbye smoke smell”).
• Nicotine pouches are marketed with unsubstantiated claims that they aid smoking cessation and/or in ways that undermine quit attempts.
• Nicotine pouches are often promoted as a product for “Anytime, Anywhere”, with images of places in which smoking is not allowed. This marketing tactic can encourage dual use, hinder cessation attempts and undermine regulations prohibiting smoking or use of other tobacco and related products in public places.
• There is insufficient national action, whereby nicotine pouches commonly fall through regulatory gaps and thus either un- or lightly regulated.
• WHO calls for a comprehensive approach to tobacco control, covering the full spectrum of tobacco and related products, including nicotine pouches, and closing regulatory loopholes. "

Kidneys and Moral Economics in the Financial Times

I spoke about economics with Keynes (Soumaya) in the FT:

Nobel laureate Al Roth and the economics of organ sales  
 "The economist Alvin Roth been talking about kidneys since at least 2003, noting time and again that kidneys are in short supply, waiting lists are growing longer, and people are dying as a result.
 

"So why is Roth — who appears on this week’s episode of the Economics Show podcast — still banging on about kidneys? Well, because all of those things are still getting worse."

Here is the podcast:

FT Podcast  The Economics Show with Soumaya Keynes. Should economics have fewer taboos? With Alvin Roth.   The Nobel laureate on the lines society draws around what can be bought and sold  

and here is the transcript:

Transcript: Should economics have fewer taboos? With Alvin Roth
Soumaya Keynes speaks to Alvin Roth, Nobel laureate and author of ‘Moral Economics’

"    Soumaya Keynes
So we always start this show with a silly question. So, on a scale of one to 10, how relaxed are you about marketisation? So 10, you’re extremely relaxed about having transactions in literally anything, and maybe five is the average person.

Alvin Roth
So I’m probably a 7.5, maybe 7.52."
 
 

 

College admissions is a game of strategy, on both sides (from early admissions to waitlists)

 More colleges are admitting more students from early admissions/early decision applications, and fewer students from their waitlists.

The  WSJ has those stories.

Starting from the end, waitlists:

 The Only Thing Harder Than Getting Into College Is Getting Off the Wait List.   College wait lists have ballooned to give schools options; ‘Why continue stringing me on?’ By Roshan Fernandez

 "The University of California, Berkeley had almost 6,500 students on its wait list last year. It ended up admitting none of them.

"The only thing harder than getting into college, it seems, is getting off the wait list. At some schools, the wait list is far more selective than the college’s overall acceptance rate. 

...

"For colleges, it’s harder than ever to predict who will enroll because students are applying to more schools. Colleges have always used wait lists to manage enrollment, but the lists have ballooned in recent years. It’s part of many colleges’ elaborate cat-and-mouse game to manage yield, or the share of admitted students who enroll. And wait lists have turned increasingly unruly, with fewer standard protocols than traditional admissions.

 

###########

And before the waitlists come the early applications: 

The College-Admissions Chess Game Is More Complicated Than Ever
Students have to submit final decisions Friday after a byzantine cycle
By   Roshan Fernandez
 

"Many schools are leaning in to early application windows, filling more of their classes through early rounds. At Tulane University in New Orleans, about two-thirds of admissions offers to the Class of 2030 were extended via nonbinding early action, a spokesperson said. The school has also offered early decision since 2016.

"At some schools, early-round acceptance rates are three to four times higher than the regular round, which is why many admissions consultants suggest applying early. Colleges say this reflects a higher-quality applicant pool. 

...

"The moves come on top of a long-practiced yield-protection tactic: rejecting or wait listing applicants who seem overqualified and therefore unlikely to enroll." 

 

Moral Economics: video of the AEI book event (you can listen to me read from the book)

 You can watch the AEI book event (and hear me read the first paragraph of the book, and chat about it for about 20 minutes) followed by discussion by Alex Tabarrok, Judd Kessler and Nick Gillespie, and Q&A, all introduced an moderated by Sally Satel.

Here’s a picture taken by Peter Jaworski  

And here we are on Youtube (this was originally a live stream):

https://www.youtube.com/live/-TL4nlCpZEc 

 

The Organ Donation Dilemma: Ethics, Economics, and Life-Saving Solutions: Debate at Hopkins, today

Today's debate at Hopkins aims to focus on the proposed End Kidney Deaths Act.

 The Organ Donation Dilemma: Ethics, Economics, and Life-Saving Solutions
May 15, 2026 09:00 AM 
 

"With organ shortages claiming thousands of lives annually, this session explores whether carefully designed market mechanisms can increase donation rates while maintaining ethical standards and preventing exploitation.

Panelists:
-    Alexander Capron, USC Law/Bioethics  https://gould.usc.edu/faculty/profile/alexander-capron/ 

-    (TBC) Gabriel Danovitch, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, https://www.uclahealth.org/providers/gabriel-danovitch 

-    Kimberly Krawiec, UVA Law, https://www.law.virginia.edu/faculty/profile/kdk4q/1181653 

-    Elaine Perlman, President, Coalition to Modify NOTA and Executive Director, Waitlist Zero https://elaineperlman.com/ 

Moderator: 
-    Mario Macis, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and HBHI https://mariomacis.net/index.html 

 

End Kidney Deaths Act summary /sites/default/files/2026-05/The%20End%20Kidney%20Deaths%20Act%20Summary.pdf

 

The list of 50+ supportive organizations, the legislative text, the podcast with Kim and Elaine and the Niskanen Center's economic analysis of the End Kidney Deaths Act 

Moral Economics: A Book Event at the American Enterprise Institute, May 14 (You're invited, IRL or watch remotely)

Moral Economics: A Book Event  with Sally Satel
Thursday, May 14, 2026 | 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM ET
AEI, Auditorium | 1789 Massachusetts Ave. NW | Washington, DC 20036

You can RSVP at the above link.

Event Contact: Jillian Holley | Jillian.Holley@aei.org
Media: MediaServices@aei.org | 202.862.5829


Agenda
4:15 p.m.
Registration Opens

4:30 p.m.
Opening Remarks:
Sally Satel, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

4:40 p.m.
Presentation:
Alvin E. Roth, Professor, Stanford University

5:00 p.m.
Panel Discussion

Panelists:
Nick Gillespie, Editor at Large, Reason
Judd Kessler, Professor, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Alex Tabarrok, Professor, George Mason University

Moderator:
Sally Satel, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

5:45 p.m.
Q&A

6:00 p.m.
Adjournment 

"What should the government ban, and why? Questions surrounding the legal status of prostitution, marijuana use, abortion, euthanasia, and more are typically answered in the language of morality or religion. In his new book, Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences winner Alvin E. Roth contends that we should judge policies by their consequences, not only by their intentions. A panel of economists and cultural commentators will address Dr. Roth’s arguments.

Submit questions to Jillian.Holley@AEI.org.
If you are unable to attend in person, a video livestream will be made available on this page.

Related Content

Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work
Alvin E. Roth | Basic Venture | May 12, 2026"

Moral Economics: A Book Event live video