Stanford celebrates Ran Abramitzky's studies of immigration

 The Stanford Daily interviews Ran Abramitzky, on the occasion of his winning a Guggenheim fellowship:

Guggenheim fellow Ran Abramitzky sees the American Dream as an ‘intergenerational story’  By Angikar Ghosal

"TSD: Your research program combines economic history, big linked microdata and policy relevance. Where do you see the next frontier for this kind of long-run, data-driven immigration research?

RA: A key frontier is linking together large-scale datasets to follow individuals and families over time and across space.

Much of my work relies on linking millions of individuals across U.S. censuses to study mobility across generations. The next step is to connect these data to other sources — such as college records, administrative data, and historical archives — to better understand how specific institutions shape economic outcomes.

For example, we are digitizing and linking records for millions of college students and faculty from over 100 institutions and connecting them to census data to study how socioeconomic background shapes access to higher education and elite professions.

Another frontier is using new tools, including AI and large language models, to systematically analyze large bodies of text — such as congressional speeches — to better understand how policies and public narratives around immigration evolve over time.

TSD: Given the current political moment around immigration policy, what do you most wish the public understood from the historical evidence?

RA: A key lesson from the historical evidence is that immigrant mobility is a long-term, often intergenerational process.

Many immigrants initially work in manual or low-paying jobs and do not move quickly from poverty to prosperity. However, their children often experience substantial upward mobility despite a challenging start.

What I think is often missing in today’s policy debate is this long-term perspective. Discussions tend to focus on newly arrived immigrants and their short-run outcomes. But historically, much of the economic success of immigrant families has occurred in the next generation.

A more long-term view would recognize these patterns and the contributions of immigrants and their children, and could lead to policies that are more supportive of immigrant integration and opportunity." 

 

 

Moral Economics: a brief review in the Sunday Times ("fascinating and very different":)

 A column (on unemployment) in the Sunday Times by it's economics editor  David Smith, ends with a brief review of Moral Economics, as a postscript:

 PS
"A lot of economics books cross my desk, but a new one, by the Nobel prize-winning economist Alvin Roth, grabbed my attention. Called Moral Economics: What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work, to be published soon by Basic Books, it is not a title designed to send it racing off the shelves.

However, it starts in an arresting way with a story I had not heard before of another celebrated Nobel prize-winning behavioural economist, Daniel Kahneman, known to many for his bestselling book Thinking, Fast and Slow. Two years ago, he celebrated his 90th birthday with family in Paris before flying to Zurich and ending his life in an assisted suicide clinic. “Danny,” Roth recalls, “was still in relatively good health, but he wanted to avoid the prospect of a long, disabling decline.”

...

It is a fascinating and very different economics book, from which I may bring you more as I find it."

Thumbs-up pictures in Taiwan, and kidney notes

 Photographers in Taiwan often ask their subjects to raise their thumbs (see all our thumbs below), just as American photographers ask for smiles.  One of the hosts in our recent visit suggested that this custom may have become solidified during Covid, when everyone wore masks, so that smiles couldn't be seen.

 

 

 I came away from Taiwan thinking that kidney exchange (which is now legal there) does not seem to be occurring with any regularity. This is a missed opportunity so far, since Taiwan has a very high incidence of kidney failure and dialysis. And (like everywhere else) there's a dire shortage of transplants: around 8500 people are on the waiting list, but the total annual number of transplants is below 500.

 But there's certainly hope for the future: as the I Ching says,* the universe progresses persistently:) 

 

*"Heaven keeps moving forward vigorously" (天行健, tiān xíng jiàn) is a foundational tenet from the I Ching (Book of Changes), specifically the Daxiang Zhuan (Commentary on the Images) regarding the Qian (Creative) hexagram. It signifies that the universe is robust and unceasing in its operation, urging humans to model this by constantly striving for self-improvement and diligence"

 (A friend, seeing this photo, says "Whoa, super deep life lessons, and yummy snacks in the background...)

Night markets in Taiwan

Night markets in Taiwan are like open-air food courts in which each seller sells a single food preparation.

 

 

 

 

This last photo, of a selection of freshly made breads that look like brains, reminded me of the old joke about why economists' brains are so expensive per ounce.
 

Playing dirty on Polymarket--Insider trading on information, and on manipulation

Here are news reports on two kinds of insider trading on prediction markets: predicting what you are (or someone close to you is) going to do, or predicting a measurement you can control.

From the NYT:

Soldier Used Classified Information to Bet on Maduro’s Ouster, U.S. Says
Federal prosecutors say that Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke, who was involved in the operation to oust Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela, used the information to place bets on a prediction market. By Benjamin Weiser and Jonah E. Bromwich
 

"A U.S. Army special forces soldier who helped capture Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela has been charged with using classified information to bet on the mission on Polymarket, a prediction marketplace, federal authorities said on Thursday.

"The soldier, Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke, who was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, made more than $400,000 by betting on different outcomes related to Venezuela after learning of the operation, federal prosecutors and the F.B.I. said. "

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And from the WSJ: 

Unusual weather bets on Polymarket spur French investigation by Alexander Osipovich, Sam Schechner 

 "France’s national weather service is investigating irregularities at a monitoring station at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport after it reported anomalous temperature spikes. The spikes led to lucrative payoffs for some traders on Polymarket, the crypto-based betting platform.

...

"Every day, Polymarket lists contracts that allow its users to bet on the maximum temperature in dozens of cities worldwide. Its Paris contract is based on the reading at Charles de Gaulle airport, as reported by Weather Underground, an online weather data provider.

"On April 15, the temperature in Paris had reached 18 degrees Celsius in the afternoon and was cooling down in the evening when the airport gauge showed a brief, unexplained jump, hitting 22 degrees Celsius at 9:30 p.m. local time, Weather Underground data shows. Other nearby weather stations didn’t show a similar spike. 

"Just before the anomaly, xX25Xx placed cheap, long-shot bets on Polymarket that the maximum temperature in Paris that day wouldn’t be 18 degrees Celsius, when other bettors were more than 99% sure that the day’s top temperature would remain at that level.

"The airport weather station also registered a temperature spike around 7 p.m. on April 6. That day, a Polymarket account with username “Hoaqin” made nearly $14,000 in profit by betting that Paris temperatures would peak at 21 degrees Celsius, Polymarket data shows. Temperatures at Charles de Gaulle had been hovering at around 18 degrees in the late afternoon, according to Weather Underground data. 

... 

"In March, an Israeli journalist said he had received death threats from Polymarket bettors demanding that he revise his article about an Iranian missile strike on March 10. The details of his article were used to settle bets on whether Iran had carried out a missile, drone or airstrike that day.

"Soon after the incident, Polymarket explicitly prohibited insider trading and market manipulation on its international platform for the first time. The amended rules state that Polymarket users can’t trade contracts where they can influence the outcome of the underlying event.

"A similar prohibition is in place in regulated prediction markets such as Polymarket’s main competitor, Kalshi, as well as at Polymarket’s new U.S. platform. "

Organ donation after euthanasia in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, not only is it legal to receive medical aid in dying (MAID), but  a growing number of MAID patients are able to successfully achieve their desire to become deceased organ donors.

 From the American Journal of Transplantation:

 Wijbenga, N., Gan, C.T., Ruigrok, D., Berg, E.M., Hagenaars, J.A.M., Siregar, S., van der Kaaij, N.P., Mathot, B.J., van Pel, R., Seghers, L. and Manintveld, O.C., 2026. The Increasing Contribution of Organ Donation after Euthanasia to the Lung Transplantation Donor Pool in the Netherlands. American Journal of Transplantation. 

 "Abstract: The number of organ donation after euthanasia (ODE) procedures in the Netherlands has grown substantially, yet their contribution to the lung-donor pool remains unclear. There is no clinical consensus on how these potential ODE lung-donors should be assessed. We aimed to describe the total contribution of ODE to the lung-donor pool in the Netherlands and describe the assessment of potential ODE lung-donors.
We collected data from all ODE procedures performed between 2012-2024 in the Netherlands. We assessed the number of ODE-lungs offered, rejected, accepted, and transplanted, comparing characteristics of discarded and transplanted lungs.
Of 1166 lung-donor, 664(60%) were DCD donors of which 154(23%) were ODE lung-donors. The total proportion of donor lungs from ODE lung-donors acceptable to offer for lung transplantation was 117 of which 104 (89%) were transplanted. Evaluation prior to donation was highly variable, with medical history and chest CT most affecting acceptance decisions. Short-term outcomes were excellent, with 1-year survival of 84%.
Our findings indicate that ODE lung donors are increasingly important in the Netherlands, with high acceptance rates, despite highly variable evaluation methods. Standardizing the assessment of potential ODE lung donors could further improve acceptance rates and enhance the contribution of ODE to the lung-donor pool."

Moral Economics, on the Passion Struck podcast

In the run up to the May publication date, I've been interviewed on a variety of podcasts about my book Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work.  Here's one from the podcast Passion Struck: Nobel Laureate Alvin Roth: How Incentives Shape Your Life | EP 757

 

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Earlier:

Wednesday, April 22, 2026   Moral Economics, on the Armchair Expert podcast

Below is a one minute bit excerpted from the Armchair Expert interview, on why it's easy to buy drugs, but hard to hire a hitman: 

The Difference Between Hitmen and Dealers

 

Moral Economics, on the Armchair Expert podcast

At the Armchair Expert podcast, Dax Shepard interviewed me in anticipation of the May publication of my book Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work  

 

Here's the video (which was recorded last month at their studio in LA): 

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