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 

 

Moral Economics: three podcasts, with Lawrence Krauss, Yascha Mounk, Sean Carroll

Some of the podcasts I participated in have or will come out this week, to mark the official publication of Moral Economics in the U.S. Here are those I became aware of yesterday.  I suppose you could binge on them if you want (or sample them, or even buy the book and read it or listen to it yourself:)

Below, on YouTube is the podcast with Lawrence Krauss that was recast after being lost. (It's also on substack.)

  

 "Alvin Roth is a Nobel Prizewinning Economist whose work on designing markets has had real world impacts that may have saved thousands of lives around the world, while arousing strong emotions both for and against the programs he has helped put in place.  Clearly not one to shy away from controversy, he represents the best of what The Origins Project is trying to promote: applying science and reason to public policy.   In short, connecting science and culture!

"Roth’s new book, which is fantastic, and comes out the same day this podcast is released deals with issues that often raise the public’s ire, from legalizing prostitution, to assisted suicide, and finally to a rational market for kidney transplants..."

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Here's my conversation with Yascha Mounk (there's also a transcript accompanying his podcast The Good Fight, at the link):

Al Roth on Why People Should Be Free to Sell Their Kidneys
Yascha Mounk and Al Roth discuss what we miss when we separate economics from human emotion. 

"In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Al Roth discuss the impact of moral disgust on solving economic problems, whether we should allow financial payments for organ donation, and what the rise of OnlyFans tells us about changing attitudes towards the self and economic transactions. 

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And here's my conversation with Sean Carroll on his Mindscape podcast (with transcript):

Alvin Roth on the Economics of Morally Contested Markets 

 

 

Moral Economics: How to buy a copy at a bookstore

 It's publication day for Moral Economics, so I think my involvement in bookselling has probably reached it's peak.  You can buy it IRL now, at American bookstores, and my English publisher notes that you can still pre-order it there at a discount from independent bookstores (see below).

 Here's a snapshot taken at a Barnes and Noble in New York City on publication day May 12.

Moral Economics: New and Notable at Barnes and Nobel

 And here's a message from my publisher in England, where the book will come out in real life only later this month.

"May Pre-Order Offer 2026

We’re delighted to include your forthcoming book in our May Pre-Order Offer, for a limited time, readers will be able to pre-order your book and save 20%. With this offer, we’re aiming to drive extra sales supporting indie bookshops ahead of publication day.

How to get involved
Please share a Bookshop.org link to your book between 13-17th May.

Pre-order a copy of my book from Bookshop.org between 13-17 May and save 20% with the code: PREORDER20 Every sale supports real independent bookshops across the UK!"

 

 

 

Felix Salmon, at Bloomberg, reviews Moral Economics

  Felix Salmon, at Bloomberg, reviews Moral Economics, which starting today is now sold in stores (at least in the U.S.):

An Economist’s Case for Selling a Kidney.  In a new book, Nobel laureate Alvin Roth argues that decriminalizing taboo markets can save lives.  

He tells this story from the book:

"Roth gave a talk in 2017 at the Organ Donation Congress in Geneva about one such chain that started in 2015. A woman from the Philippines, known in the literature as FW, was willing to give up one of her kidneys to save the life of her husband, FM. The two flew to the US, where FM received a kidney from an altruistic donor in Georgia, and FW’s kidney was transplanted into a man in Minnesota. A friend of the Minnesota man, who had been willing to give up one of her kidneys to save his life, instead gave one to a man in Washington, whose father-in-law gave a kidney to a woman in Georgia, and so on. By the end of the year there had been 11 successful transplants, and the chain was still continuing.

" After his talk, Roth was confronted by a Spanish doctor who was deeply concerned about the potentially problematic implications of the economic inequality between the Philippines and the US. Roth pointed out that without the transplant, the patient would surely have died. Replied the Spanish nephrologist: “He should be dead!” Spain’s National Transplant Organization later denounced Roth as an organ trafficker.

"Roth tells this story in his most recent book, Moral Economics (Basic Venture, May 12), which, at least in part, is an attempt to apply the empiricism of economics to domains that are often resistant to such analysis. The opposition to the 2015 kidney chain, for instance, comes from nephrologists who have no problem with chains but who draw the line at international chains, or at least chains linking poor and rich countries."

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Much of the objection to cross-border kidney exchange appears to be fading, some of it was based on the idea that countries should be self-sufficient in transplants.

See earlier posts:

Friday, January 9, 2026  WHO Says Countries Should Be Self-Sufficient In (Unremunerated) Organs And Blood by Krawiec and Roth (now open source)

 

Friday, September 11, 2020  Global Kidney Exchange supported by the European Society of Transplantation's committee on Ethical, Legal, and Psychosocial Aspects of Transplantation .

Roth and Fisman at Cambridge Public Library, discussing Moral Economics: THIS Evening

 Alvin E. Roth at the Cambridge Public Library   Monday, May 11 at 6 pm 

 

 

presenting Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Alvin E. Roth—Nobel Prize–⁠winning economist, the Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University, and the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard University—for a discussion of his new book, Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work. He will be joined in conversation by Ray Fisman—who holds the Slater Family Chair in Behavioral Economics at Boston University.

Ticketing

RSVP for free to this event or choose the "Book-Included" ticket to reserve a copy of Moral Economics and pick it up at the event. Following the presentation will be a book signing.

Note: Books bundled with tickets may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand. Ticket holders who purchased a book-included ticket and are unable to attend the event will be able to pick up their book at Harvard Book Store up to 30 days following the event. This offer expires after 30 days. Please note we cannot guarantee signed copies will be available to ticket holders who do not attend the event.

About Moral Economics

A Nobel Prize–⁠winning economist shows us why we have to deal in trade-offs when we can’t agree on what’s right and what’s wrong.

Some of the most intractable controversies in our divided society are, at bottom, about what actions and transactions should be banned. Should women and couples be able to purchase contraception, access in vitro fertilization, and end pregnancy by obtaining an abortion? Should people be able to buy marijuana? What about fentanyl? Can someone be paid to donate blood plasma, or a kidney?

Disagreements are fierce because arguments on both sides are often made in uncompromising moral or religious terms. But in Moral Economics, Nobel Prize–winning economist Alvin E. Roth asserts that we can make progress on these and other difficult topics if we view them as markets—tools to help decide who gets what—and understand how those markets can be fine-tuned to be more functional. Markets don’t have to allow everything or ban everything. Prudent market design can find a balance between preserving people’s rights to pursue their own interests and protecting the most vulnerable from harm.

Combining Roth’s unparalleled expertise as market design pioneer with his incisive, witty accounts of complicated issues, Moral Economics offers a powerful and innovative new framework for resolving today’s hardest controversies.

Bios

Alvin E. Roth is the Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University and the George Gund Professor of Economics and Business Administration Emeritus at Harvard University. A pioneering expert in the field of market design, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2012. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and past president of the American Economic Association, he lives in Stanford, California.

Ray Fisman holds the Slater Family Chair in Behavioral Economics at Boston University. His research focuses primarily on corruption, both in the U.S. and globally. It has appeared in leading economics journals including the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, and Review of Economic Studies, and has been widely covered in the popular press, in such outlets as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, the Economist, and the Washington Post. His next book, on the economics of business social responsibility, will come out in 2027.

Masking Policy

Masks are encouraged but not required for this event.

Co-Sponsor

The Cambridge Public Library serves as a doorway to opportunity, self-development, and recreation for all its residents, and as a forum where they may share ideas, cultures, and resources among themselves and with people around the globe. Learn more at cambridgema.gov/cpl.

Perils of podcasting

 I had a stimulating 3 hour discussion with famed podcaster Lawrence Krauss a few days ago, about my forthcoming book Moral Economics.  Almost immediately after we concluded, it turned out that neither of us had recorded it. (We did a  shorter makeup later.)

 Here's his tweet on that:

Lawrence M. Krauss   @LKrauss1

Today my podcast worst nightmare happened.  

I did a 3 hour  @OriginsProject podcast with Nobel Laureate Alvin E. Roth on his wonderful new book, Moral Economics, that I thought was one of the best podcasts I have recorded. Except I forgot to hit record! Lost it all! With amazing grace and perseverence, he agreed to redo it 2 hours later. What resulted may have been even better. My colleague and friend @slsatel at AEI (who will do an event with him there May 14 ) told me he was a mensch. And boy was she right. I cannot believe his kindness. Thank you Al! And your book is truly inspiring. Hope to release the podcast next week. Watch it and then buy the book! Or buy the book and then watch it. :)

 

Markets, Morals and the Road Ahead: A Conversation with Dr. Vikas Shah about Moral Economics (on Thought Economics)

 Dr. Vikas Shah has published a post on his site Thought Economics, devoted to my imminently forthcoming book Moral Economics.  The long transcript combines a conversation we had together, interspersed with bits of the book itself, paraphrased to appear as part of the live conversation.

Markets, Morals and the Road Ahead: A Conversation with Nobel Laureate Professor Alvin Roth· by Dr. Vikas Shah 

"Roth’s new book, Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work (Basic Venture, 2026), is a tour through what he calls repugnant transactions — exchanges that consenting parties want to make but that others believe should be forbidden, often on moral or religious grounds. The territory ranges from sex, surrogacy and adoption to alcohol, drugs, blood plasma, vaccine challenge trials, kidney transplants and medical aid in dying. Roth’s central argument is bracing in its calm: most contested markets cannot really be abolished, only relocated — driven underground, exported across borders, or left to operate informally and dangerously. The honest question is therefore not whether to permit such markets, but how to design and regulate them so that they command sufficient social support to work, and so that the costs and benefits fall in places we can defend. Markets, in his view, are tools to help decide who gets what; the work of moral economics is to keep asking, with evidence rather than absolutes, how those tools should be built. I spoke with him about the philosophical architecture of the book, the everyday paradoxes of repugnance, the lessons of kidney exchange, the controversies around vaccine challenge trials and assisted dying, and what new frontiers of moral contention the next generation of technologies — from CRISPR to artificial intelligence — will force us to confront." 

It’s time to carefully but urgently rethink payments to kidney donors. My op-ed in the Washington Post

 This morning the Washington Post published my op-ed online (which is scheduled to appear in the print edition on Sunday). 800 words is hardly enough to explain why I think what I do...I could write a whole book about that.

But here's the op-ed: 

Why paying people to donate kidneys is a good idea

With 90,000 patients waiting for a kidney, compensating living donors would save lives.

May 8, 2026 at 6:30 a.m. EDT

 

By Alvin E. Roth

Alvin E. Roth is an economics professor at Stanford University and co-recipient, with Lloyd Shapley, of the 2012 Nobel Prize in economics. This article was adapted from his new book, "Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work."

It’s time to carefully but urgently rethink payments to kidney donors.

There are approximately 130,000 new cases of kidney failure annually in the United States. It is disproportionately a disease of the poor, and is four times as likely to affect Black people as White people. Kidney failure costs Medicare alone more than $55 billion per year, mostly for dialysis. More than 500,000 people are presently on dialysis, about half of whom will die within five years of beginning treatment. The best treatment for kidney failure is transplantation, but in 2025 fewer than 30,000 people in the United States received kidney transplants. So most people who could benefit from a lifesaving transplant will die without one.

 About 90,000 people are registered on the national waiting list to receive a deceased-donor kidney, and many more would be, if there were enough transplants for all who need them. Thousands die each year while waiting, and thousands more are removed from the waiting list when they become too sick to undergo transplant surgery.

The law in the U.S. and most of the world says kidneys must be gifts; their price must be zero. So, any attempt to raise the supply of kidneys by compensating donors would have to overcome the almost worldwide repugnance for payment.

About three-quarters of kidneys transplanted in the U.S. come from deceased donors, and the rest come from living donors: Healthy people have two kidneys and can remain healthy with one. But sometimes potential donors can’t donate to the person they love, because kidneys have to be medically compatible with the recipient. It’s a challenge even within families. For example, often a mother can’t receive a kidney from her spouse or children because during pregnancy, her immune system developed antibodies to some of their proteins.

 

 For the last quarter-century, living-donor transplants have also been arranged through kidney exchange, in which each patient receives a compatible kidney from another patient’s intended donor. Some of these transplants take place in long chains initiated by a nondirected donor, who donates a kidney, anonymously, to anyone who needs one. That begins a chain of donations in which each recipient’s intended donor passes the gift forward. Kidney exchange has made possible thousands of additional transplants, without payments to donors.  

Nevertheless, kidneys for transplant remain in tragically short supply. So it is past time to consider amending the 1984 law that prohibits giving “valuable consideration” for a kidney for transplant.

This would have to be done with care, because there are good reasons that the phrase “payments for kidneys” arouses repugnance. We wouldn’t want inappropriate donors to be unduly influenced to give up a kidney. (This is something already considered when screening the thousands of people who donate one of their kidneys each year without payment.) Another concern is that we wouldn’t want to live in a world in which only rich people could get kidneys, by buying them from poor people.

In the United States, we might think about letting individual states experiment with different regulations. Or we could explore a national system in which only the federal government could buy kidneys — from carefully qualified donors, after a significant period devoted to medical and psychological screening, and having obtained carefully informed consent. Those kidneys could then be allocated without regard to patients’ income, much as we presently allocate deceased-donor kidneys, which are treated as a national resource. 

 

It would be financially feasible to pay donors quite generously without requiring recipients to pay anything at all. Donors could be paid entirely from the savings to the health care system by taking patients off dialysis.

There is a long history of thoughtful arguments in favor of allowing kidney donors to be legally paid or compensated in some way, with carefully considered precautions. These include a current proposal called the End Kidney Deaths Act, which would establish a limited pilot program for a tax credit to nondirected kidney donors.

To be clear, we should keep trying for big long-term goals, such as vastly reducing the incidence of kidney disease by preventing or curing diabetes, hypertension and other causes. We should keep trying to expand deceased donation (perhaps by offering funeral benefits in gratitude to the next of kin who allow it). We should keep exploring cures that don’t require transplants of human organs. But we can save many lives now by being more generous to living donors, and it makes sense to start experimenting with ways to do this legally, ethically and equitably."

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And here's the picture they chose to accompany the op-ed.