Notes from Prague (kidney exchange, market design, and progress on a new book)

I flew back to California yesterday, after spending some time in Czechia and Italy talking about kidney exchange.  Here is a video of the public talk I gave at Prague Castle.  Among other things it highlights the Czech kidney exchanges with Israel. (I had the pleasure of meeting  Prof. Jiri Fronek, the distinguished surgical pioneer who led the Czech side of that effort.)

https://youtu.be/jrrlNWMkQyE?feature=shared

I also had the privilege of visiting CERGE-EI  (Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute) where my host was Prof  Štěpán Jurajda.  He and I first met when we were both at the University of Pittsburgh in the 1990s.

And here's an interview with the Economic newspaper  Hospodářské noviny  that starts off with the optimistic notion that I may have just (largely) completed the draft of a new book:)

Zkoumá trhy, kde peníze nevládnou. Ledvinu ani lásku si za ně většinou nekoupíte, říká nobelista Alvin Roth [ He explores markets where money doesn't rule. You can't usually buy a kidney or love with it, says Nobel laureate Alvin Roth]

“Before flying from the USA to Prague, economist and Nobel laureate Alvin Roth managed to send the publisher a draft of his new book, which he is currently finishing. He calls it Controversial Markets. Between an afternoon lecture for students at the CERGE-EI Institute in Prague and an evening lecture at Prague Castle, he also found time for an interview with Hospodářské noviny, in which he outlines what his new book will be about. One of the controversial markets he deals with, for example, is the organ transplant market."

Wine barrels, barrel brokers, and tariffs

 Wine barrels are traded and reused internationally.

The Guardian has the story:

Stained, warped and terroir rich: the global and shockingly sustainable lives of wine barrels
Wood barrels circle the world and can be used for more than a century. They tell a story, but they’re imperiled by tariffs  by Kiki Aranita

"In the alcohol industry, when ageing liquor can easily take decades, the vessels that house them can also become more covetable over the years. In an age of disposable materials and dire news of plastics polluting our environment, reused wooden barrels exist in stark contrast. The lives of barrels are long, shockingly sustainable and currently imperiled by trade war.

"Many circumnavigate the globe and end their days in distilleries in remote corners of the world, originating in the forests of Hungary and moving from mountain towns in Canada to distilleries in the Caribbean and Mexico. At Hamilton, new American oak barrels hold fresh distillate, alongside the dinosaurs: French cognac barrels that show their age

...

“We think of barrels as teabags. It gets used first for bourbon, like the first steep of a teabag. You get a lot of color and flavor from the barrel quickly. If you use the barrel again, it’ll take longer to impart, so maybe it’s used for scotch, which sits and ages longer. You mute the barrel’s flavors along the way.”

...

"The international use of barrels is part and parcel of the global liquor industry. Large conglomerates like LVMH, Brown-Forman and Suntory have multiple spirits brands in their portfolios, and barrels make their rounds internally. A Kentucky-made barrel might end up in Scotland to age scotch because Brown-Forman owns both the Jack Daniel’s and Glendronach brands.

...

"Distilleries that aren’t owned by large conglomerates enlist the help of a barrel broker who can source unique barrels. Mara Smith sources old pinot noir barrels from France through a broker, as they give her Inspiro tequila a rosy hue and flavors like “berries, some nuttiness, a floral [aroma] on the nose”.

...

"Rizzo outlines a Laws Whiskey barrel’s typical lifespan. “We age our Four Grain Bourbon and send those used bourbon barrels [after four to 10 years] to a local apiary, Bee Squared, in Berthoud, Colorado. They age their honey in those used barrels for 90 days to produce a glorious local barrel-aged honey. We then get those barrels back and put more bourbon into them to make a natural honey-aged bourbon [which takes a year and a half of ageing]. One went to our friends at Lady Justice Brewing, who aged a honey bock beer in the honey barrel. Once that was finished in six months to two years, they put malted barley grain inside the barrel for another six months to two years to flavor the grain to produce another beer. And then the barrel is made into furniture.” These barrels had seven lives.

"Recent tariffs are making the very aspect of manufacturing barrels, distilling alcohol and selling its finished product more expensive. In American winemaking, particularly in California, French oak barrels will be affected by the EU’s retaliatory tariffs. Since barrels are essentially an ingredient in any given type of alcohol’s recipe, a winemaker would not be able to easily switch out a type of wood they have used previously for something available domestically."

Chronic diseases in the U.S.

 The top three chronic diseases--Hypertension, Obesity, and Diabetes--all contribute to the fourth, Kidney Disease.

How Chronic Disease Became the Biggest Scourge in American Health
Americans live shorter and sicker lives than people in other high-income countries   By  Brianna Abbott  | Graphics by  Josh Ulick

 

Matching Theory and Market Design: conference in Sicily.

 Here's the preliminary program for the

20th Matching in Practice Workshop  University of Messina, Department of Economics, Aula Magna 2, 15-16 May 2025

Thursday 15 May

9:00-9:15 Opening

9:15-11:00 Presentation session “Matching with externalities and equity concerns I” 

 Alexander Nesterov, Higher School of Economics  “Reserves in Targeted Admissions: A Mechanism Design Approach” 

 Guillaume Haeringer, Baruch College  “School Choice under Uncertainty: an Experiment” 

Antonio Romero Medina, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid  “Optimizing Daycare Enrollment: How To Avoid Early Applications”

11:00-11:15 Coffee break

11:15-13:00 Presentation session “Dynamic matching and incentives to participation I”

 Duygu Sili, Università degli Studi di Messina  “Costly Multi-Hospital Dynamic Kidney Exchange”

 Subhajit Pramanik, Università degli Studi di Padova  “A Dynamic Bargaining Framework for International Kidney Paired Exchange Program”

 Özgür Yilmaz, Koç University “Dynamically Optimal Kidney Exchange” 

13:00-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:15 Seminar presented by the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economics Prof. Alvin Roth (Stanford University)  “The Economics of Kidney Exchange: Kidneys and Controversies”  (open to the public)

16:00-22:00 Departure to and walk across Taormina, with gala dinner to follow at Ristorante La Botte.

Friday 16 May

9:00-10:45 Presentation session “Matching with externalities and equity concerns II” 

Flip Klijn, Institute for Economic Analysis (CSIC) and Barcelona School of Economics  “Characterizing No-Trade-Bundled Top-Trading Cycles Mechanisms for Multiple-Type Housing Markets”

 Péter Biró, Institute of Economics, HUN-REN KRTK “Ex-post Stability under Two-Sided Matching: Complexity and Characterization”

 Emre Dogan, HSE University “Incentivizing Public Lawyers and Enhancing Fairness via Sorting in Adversarial Systems”

10:45-11:00 Coffee break

11:00-12:45 Presentation session “Dynamic matching and incentives to participation II”

 Pietro Salmaso, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II  “Rationalizable Conjectures in Dynamic Matching”

Johanna Raith, IHW – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research “College Application Choices in a Repeated DA Setting: Evidence from Croatia”

 Sonal Yadav, University of Liverpool “Teacher Redistribution in Public Schools”

12:45-13:40 Roundtable  “Organ-donor exchange programs, international comparison” Moderator Prof. Antonio Nicolò (Università degli Studi di Padova), with the participation of Prof. Alvin Roth (Stanford University) and Dr. Giuseppe Feltrin (National Transplant Center)

13:40-14:30 Farewell lunch.

 The MiP Workshop is an annual meeting organized by the Matching in Practice network of European researchers working in the research field of Matching Theory and Market Design.

This year’s MiP workshop is funded by the following projects: Prin2022 “Externalities and fairness in allocations and contracts” (CUP J53D23004650006 – ID 2022HLPMKN) and PrinPNRR2022 “Incentivizing participation of compatible pairs in Kidney Paired Exchange Programs” (CUP J53D23015460001- ID P2022P5CHH), both funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU.

The Organizing Committee includes the Messina Unit Manager of the aforementioned projects, Prof. Antonio Miralles Asensio, and the Principal Investigators of both funding projects, respectively Prof. Maria Gabriella Graziano (University of Naples Federico II) and Prof. Antonio Nicolò (University of Padua). External members of the Scientific Committee are Prof. Caterina Calsamiglia (IPEG and ICREA, Spain), Prof. Rustam Hakimov (Université de Lausanne, Switzerland) and Prof. Péter Biró (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary).