The Milken Institute Review on blood and plasma, and altruism (with art work)

 You can  be paid to donate blood plasma, and still be an altruist.

Issue four, 2026 of the Milken Institute Review, excerpts the chapter on blood supply from my book Moral Economics. 

The last quoted line of the  chapter is  "Health care that's good enough for the rich shouldn't be repugnant for the poor."

Peter Passell, the long-time editor of the review, writes

"Nobel Prize winners in the sciences can justifiably lay claim to mind-bending insights and stunning discoveries that change our lives. Readers may be excused, though, for wondering whether the same can be said about the achievements honored by the Nobel in economic science, which generally excite only the nerds among us. ¶ Not so for the work of Alvin Roth, a Stanford University economist whose deep dives into how markets function earned him a trip to Stockholm in 2012. He pioneered changes in what are called “matching markets” – work that has revolutionized the process for matching kidney donors and recipients. ¶ In his new book Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work,* Roth dissects markets in which the legitimacy of voluntary transactions is widely disputed. Here, we excerpt the chapter on the market for human blood, where millions of patients’ lives depend on sources of blood that cannot legally be purchased. It’s a tale that’s going to surprise you.

— Peter Passell, Published October 30, 2026 "

*Copyright © 2026 by Alvin E. Roth. Reprinted by permission of Basic Venture, an imprint of Basic Books Group, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc., New York, NY. All rights reserved. 

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It turns out that Peter excerpts my books as fast as I can write them:)

Tuesday, October 27, 2015 Chapter 4 of Who Gets What and Why, in the Milken Institute Review (with art work...) 

https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/who-gets-what-and-why 

 

William Nordhaus (1941-2026) and Jim Andreoni (1959-2026)

 I returned from a long trip and an arduous conference last week to learn that two important economists had passed away, Bill Nordhaus, who won a Nobel, and Jim Andreoni, who could have.

Nordhaus' work on climate change was prescient, and is well known.  Here's the Nordhaus obit from Yale:

William Nordhaus, Nobel laureate who integrated economics and climate change, devoted Yale citizen  Oct 31, 2026  By Penelope Laurans  

"William Nordhaus ‘63, Sterling Professor of Economics who won a Nobel Prize in 2018 for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis, died Oct. 30 at age 85. 

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Jim Andreoni was a multi-talented scholar of public goods, well known in the experimental economics community.  The work that in my mind made him a Nobel candidate was his work on different forms that altruism can take.

Two of his papers that I really like are 

Andreoni, James. "Impure altruism and donations to public goods: A theory of warm-glow giving." The economic journal 100, no. 401 (1990): 464-477.

and

James Andreoni, Justin M. Rao, and Hannah Trachtman, Avoiding the Ask: A Field Experiment on Altruism, Empathy, and Charitable Giving. Journal of Political Economy 2017 125:625-653. 

The first of those, a theory paper, I think of as one of the foundational papers about effective altruism, but from the point of view that much altruism is not primarily of the effective sort.

The second paper is an experiment that I'll present to my class today, in Jim's memory. 

 

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 Vigorous, personal disagreement about what constitutes altruism in organ donation and transplantation was what made my Geneva conference so arduous (and what makes the kinds of controversial markets I discuss in Moral Economics so controversial:).

Monday, October 26, 2026 Brocher conference on boundaries for incentives in organ donation Oct 27-29 in Geneva

(No description of the conference has been posted yet, but it was hot and heavy, and everyone was an altruist...) 

  

happy post-Halloween

In our garden:

Sports, ethnicity, and the urban geography of basketball

 I'm just back from an unexpectedly grueling trip, and hope to resume semi-daily blogging.  This story caught my eye: basketball has been an inner city game in the U.S., in part because basketball courts can be set up very inexpensively in urban parks, and not so expensively in gyms.  So inner city kids are disproportionately represented among the most talented players.  But who those kids are has changed over time.

The WSJ has the story: 

When Jews Ruled the Basketball Court.  Six players on the New York Knicks’ inaugural roster were Jewish.  By Michael Freund 

 "It was Nov. 1, 1946, and Ossie Schectman of the New York Knicks took a bounce pass and scored on a two-handed underhand layup. Schectman, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, had just scored the first basket in NBA history.

...

"Six members of the Knicks’ original roster, including Schectman, were Jewish. That was no coincidence. For much of the early 20th century, basketball was widely regarded as a Jewish game.

"The reason can be traced to the immigrant neighborhoods of New York and Philadelphia. Millions of Jews arrived from Eastern Europe beginning in the 1880s, often settling in neighborhoods with little open space and scant money to spend on recreation. Baseball required a field and equipment. Basketball needed little more than a ball, a hoop and a schoolyard. "

Brocher conference on boundaries for incentives in organ donation Oct 27-29 in Geneva

 I'm on my way to the Brocher Foundation, near Geneva, for a conference organized by Swisstransplant (SWT) and the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group (DICG), on

 Constructive dialogue interrogating boundaries for incentives in organ donation  

"The shortage of organs available for transplantation poses a major challenge to healthcare systems. Some proposals aim to introduce incentives to encourage organ donation. This workshop examines the ethical implications of these strategies and discusses acceptable limits for promoting donation while respecting human dignity." 

Economics competition for high school and middle school students in Italy

Yesterday,  Tito Boeri, David Card and I attended the  award ceremony of the EconoMia and EcoQuiz competitions for high school and middle school students in Italy.

 At the Intesa Sanpaolo skyscraper, the award ceremony of the EconoMia and EcoQuiz competitions, as part of the International Festival of Economics. 

Here we are with the high school students whose essays received awards. 

 

 

WHO GETS TO CHOOSE? LIFE, FREEDOM, AND MORAL BOUNDARIES, a discussion with Marco Cappato, today at Collegio Carlo Alberto

I'm excited that I will get to discuss Moral Economics and controversial markets today with Marco Cappato, who has played such a large role in dealing with controversies involving medical aid in dying and reproductive rights.

CHI DECIDE? VITA, LIBERTÀ E CONFINI MORALI

WHO GETS TO CHOOSE? LIFE, FREEDOM, AND MORAL BOUNDARIES
sabato 24 ottobre
17:00 - 18:00
Centro Città
Collegio Carlo Alberto | Auditorium
Piazza Vincenzo Arbarello, 8, Torino

With

MARCO CAPPATO, ALVIN ROTH

Moderates

CATERINA SOFFICI

Live translation available

Quando le scelte riguardano il corpo, la vita e la morte, dove finisce la libertà individuale e dove deve iniziare la regolazione pubblica? Cosa dovrebbero fare le società quando le convinzioni morali divergono profondamente? Come possono le istituzioni proteggere la libertà di scelta senza lasciare indifesi i più vulnerabili?

 
When choices involve the body, life, and death, where should individual freedom end and public regulation begin? What should societies do when moral convictions sharply diverge? How can institutions protect freedom of choice without leaving the most vulnerable unprotected?