Abhijit Banerjee's column on food and economics, in The Times of India

 Abhijit Banerjee writes a monthly column on food (cooking it and eating it) and economics, in The Times of India

You can see them all at the link, but here's a recent example:

Trade wars and chocolate bars, what India of the 1970s can teach Trump  May 31, 2025,  Abhijit Banerjee in Tasting Economics

"One advantage/disadvantage of being old is that I lived through what is history to so many others. President Trump adores William McKinley, the 25th US president, for his tariffs, but at 78, he is way too young to have lived behind a properly high tariff wall. I, on the other hand, lived in the India of the 1970s, when we had managed to kill almost all international trade through a combination of tariffs and other rules for importing (non-tariff barriers in trade parlance).

I mostly experienced trade barriers through the important lens of chocolate."

Michel Callon (1945-2025)

 Hans Kjellberg  informs me that the eminent sociologist of markets, Michel Callon has died. Kjellberg writes about his long collaboration with Callon, including an interval during the Covid pandemic that involved the three of us:

"A more recent collaboration was the essay “The design and performation of markets: a discussion” that I curated between Alvin Roth and Michel for a special issue of AMS Review on theorizing markets (with Riikka Murto). I had spoken to Michel about contributing an essay to the issue, but when Alvin suggested that they do something together, Michel very quickly accepted this intellectual challenge. Their exchange took place at the height of the pandemic, and I acted as the go-between and facilitator of their (mostly email-based) exchange of ideas. It developed into a great example of what is needed in contemporary society: two intellectual giants coming from very different starting points engaging in an open and earnest conversation to try to understand each other’s point of view. If you have not yet read it, have a look at: https://lnkd.in/dBxJBbtW."

Here's the obit from the Centre for the Sociology of Innovation:

Michel Callon (1945-2025)

"Michel Callon passed away on July 28, 2025. 

...

"With an interest in economics (and economy) since his early days, Michel Callon developed a keen understanding of markets in the late 1990s, focusing on the role of scientific knowledge and technical devices. The 1998 collective volume he edited, The Laws of the Markets, paved the way for an original analysis of market phenomena that many researchers in France and other countries would follow. In Market Devices (2007), Callon, Yuval Millo, and Fabian Muniesa compiled a collection of texts emblematic of the variety of devices used in the organization of markets. In Market in the Making (2021), he analyses how market arrangements work and questions their integration into contemporary society. "

Here are all my blog posts mentioning  Callon.

The science and politics (and lawfare) of abortion pills with other uses in reproductive healthcare

Two recent articles shed some light on how the market for reproductive healthcare is evolving.

 Dr. Jessica Chen writes "I dispensed mifepristone every day in the clinic last week, and not once was it for abortion."  Instead it was to help patients who had suffered a miscarriage, and were still carrying a dead fetus.  

The US is expecting legal wrangling over whether mifepristone can be prescribed by telehealth providers, to women in states that forbid abortion.  Some of the arguments may depend on whether it is an "abortion pill," or a drug with multiple uses in reproductive healthcare.

The Clinical Indications for Mifepristone Go Beyond Abortion Jessica Chen, MD, JAMA
Published Online: August 28, 2025  doi: 10.1001/jama.2025.13376

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Considering Telehealth Across State Lines in Uncertain Times, by Nicole Huberfeld, JD1; Katharine O. White, MD, MPH2; Rachel Cannon, MD, MSc2, JAMA Published Online: August 11, 2025 doi: 10.1001/jama.2025.12122

"Since the US Supreme Court decided in 2022 that abortion was no longer protected as part of the constitutional right to privacy, state lawmakers have been empowered by the court leaving abortion policy “to the people and their elected representatives.”1 This phrase has fostered deep conflicts between state laws relating to abortion and laws relating to other health care for people of reproductive age, and it has created new risks for physicians who provide care to patients across state lines."

The Walras-Bowley Lecture: Fragmentation of Matching Markets and How Economics Can Help Integrate Them, by Kamada, Kojima, and Matsushita

 Fuhito Kojima's 2023 Walras Bowley Lecture has just been uploaded to arxiv, and it looks to be an exciting contribution to the market design literature.  It considers the fact that administrative boundaries cause many markets to be fragmented, and hence less thick than they might otherwise be, and how some of the resulting efficiency loss can be recovered.

The Walras-Bowley Lecture: Fragmentation of Matching Markets and How Economics Can Help Integrate Them, by Yuichiro Kamada, Fuhito Kojima, and Akira Matsushita
(August 27, 2025) 

Below is the abstract and opening paragraphs. 

"Abstract
Fragmentation of matching markets is a ubiquitous problem across countries and across applications. In order to study the implications of fragmentation and possibilities for integration, we first document and discuss a variety of fragmentation cases in practice such as school choice, medical residency matching, and so forth. Using the real-life dataset of daycare matching markets in Japan, we then empirically evaluate the impact of interregional transfer of students by estimating student utility functions under a variety of specifications and then using them for counterfactual simulation. Our simulation compares a fully integrated market and a partially integrated one with a “balancedness” constraint—for each region, the inflow of students from the other regions must be equal to the outflow to the other areas. We find that partial integration achieves 39.2 to 59.6% of the increase in the child welfare that can be attained under full integration, which is equivalent to a 3.3 to 4.9% reduction of travel time. The percentage decrease in the unmatch rate is 40.0 to 52.8% under partial integration compared to the case of full integration. The results suggest that even in environments where full integration is not a realistic option, partial integration, i.e., integration that respects the balancedness constraint, has a potential to recover a nontrivial portion of the loss from fragmentation.

Introduction
Many of the most consequential markets in our societies—school admissions, medical resident matching, daycare placements, kidney exchanges—are matching markets, where centralized mechanisms are often employed to improve efficiency and fairness. Over the past several decades, the field of market design has made substantial progress in developing and implementing such mechanisms (e.g., Abdulkadiroğlu and Sönmez (2003) for school choice, Roth (1984) for medical residency matching, Kamada and Kojima (2023) for daycare placements, and Roth et al. (2004) for kidney exchanges). In doing so, it has led economists to assume a dual role as both analysts and engineers (Roth, 2002).

How are those sophisticated mechanisms implemented in practice? Typically, these mechanisms are run by individual cities, districts or institutions, and the implementation is usually confined to narrowly defined administrative or political boundaries. These boundaries can reflect long-standing institutional arrangements, localized funding responsibilities, or jurisdictional autonomy. Regardless of their origins, the consequence is that agents on different sides of a boundary are matched as if they participated in entirely separate markets—even when they live mere blocks apart.

The aim of this paper is to study the implications of fragmentation of matching markets and possibilities for integration. To do so, we begin by offering a detailed descriptive account of fragmented matching markets in practice. We observe that fragmentation is prevalent across a variety of settings globally, from public school systems and childcare allocation to medical residency assignments, foster care placements, and public housing markets, among others. We highlight how institutional boundaries and localized governance create fragmented, parallel markets. Each case underscores the potential inefficiencies due to constrained choices caused by fragmentation, motivating our inquiry into mechanisms that can integrate markets effectively.

Against this background, we then investigate public daycare assignment in Japan in detail. "

Stanford kidney conference, recap

 Stanford Impact Labs (SIL) reports on our recent kidney exchange conference

Global Solutions-focused Summit on Expanding Access to Kidney Transplantation held at Stanford. Physicians, scholars, healthcare practitioners, and policymakers gathered to explore research advances underway in India, Brazil, and the U.S.   by Kate Green Tripp and Marina Kaneko

 "Earlier this month, the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation (APKD), Stanford economist Alvin E. Roth, and Stanford Impact Labs hosted the Palo Alto Summit, a two-day global convening at Stanford University dedicated to exploring challenges and advances in kidney transplantation around the world.

"On the heels of the 2025 World Transplant Congress in San Francisco, more than 30 physicians, scholars, transplant coordinators, and government officials from the U.S., India, Brazil, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and South Africa gathered to share key learnings, challenges, and advances in the field.

...

" APKD and Roth, the Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences, have teamed up with transplant specialists in India, Brazil, and the United States to form the Extending Kidney Exchange project. 

...

"The summit’s sessions were designed to advance national efforts in KPD in India and Brazil, and deceased donor-initiated chains (DDIC); foster collaboration among leading clinical, policy, and academic partners; and identify actionable steps and shared milestones for KPD in India and Brazil, paired liver exchange in India, and DDIC in the United States. As a transplant strategy, DDIC utilizes kidneys from deceased donors to create a chain of transplants so as to maximize the use of available organs and to connect multiple recipients, especially when there are mismatches or compatibility issues.

...

"“When the very first [nonsimultaneous] chain of kidney transplants took place in 2006, it was not necessarily welcomed as an innovation,” recalls Michael Rees, a transplant surgeon at the University of Toledo and founder of the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation (APKD). “It is incredibly exciting to reflect on the progress we’ve been able to make across the transplant community since that time, to increase the utility of a single kidney from either a living or deceased donor.”

 

 

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Earlier:

Thursday, August 7, 2025 Stanford conference on extending kidney exchange

 

Also of note:

Matthew Gentzkow Named Director of Stanford Impact Labs

"The economist will lead a community of social scientists who want their scholarship to improve people’s lives."
 

 

"Better to exchange kidneys than bombs."

 Some coffee cups  should naturally come in pairs, so that you have one for a friend in need. (These recently arrived in the mail, from Laurie Lee)

Better to exchange kidneys than bombs

I was quoted as having said that to Marco della Cava, the USA Today reporter who wrote about the first kidney exchange between Israel and the UAE.

“Better to exchange kidneys than bombs,” says Roth, adding that using computers to search the world for medical solutions radically increases the chances of patients getting help. “International boundaries are artificial markers. Kidney disease doesn’t care about that.”

Thursday, September 30, 2021 Kidney Exchange between Israel and the UAE (in USA Today, yesterday)

How three Jewish and Arab families swapped kidneys, saved their mothers and made history by Marco della Cava, USA TODAY, Wed, September 29, 2021 AM 

In China, you can hire a woman to disrupt a husband's extra-marital affair

 The Guardian reviews a movie about a kind of covert marriage therapy becoming available in China, in which a 'mistress dispeller" is hired to intervene and covertly disrupt the relationship between a wayward husband and a mistress, with the aim of returning him to his wife.

If your husband’s having an affair, this woman will get rid of her: the gripping film about China’s ‘mistress dispellers’
Available for hire, professional persuaders deceive their way into the lives of cheating men – and see off the extra lover. We meet the maker of a jaw-dropping documentary about a growing phenomenon  by Amy Hawkins

"Wang Zhenxi, a mistress dispeller based in north-central China’s Henan province, is one of a growing number of self-styled professionals who earn a living by intervening in people’s marriages – to “dispel” them of intruders

...

"Teacher Wang’s profession, if it can be called that, has only become a phenomenon in China in the last 10 years. As the country grapples with falling marriage rates, rising divorce rates and an increasing number of young people refusing to wed altogether, an entire “love industry” aimed at promoting and protecting the institution of marriage has emerged. There are dating camps, government-sponsored marriage initiatives and even dating apps aimed at parents wanting to set their unattached children up with partners. “Divorce is easy,” says Teacher Wang’s assistant on a live stream. “It’s easy to just leave. It’s harder to take responsibility and provide your family with a good life.”

...

But while the struggle to find love is a universal one, hiring someone to pretend to be an old friend – so that they can persuade your husband to end his affair on your behalf – is not. Some viewers might wonder why the wife doesn’t just suggest couples therapy. Lo explains that, according to Teacher Wang, therapy is still very stigmatised in China. “To enter as a stranger and a professional into a private setting and ask someone to divulge their family struggles would be unthinkable.” Teacher Wang “would be ejected immediately”.

Meat and dairy allergy ( to alpha-gal), ticks and gene-modified pigs

 A previously rare allergy to a sugar molecule called alpha-gal, found in almost all mammals but humans, is now being spread by tick bites.  But alpha-gal is also the sugar that is genetically engineered out of pigs that are being bred for xenotransplants. So there may be a secondary market for pork chops from those pigs... 

‘We can no longer eat burgers or ice cream — all because of a tick bite’
A bug-borne disease has taken over Martha’s Vineyard and is turning people vegan, locals claim.  by Samuel Lovett 

"Sufferers cannot eat any food products that contains alpha-gal, a sugar molecule carried by the lone star tick and which is present in all mammals — except humans and some monkeys. This means cheeses, milk and meats from beef to venison are all off the menu. For some, even white sugar cannot be tolerated because it is processed using animal-bone char.

"Alpha-gal symptoms including hives, stomach cramps, vomiting and breathlessness often start to appear several hours after eating foods containing the molecule, giving the syndrome its nickname “the midnight allergy”.

...

"Although the prevalence of alpha-gal syndrome on Martha’s Vineyard has rocketed in recent years, the island is “definitely not the worst off”, said Roden-Reynolds. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that the Midwest has the highest rates per capita, and the agency estimates that about 450,000 people are living with the disease in the US."

 

Chocolate fermentation and its microbiome (coming to desserts near you)

 The Guardian brings us the latest breakthrough in chocolate science:

Scientists claim to have unlocked ‘secret sauce’ needed for fine chocolate
Results of studying cocoa bean fermentation in Colombia could pave way to manipulate flavour, say researchers  by Nicola Davis 

"Whether you enjoy an aromatic bar with notes of caramel or something less fancy, chocolate can have many tastes. Now researchers say they have shed fresh light on a key ingredient that could open the door to new flavours.

They claim to have unpicked how and why the bacteria and fungi involved in the fermentation of cocoa beans influence the flavour of chocolate.

“We understand now what microbes we need and what they’re doing. And I think that opens up the opportunity … to be a lot more directed [about] how we make our chocolate in terms of its flavour,” said Prof David Salt, co-author of the work from the University of Nottingham.

Writing in the journal Nature Microbiology, the team report how they studied beans fermented at cocoa farms in three different regions of Colombia – Santander, Huila and Antioquia.

...

"The team then used genetic sequencing to identify the microbes involved in cocoa bean fermentation from multiple sites in Colombia and beyond, explore the genes they contained, and hence identify the flavour substances they could produce during fermentation.

As a result, the researchers identified nine microbes that together were predicted to produce the notes of a fine flavour cocoa. They then introduced this community to sterile cocoa beans, and allowed them to ferment.

The upshot, said Salt, was a cocoa with floral, fruity and citrus notes and a recognisable cocoa flavour but with reduced astringency and bitterness."

Regulating markets for antiquities, to more effectively compete with black markets (Kremer and Wilkening in JEP)

 Bans on illegally recovering, selling, and exporting archeological antiquities often result in black markets.  Michael Kremer and Tom Wilkening explore how markets might be regulated to be more effective.

Kremer, Michael, and Tom Wilkening. 2025. "Protecting Antiquities: A Role for Long-Term Leases?" Journal of Economic Perspectives 39 (3): 127–48. 

Abstract: In order to preserve cultural patrimony for future generations, most countries ban exports of antiquities. However, this may drive trade underground, particularly in low-income and low-state capacity contexts, and cause irreversible damage to cultural heritage. We argue that complementing export bans with fixed-duration, long-term leases can strengthen incentives for maintenance and revelation of antiquities, while preserving cultural patrimony. Allowing only leases rather than sales limits potential losses from corrupt deals between foreign collectors and government officials. Standardized contracts with set lease lengths, insurance requirements, and care requirements may also be necessary to limit corruption and establish a well-functioning market.

The UN General Assembly issues a call for surrogacy to be outlawed

 A growing number of families are formed by gestational surrogacy, in which a woman bears a child for another couple.  Surrogacy is legal throughout the US, and regulated state by state.

United Nations General Assembly has issued a report saying that surrogacy in all its forms should be regarded as a crime against women, and banned outright.

Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against  women and girls, its causes and consequences
The different manifestations of violence against women and girls  in the context of surrogacy 

Summary: In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and  girls, its causes and consequences, Reem Alsalem, examines the different manifestations of violence against women and girls in the context of surrogacy.

...

Conclusion and recommendations :

69. The practice of surrogacy is characterized by exploitation and violence against women and children, including girls. It reinforces patriarchal norms by commodifying and objectifying women’s bodies and exposing surrogate mothers and children to serious human rights violations. 

70. Considering the above, the Special Rapporteur recommends that Member States and other relevant stakeholders: 

(a) At the international level, take steps towards eradicating surrogacy in all its forms. Pending its abolition, States must take action to prevent further  harm and strengthen the protection of the rights of women and children involved in surrogacy arrangements;

(b) Work towards adopting an international legally binding instrument prohibiting all forms of  surrogacy..." 

 

HT: Kim Krawiec

 

Market design podcast on NPR's Planet Money (with Alex Teytelboym)

 Alex Teytelboym comments throughout a program about market design on NPR's Planet Money:

 The episode focuses on the design of markets regulated by governments, and  touch on the regulation of fisheries, and on the spectrum incentive auction (about which they interviewed Glen Weyl instead of Paul Milgrom).

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Earlier related posts:

Monday, February 16, 2009  Sustainable fisheries

Sunday, January 30, 2011  Fishing as an endangered but protected transaction

Tuesday, July 24, 2018  Design of fisheries--EURO Excellence in Practice Award to Bichler, Ferrell, Fux, and Goeree

Friday, July 9, 2021 Fishery regulation involves onboard observers at sea--a very dangerous job

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 Monday, March 9, 2020 Paul Milgrom et al. on the incentive auction--two recent papers, and two pictures

 Monday, June 15, 2020  Paul Milgrom corrects the record on spectrum auctions and market design

 

 

 

 

Resuscitation theater ("slow codes"), and Medical Aid in Dying

 Here's an article pointing out that "slow codes" often constitute resuscitation theater, i.e. they are a way to follow bureaucratic directives requiring attempted resuscitation after cardiac arrest in hospitals, when the physicians don't think that would be in the patient's best interest, i.e. when resuscitation would only prolong dying and suffering.  I think this should be part of the discussion of the kinds of "covert" medical aid in dying that takes place even in jurisdictions that don't legally authorize physicians to help shorten the dying process.

McLennan S, Bak M, Knochel K. Slow Codes are symptomatic of ethically and legally inappropriate CPR policies. Bioethics. 2025 May;39(4):327-336. doi: 10.1111/bioe.13396.

Abstract: Although cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) was initially used very selectively at the discretion of clinicians, the use of CPR rapidly expanded to the point that it was required to be performed on all patients having in‐hospital cardiac arrests, regardless of the underlying condition. This created problems with CPR being clearly inadvisable for many patients. Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders emerged as a means of providing a transparent process for making decisions in advance regarding resuscitation, initially by patients and later also by clinicians. Under hospital policies in many countries, however, CPR remains the default position for all patients having cardiac arrest in the hospital if there is no DNR order in place, regardless of whether CPR is medically indicated or in the patient's best interests. “Slow Codes” are the delayed or token efforts to provide CPR when clinicians feel CPR is futile or inappropriate. After giving a historical overview of the development and the changing use of CPR, we argue that more attention needs to be given to the cause of slow codes, namely, policies requiring CPR to be performed as the default action while simultaneously lacking implementing interventions such as advance care planning as a routine policy. This is ethically and legally inappropriate, and hospital policies should be modified to allow clinicians to consider whether CPR is appropriate at the time of arrest. Such a change requires a stronger emphasis on early recognition of patients for whom CPR is not in their best interests and to improve hospital emergency planning.

" Proponents of the ‘slow code’ find that intentionally delaying CPR might, in some cases, be a more compassionate alternative to aggressive and potentially futile interventions.

...

"Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is indicated for the patient who, at the time of cardiopulmonary arrest, is not in the terminal stage of an incurable disease. Resuscitative measures on terminal patients will, at best, return them to the dying state. The physician should concentrate on resuscitating patients who were in good health preceding the arrest, and who are likely to resume a normal existence"

Congestion in online labor markets: too many applications

 As online job ads make it easier to submit chatbot-assisted applications, companies are becoming overwhelmed.

The WSJ has this story:

How to Navigate the Jungle of Online Job Postings
Companies are rethinking online job applications, seeking quality over quantity  By Callum Borchers

"You probably haven’t looked for a job in a newspaper’s classified pages since the Bush administration—possibly the first one. It could be worth reviving this old-school strategy because many of the listings offer a way to bypass those dreaded online application portals.

...

"Companies fed up with the low-quality, sometimes fraudulent submissions that flood applicant-tracking systems are reaching back in time for hard-to-hack recruiting methods. Classified ads are just one tack.

"Others include: leaning harder on references; making application forms so cumbersome that only serious candidates will complete them; and posting openings on niche job boards instead of the most popular ones."

Cat food, for big cats in zoos (you could call it pet food)

 Zoos are complicated.

Here's the story from NPR:

A zoo in Denmark asked patrons to donate their pets. Not as attractions, but for food  By Alana Wise
 

"In a post on Facebook, the Aalborg Zoo in Denmark asked people to donate unwanted pets that would be "gently euthanized" and fed to predators in captivity.

...

"The zoo also accepts horses as part of its fodder program.

"The Facebook post quickly became a battleground between commenters who were appalled at the concept of euthanizing healthy pets for animal feed, and those who applauded the zoo for its method of maintaining a practical food supply for its animals.

...

"The Aalborg Zoo says dogs and cats are excluded from the program. Donatable animals are limited to chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, and horses, it says, adding that this is a practice it has maintained with patrons for years.

"When keeping carnivores, it is necessary to provide them with meat, preferably with fur, bones, etc., to give them as natural a diet as possible," zoo Deputy Director Pia Nielsen said in a statement to NPR.

"Therefore, it makes sense to allow animals that need to be euthanized for various reasons to be of use in this way. In Denmark, this practice is common, and many of our guests and partners appreciate the opportunity to contribute," Nielsen added."

A Tale of Two Statues (in Denmark and U.S.)

 Public art is one of those things that depends in different ways on public and political support.

So, in Denmark, one statue of a mermaid is being removed, while in the U.S. statues of Confederate soldiers are being restored.

The Guardian has the story about the mermaid statue (which isn't _the_ famous little mermaid, but a bigger one):

Denmark to remove ‘pornographic’ mermaid statue, reports say. Danish agency for palaces and culture requests removal of 14-tonne sculpture from Dragør Fort in Copenhagen  by Miranda Bryant

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USA Today has the story about a statue being restored in Washington D.C.

No one was sad to see this Confederate statue go. Now Trump is bringing it back. | Opinion
Trump wants us to move backward, to a time when our nation's ugly, racist past was swept under the rug. Why else would he be propping up inept Confederate generals while targeting Black history?  by Sara Pequeño

"President Trump is advocating for the restoration of a monument honoring Confederate Gen. Albert Pike.
...
Pike, a Freemason and member of the anti-immigrant Know-Nothing Party, was a Confederate general who served for less than two years before resigning. His troops were accused of scalping Union soldiers. There are claims that he was a leader in the Ku Klux Klan after the Civil War, but historians say this can’t be proven."