The innovative supply chain of illegal drugs--even in prisons

 Strategy sets are big, so we’re not going to be able to end illegal drug use by spraying defoliants on fields of poppies, or arresting dealers, or attacking speedboats. If we can’t stop the spread of drugs even in prisons, the chance of purely police/military solutions for stopping drugs on the streets isn’t looking good.

The NYT has the story:

No Pills or Needles, Just Paper: How Deadly Drugs Are Changing
Lab-made drugs soaked into the pages of letters, books and even legal documents are being smuggled behind bars, killing inmates and frustrating investigators. By Azam Ahmed and Matt Richtel 

" Today, fringe chemists are ushering in a total transformation of the illicit drug market. Operating from clandestine labs, they are churning out a dizzying array of synthetic drugs — not only fentanyl, but also hazardous new tranquilizers, stimulants and complex cannabinoids. Sometimes, several unknown drugs appear on the streets in a single month. Many are so new they are not even illegal yet.

"Nearly all of them are harder to trace than conventional drugs, less expensive to produce, much more potent and far deadlier, according to scientists and law enforcement officials across the globe.

...

"After that first death in the Cook County jail in January 2023, it took months for Mr. Wilks’s team to realize that these mysterious new drugs were being sprayed onto the pages of the most innocuous-seeming items: books, letters, documents, even photographs.

"The sheets of drugs, worth thousands of dollars a page, were being torn into strips and smoked by inmates 

...

"But the traffickers were cunning. When regular mail got checked more closely, smugglers began lacing legal correspondence. Soon, officers discovered sealed packages that looked as if they had been shipped directly from Amazon, with drug-soaked books inside. "

############

It’s hard to shut down markets that people want to participate in.
Someone should write a book about this. 

Paid plasma donations are becoming more middle-class

 The NYT has the story:

The Middle-Class Suburbanites Who Sell Their Blood Plasma to Get By.  Across the United States, plasma centers are opening in wealthier areas as more people struggle with the high cost of housing, groceries and health care.   By Kurtis Lee and Robert Gebeloff   March 20, 2026

"Every day, an estimated 215,000 people donate plasma, the yellowish liquid component of blood. Mr. Briseño is among them. He is not jobless or facing eviction, but, like many in the American middle class, he is caught in the vise of rising expenses and wages that aren’t growing fast enough to cover them. So he is turning to a method more commonly associated with the lowest-income Americans. For people like him, an extra $600 or so a month can mean making a mortgage payment or covering increased health-insurance costs.

"A recent study by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Colorado, Boulder, observed that while older plasma centers are clustered in low-income areas, newer centers were increasingly likely to open in middle-class neighborhoods. A New York Times analysis shows the trend has continued: Centers have sprung up in more than 100 such neighborhoods, in suburbs and wealthier sections of cities, since researchers finished collecting their data in 2021."

 

 #########

Here's an earlier post on the study that sparked the NYT report:

Wednesday, November 16, 2022  Blood Money, by John Dooley and Emily Gallagher

 

The Faroe Islands are moving to end their ban on abortion

 Some controversies are familiar all over the world.

The NYT has the story:

The Faroe Islands Are Changing Some of Europe’s Strictest Abortion Rules
A new law allowing abortion up to 12 weeks will be a major shift in an archipelago of 55,000 people, and there are strong feelings on both sides.   By Amelia Nierenberg and Regin Winther Poulsen

"The Faroes, a self-governing part of the Kingdom of Denmark in the North Atlantic hundreds of miles from Copenhagen, allowed abortion only in rare cases.

...
"The Faroes have had a near-total abortion ban, one of Europe’s most restrictive, under a law that dates back to 1956. Like Ms. Jacobsen, some women lied to their doctors to get around the restrictions and end their pregnancies, doctors, lawmakers and advocates on both sides of the issue have said. 

...

"But late last year, the Parliament in the archipelago of 55,000 people ratified a law that allows women to end a pregnancy within its first 12 weeks, a major shift in a place that has long been more religious and socially conservative than its Nordic peers. The law is set to take effect in July.

...

"But a parliamentary election is set for late March and polls suggest that power could pass to a conservative coalition that may try to block implementation of the law or change it." 

 

Pre-publication review of Moral Economics from Publisher's Weekly

Another small adventure in publishing:) 

Here's the pre-publication review of Moral Economics from Publisher's Weekly. "

TL;DR "Bringing balanced, evidence-based analyses to emotionally fraught debates, Roth reveals the power of markets to inspire solutions. This is trailblazing"

 

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

Alvin E. Roth. Basic Venture, $35 (368p) ISBN 978-1-5417-0201-1

"Nobel Prize–winning economist Roth (Who Gets What—and Why) delivers a stimulating study of morally contested products and services, such as abortion, assisted suicide, and marijuana. He refers to these as “repugnant transactions,” as they spark objections primarily on religious or moral grounds but don’t cause easily measurable harms to those seeking to ban them. Viewing these transactions as markets, or systems that can be designed to “allocate scarce resources efficiently and equitably,” can help people make progress on challenging topics, he argues. For example, analyses of legal prostiution show it can increase the market for paid sex but can also reduce rape and the spread of sexually transmitted disease. Another topic discussed is kidney donation. There is a nearly universal ban on compensating donors based on the concern that payments might lead to poor or vulnerable people being coerced into selling their organs. Meanwhile, there is an extreme shortage of donors, and loved ones are often incompatible with those they want to help (kidney disease runs in families). Roth and his colleagues designed a kidney exchange, in which incompatible patient-donor pairs exchange kidneys with other such pairs. Because no money changes hands, the problem of paying donors can be avoided. Bringing balanced, evidence-based analyses to emotionally fraught debates, Roth reveals the power of markets to inspire solutions. This is trailblazing. (May) 

 

 

International statistics on plasma donation show that it is quite safe

 Peter Jaworski collects the statistics from Europe and North America:

Plasma donation is safe
And commercial plasma donation is not less safe than non-commercial donations
Peter Jaworski
Mar 16, 2026 

"Source plasma donation (also called “plasmapheresis”) is inordinately safe (so is whole blood donation). And the best publicly-available donation safety data give us no reason to think that commercial plasma collection is less safe than non-commercial plasma collection.

" That claim may be surprising in light of the recent heartbreaking deaths reported after plasma donations in Winnipeg. These tragedies have raised questions about the safety of plasma donation in general, with some critics suggesting that commercial plasma donation is inherently less safe than non-commercial plasma donation.

"The evidence for the claim that plasmapheresis, including commercial plasmapheresis, is safe can be found in countries with the largest plasmapheresis programs, which publish annual reports on serious donor adverse events. Some of these countries have exclusively non-commercial plasma collection, while others have predominantly commercial systems. "

How safe is plasma donation?

 Here's a story from the NYT, about the recent regularization of paid plasma donation in (some provinces of) Canada.

How Safe Is Plasma Donation?
Two recent deaths tied to for-profit clinics in Canada raised concerns about the health effects of having plasma drawn as often as twice a week. By Roni Caryn Rabin and Vjosa Isai

"Donating plasma, which is used to make lifesaving medicinal products, is widely perceived as low-risk. But questions about the safety of the practice arose this week when Canadian health authorities confirmed they were investigating two recent deaths of people who gave plasma at for-profit clinics in Winnipeg operated by Grifols, a Spanish health care company. 

"Millions of people donate frequently in North America. An estimated 60 to 70 percent of plasma-derived medicinal products worldwide are made from plasma donated in the United States.

And demand for plasma is growing. The market for plasma-derived medicinal products is valued at $40.35 billion and is expected to double over the next eight years, as the products are used to treat an expanding number of conditions, including immune deficiency syndromes and bleeding disorders.

But the health impact of frequent plasma donation on the donors themselves has not been well studied, and there is no consensus among health regulators about how long donors should wait between plasma draws.

In both Canada and the United States, companies can pay people an honorarium for donating their plasma, and health regulations say that people can donate up to twice a week.  

...

"A 2020 investigation by the F.D.A. into 34 deaths reported as being associated with plasma donation did not determine that donation was the cause of death in any of the cases. It ruled donation out entirely as a cause in 31 cases. "

 

How to regulate legal marijuana?

 The New York Times editorial board thinks about the current environment for (now legal) marijuana, and calls for more careful regulation, and federal taxation:

It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem 

"Thirteen years ago, no state allowed marijuana for recreational purposes. Today, most Americans live in a state that allows them to buy and smoke a joint. President Trump continued the trend toward legalization in December by loosening federal restrictions.

This editorial board has long supported marijuana legalization. In 2014, we published a six-part series that compared the federal marijuana ban to alcohol prohibition and argued for repeal. Much of what we wrote then holds up — but not all of it does.

At the time, supporters of legalization predicted that it would bring few downsides. In our editorials, we described marijuana addiction and dependence as “relatively minor problems.” Many advocates went further and claimed that marijuana was a harmless drug that might even bring net health benefits. They also said that legalization might not lead to greater use.

 

It is now clear that many of these predictions were wrong. Legalization has led to much more use. Surveys suggest that about 18 million people in the United States have used marijuana almost daily (or about five times a week) in recent years. That was up from around six million in 2012 and less than one million in 1992. More Americans now use marijuana daily than alcohol. 

...

"The unfortunate truth is that the loosening of marijuana policies — especially the decision to legalize pot without adequately regulating it — has led to worse outcomes than many Americans expected. It is time to acknowledge reality and change course." 

 

Trump Administration Removes Pride Flag From Stonewall National Monument (but the Stonewall Inn is still in private hands)

 When a national monument is designated around a private business in a liberal state, the ability of the President to alter its message is  at least partially circumscribed.

Trump Administration Removes Pride Flag From Stonewall National Monument  The enduring symbol of LGBTQ+ liberation has been taken down from the historic site.
By James Factora and Quispe López  February 10, 2026 

 

 

 "Manhattan borough president Brad Hoylman-Sigal told the New York Times that the directive to remove the Pride flag came from the Trump administration. The monument itself was designated in 2016 to honor the origin of Pride in the United States, and was also the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGTBTQ+ rights.

"But like the 1969 rebellion that cemented Stonewall into history books, queer and trans people are not taking it without a fight. While the park and monument across from the original Stonewall Inn is now a federal park, the business itself is private property.

“Bad news for the Trump Administration: these colors don’t run,” Human Rights Campaign Press Secretary Brandon Wolf said in a statement. “The Stonewall Inn & Visitor’s Center is still privately owned, their flags are still flying high, and that community is just as queer as it was yesterday. While their policy agenda throws the country into chaos, the Trump administration is obsessed with trying to suffocate the joy and pride that Americans have for their communities.”

##########

N.Y.C. Officials Reinstate Pride Flag at Stonewall After Federal Removal   By Liam Stack and Olivia BensimonUpdated Feb. 13, 2026, 2:40 a.m. ET

"A group of New York elected officials gathered on Thursday to replace the Pride flag that was removed from the Stonewall National Monument after a directive from the Trump administration, mounting a defiant response to the government’s assault on diversity initiatives at a federal site honoring the L.G.B.T.Q. rights movement.

"The plan to re-raise the flag in the center of the small park outside the historic Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village had been widely publicized on social media, and hundreds of spectators cheered as its rainbow colors made their way back up the flagpole under a cloudy winter sky."

Moral Economics: back-cover blurbs

 I now know what blurbs will likely be on the back cover of Moral Economics when it comes out in May. They are by Peter Singer, Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo, Claudia Goldin, and Paul Milgrom & Bob Wilson, all people whose work I admire more than I can say.

    “Alvin Roth received the Nobel Prize for work in economics that has saved thousands of lives. In Moral Economics, Roth applies his open-minded, evidence-based thinking to controversial issues at the intersection of markets and morals, where his way of thinking could save even more lives.”
    Peter Singer, author of Ethics in the Real World

    “A surprising large part of economics is about things money can't buy, for many good and bad and complicated reasons. This wonderful book by the leading scholar in that area of economics is something else that just money could never buy. It's a labor of love, a testament from a lifetime of thought and research.”
    Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Nobel laureates and authors of Poor Economics

    “With clarity and compassion, Al Roth explores the transactions society cannot escape—surrogacy, the purchase of body parts, the sale of sex, and a host of ‘repugnant’ relationships. What should be regulated? What should be banned? What are the limits of using price in the marketplace? Be prepared to think in new ways and gain from the insights of a great market designer.”
    Claudia Goldin, Nobel laureate and author of Career and Family

    “From the right to sell a kidney to the cost of a surrogate birth, our sense of ‘right and wrong’ shapes the economy more than we realize. Nobel laureate Alvin Roth—the world's leading ‘philosopher-economist’—unpacks the hidden moral codes that govern our most intimate transactions. This is a clear-eyed guide to understanding where the market ends, where morality begins, and how we can design a world that honors both.”
    Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson, Nobel laureates, Stanford University
 

Repugnance: two overviews (one by humans, one by Ai)

Here are two overviews of repugnance, one by economists in a forthcoming book chapter, and one from xAi via its large language model, in Grokipedia.

First, here's the human report, by three veteran scholars of repugnant transactions and controversial markets:

 The Morality of Market Exchanges: Between Societal Values and Tradeoffs   by Julio J. Elias, Nicola Lacetera & Mario Macis
NBER Working Paper 34647 DOI 10.3386/w34647  January 2026

"Certain behaviors in markets are unambiguously unethical. In other cases, however, voluntary exchanges that can create gains from trade remain contested on moral grounds, because of what is traded or of the price at which the exchange occurs. This chapter offers a framework to analyze these contested markets and provides examples of two general instances. First, we examine “repugnant” transactions involving the human body—such as compensated organ donation and gestational surrogacy—where concerns about dignity, exploitation, and inequality conflict with welfare gains from expanding supply. Second, we study price gouging in emergencies, where demands for a “just price” clash with the incentive and allocation roles of price adjustments under scarcity. Across both cases, we synthesize evidence on societal attitudes and highlight how support for policy options depends on perceived trade-offs between autonomy, fairness and efficiency, and on institutional features that can separate compensation from allocation."
 

And here's the first sentence of a long overview of repugnance at Grokipedia, an Ai generated encyclopedia launched in October 2025:

Repugnancy costs
"Repugnancy costs denote the multifaceted disutilities—including reputational harm, social sanctions, moral distress, and enforcement expenses—that emerge when voluntary transactions clash with dominant cultural or ethical norms, effectively rationing or prohibiting markets even among consenting parties. "

AEA Code of Conduct: (I can't answer "no" to all of the screening questions)

 When I was president of the American Economic Association, we began to think it would be prudent to have a formal code of conduct (see the link below for details).  But part of that effort resulted in a disclosure questionnaire required of all those who would serve on AEA committees. As I recall, I felt that one of the questions was too broadly posed. 

I've agreed to serve another term on the Committee on the Job Market, so I get to fill out the questionnaire, once again.  My responses are below. You should be able to guess the question I thought was phrased too broadly.

AEA Disclosure Questionnaire

Please review and respond to the disclosure questions below, with explanations as needed. It is important that you answer truthfully. Your answers to the questions will be reviewed by the President and Secretary-Treasurer and will be shared with other members of the Executive Committee only if necessary and on a need-to-know basis.

Affirmative answers to questions would not necessarily be disqualifying but will be considered during the review. To expedite this process, I ask that you please respond to these questions at your earliest convenience.

For more information, see the AEA Professional Code of Conduct and the policy on harassment, discrimination, and retaliation.

Here are the questions, and my answers. 

  

######## 

 I would have had more reason(s) to answer "yes" if I had played on any  gender-segregated athletic teams.

Religion and gender turn out to be complicated (and therefore well worth studying). 

What to read in 2026: FT recommends Moral Economics (plus blurbs by Milgrom, Wilson and Goldin:)

 The Financial Times looks into its crystal ball to suggest what books to read in the coming year, organized by the month in which they are scheduled to appear.  I'm happy to see my book among them. (And the first two blurbs are now online as well:)

What to read in 2026 

May 

    Moral Economics: What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work by Alvin Roth (Basic Books)
Today’s fiercest moral battles are reframed as questions of market design, rather than absolute rights and wrongs. From reproductive medicine to drug policy and organ donation, Nobel Prize winner Roth shows how societies can calibrate what is permitted, restricted or banned without abandoning ethical concern.
 

The subtitle (subtly different from the U.S. version) reveals that they are thinking of the U.K. Version of my book. 

 

 

"Review
"From the right to sell a kidney to the cost of a surrogate birth, our sense of "right and wrong" shapes the economy more than we realize. Nobel laureate Alvin Roth - the world's leading "philosopher-economist" -unpacks the hidden moral codes that govern our most intimate transactions. This is a clear-eyed guide to understanding where the market ends, where morality begins, and how we can design a world that honors both -- Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson, Nobel laureates, Stanford University

"With clarity and compassion, Al Roth explores the transactions society cannot escape - surrogacy, the purchase of body parts, the sale of sex, and a host of "repugnant" relationships. What should be regulated? What should be banned? What are the limits of using price in the marketplace? Be prepared to think in new ways and gain from the insights of a great market designer -- Claudia Goldin, Nobel laureate and author of CAREER AND FAMILY  "

Medical aid in dying to become available in New York State

 Here's the announcements from the New York State Governor's office:

Governor Hochul Reaches Agreement With State Legislature to Pass Medical Aid in Dying Act in New York  

"Governor Hochul today announced an agreement with the Legislature to make medical aid in dying available to terminally ill New Yorkers with less than six months to live. This comes after careful reflection and deliberation with the bill’s sponsors, advocacy organizations, and most importantly, everyday New Yorkers who shared personal experiences with the Governor. The bill, with the agreed-upon amendments, will be passed and signed in January, and the law will go into effect six months later.

“New York has long been a beacon of freedom, and now it is time we extend that freedom to terminally ill New Yorkers who want the right to die comfortably and on their own terms,” said Governor Hochul. “My mother died of ALS, and I am all too familiar with the pain of seeing someone you love suffer and being powerless to stop it. Although this was an incredibly difficult decision, I ultimately determined that with the additional guardrails agreed upon with the legislature, this bill would allow New Yorkers to suffer less–to shorten not their lives, but their deaths.”
 

"The bill, as passed by the Legislature, had a number of protections in place to ensure that no patient was coerced into utilizing medical aid in dying and no doctor or religiously affiliated health facility was forced to offer medical aid in dying. With today’s agreement, the Governor announces a number of additional guardrails that the Legislature has agreed to enact aimed at ensuring the integrity of the patient’s decision and the preparedness of medical institutions to appropriately administer medical aid in dying. Today’s agreement memorializes a shared path forward on this bill, with additional key guardrails, including:

    A mandatory waiting period of 5 days between when a prescription is written and filled.
    An oral request by the patient for medical aid in dying must be recorded by video or audio.
    A mandatory mental health evaluation of the patient seeking medical aid in dying by a psychologist or psychiatrist.
    A prohibition against anyone who may benefit financially from the death of a patient from being eligible to serve as a witness to the oral request or an interpreter for the patient.
    Limiting the availability of medical aid in dying to New York residents.
    Requiring that the initial evaluation of a patient by a physician be in person.
    Allowing religiously-oriented home hospice providers to opt out of offering medical aid in dying.
    Ensuring that a violation of the law is defined as professional misconduct under the Education Law.
    Extending the effective date of the bill to six months after signing to allow the Department of Health to put into place regulations required to implement the law while also ensuring that health care facilities can properly prepare and train staff for compliance."

 

The market for used underwear, in the journal Genre, sexualité & société

 The study of repugnant transactions and controversial markets can lead to some strange markets.

 In the latest issue of the journal Genre, sexualité & société (after right clicking to translate to English) :

Product qualification in a contested market: The case of the used underwear market
by Ludine Cayla and Julien Gradoz
https://doi-org.stanford.idm.oclc.org/10.4000/154ww 

Abstract: This article focuses on the used underwear market, defined as the market for underwear that has been worn by one or more individuals and sold unwashed, meaning it contains deliberately left secretions and fluids. It distinguishes websites where the nature of the product sold must be concealed (such as resale websites for secondhand items) due to the prohibition of the transactions, and websites where the product can be openly discussed (such as websites specializing in the sale of sexual items). This distinction allows for the study of the issue of product qualification and disqualification in a contested market, which has been hardly explored. More broadly, this article helps identify the main characteristics of an overlooked market that, until now, has only been the subject of sensationalist analyses. 

"this is a "contested market," that is, a market in which some people would like to carry out transactions, but third parties oppose them on the basis of moral considerations. This opposition can then translate into constraints placed on the organization of the market (Roth, 2007), such as its prohibition (e.g., organs), the prohibition of advertising (cigarettes), difficulties in obtaining a bank loan (pornography), the imposition of punitive taxes (sodas), or even the stigmatization of participants in the transactions. Contested markets have been the subject of a substantial body of literature over the past decade (e.g., Steiner and Trespeuch, 2014; Bertrand et al ., 2020; Bertrand and Panitch, 2024; Gradoz and Dekker, 2025), and this article proposes to analyze the used underwear market based on this literature, moving beyond the sensationalism that has prevailed until now. This literature has focused in particular on the justifications used by third parties to challenge the existence of certain markets, or on the strategies implemented by participants in transactions to cope with the constraints resulting from this challenge." 

The national politics of deceased organ donation

 The U.S. transplant system is relatively open to foreign patients, and the NYT reports with some concern the number of foreign citizens receiving scarce organs from deceased donors, sometimes paying full list price to the hospitals involved.  One question I have that I haven't seen addressed in discussions of this type is how many foreign citizens who happen to die while visiting the US become deceased organ donors?

Here's the NYT:

Hospitals Cater to ‘Transplant Tourists’ as U.S. Patients Wait for Organs
International patients can bring a hospital as much as $2 million for a transplant. In recent years, they have typically gotten organs faster than U.S. patients. By Brian M. Rosenthal and Mark Hansen

  "In the past dozen years, more than 1,400 patients from abroad received a transplant in the United States after traveling specifically for the procedure. That was a small fraction of all U.S. transplants, and most transplant centers did not operate on international patients at all.

"But The Times found that a handful of hospitals are increasingly catering to overseas patients, who make up an ever-larger share of their organ recipients: 11 percent for hearts and lungs at the University of Chicago; 20 percent for lungs at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx; 16 percent for lungs at UC San Diego Health; 10 percent for intestines at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington; and 8 percent for livers at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center in Houston.

"In many countries, this would be illegal. World leaders agreed in 2008 to fight so-called transplant tourism, and most nations do not provide organs to overseas patients. Yet the United States has long allowed it. The policy has drawn criticism in the past, such as when organs went to Saudi royals and a Japanese crime boss. 

...

"Dr. Mark Fox, a former chair of the transplant system’s ethics committee, said the findings were troubling, especially because overseas patients do not contribute to America’s pool of donated organs. “The unfortunate reality is that we don’t have enough organs,” he said. “When people jet in, get an organ and jet home, it’s a problem. It’s not fair.” 

 ##########

I'm reminded of this 2018 article which expressed a similar concern :

Delmonico, F. L., Gunderson, S., Iyer, K. R., Danovitch, G. M., Pruett, T. L., Reyes, J. D., & Ascher, N. L. (2018). Deceased donor organ transplantation performed in the United States for noncitizens and nonresidents. Transplantation, 102(7), 1124-1131. 

Abstract: "Since 2012, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN)/United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) has required transplant centers to record the citizenship residency status of patients undergoing transplantation in the United States. This policy replaced the 5% threshold of the non–US citizen/nonresidents (NC/NR) undergoing organ transplantation that could result in an audit of transplant center activity. Since April 1, 2015, the country of residence for the NC/NR on the waitlist has also been recorded. We analyzed the frequency of NC/NR deceased donor organ transplants and waitlist registrations at all US transplant centers by data provided by UNOS for that purpose to the UNOS Ad Hoc International Relations Committee. During the period of 2013 to 2016, 1176 deceased donor transplants (of all organs) were performed in non–US citizen/non–US resident (NC/NR) candidates (0.54% of the total number of transplants). We focused on high-volume NC/NR transplant centers that performed more than 5% of the deceased donor kidney or liver transplants in NC/NR or whose waitlist registrants exceeded 5% NC/NR. This report was prepared to fulfill the transparency policy of UNOS to assure a public trust in the distribution of organs. When viewed with a public awareness of deceased donor organ shortages, it suggests the need for a more comprehensive understanding of current NC/NR activity in the United States. Patterns of organ specific NC/NR registrations and transplantations at high-volume centers should prompt a review of transplant center practices to determine whether the deceased donor and center resources may be compromised for their US patients." 

They note that " a noncitizen/nonresident could be a foreign student or businessperson traveling to the United States, whereas an undocumented individual living in the United States would also be a noncitizen/resident." 

The local politics of deceased organ donation

 "All politics is local" may not be entirely true, but local politics doesn't end at death.

MedPage Today has the story: 

Senators Urge More Localized Use of Donor Organs
— "Too many of our organs are leaving" the geographic area, says Sen. Roger Marshall, MD
by Joyce Frieden, 

"More needs to be done to make sure donated organs are transplanted to recipients within the local geographic area whenever possible, several senators said Thursday at a hearing on the future of the organ procurement and transplantation network.

"The Midwest, where I'm from ... is famous that we have a higher organ donor rate than the [East or West] coasts do typically," said Sen. Roger Marshall, MD (R-Kansas). "And you know, there's a concern that too many of our organs are leaving the Midwest." 

Australia's ban on social media use by teens under sixteen

 Australia has put into effect a ban on social media use by teenagers younger than 16.  My first thought is, good luck with that...

Here are some headlines that caught my eye:

From MSN: 

Australian leader defends social media ban as teens flaunt workarounds  by Byron Kaye 

"A day after the law took effect with bipartisan support from the major political parties and backing by some three-quarters of Australian parents, the country's social media feeds were flooded with comments from people claiming to be under 16, including one on the prime minister's TikTok account saying "I'm still here, wait until I can vote".

####### 

And (more optimistically) from Nature:

Australia’s world-first social media ban is a ‘natural experiment’ for scientists
Researchers will study the effects of the policy on young people’s mental health, social interactions and political engagement.   By Rachel Fieldhouse & Mohana Basu 

" Many teenagers in the country are furious, but for social scientists, the policy offers a natural experiment to study the effects of social-media restrictions on young people." 

########

And this:

Social Media Lab Appointed as Lead Academic Partner for Australian Legislation 

Yuck! and the long journey to a book title

 

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I'm working on the galleys of my forthcoming book, Moral Economics. This has reminded me of the long journey to a book title.

 

For one thing, the British title isn't exactly  the same as the American title--they have different subtitles. British readers will have to open the book to discover that prostitution and organ sales are among the topics covered, while American readers can see this on the cover.

 

  

My original, working title was "Controversial Markets and Repugnant  Transactions," based in part on my 2007 article  "Repugnance as a Constraint on Markets".  But I soon realized that when non-economists heard me mention that a transaction was repugnant, they thought I meant that I didn't like it and that they shouldn't either, when what I did mean was merely that some people object to it, often on moral grounds.

So for a while my working title became "Controversial Markets and Morally Contested Transactions." 

That's descriptive, but clunky.  So I didn't resist too much when my publisher suggested "Moral Economics," although I worried that was too cryptic, so a sub-title would be needed.

And all of this is stored in a folder with the title "Yuck" that I opened on my hard drive when I first started to think about writing a book on repugnant transactions. 

New book! Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work--forthcoming!

 

 I have a forthcoming book, (at long last) and it now even has a cover. (Note the halo:)  I'm reading the galleys right now...

 

Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work    forthcoming – May 12, 2026

also available to preorder at other fine bookstores. (I'll be happy to autograph pre-orders that are mailed to me, btw...)

 

"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. "

 

Notes from Messina (kidney exchange and the Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti)

 We traveled last week from Prague to Sicily, for the Matching in Practice workshop in  Messina, which was rich in kidney exchange. I was glad to reconnect with the Director of the National Transplant organization, Dr. Giuseppe Feltrin, and with Professors Antonio Nicolò and Antonio Miralles.

But a funny thing happened first, at the University of Messina. I was inducted into the university's Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti, founded in the early 1700's, at a time when autocrats didn't look fondly on universities (imagine that!). The symbol of the Academy is a ship sailing in the Strait of Messina (between Scylla and Charybdis) with the motto "Inter utramque viam periclitantes," "Taking risks between both paths," reflecting (I was told) the perils of navigating the strait between scholarship and politics.  It seemed very appropriate for the times.

Here's the story in the local news: with a picture: