Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Kidney Markets--my debate with Debra Satz (video)
Sunday, April 14, 2024
Market design at Stanford
Two recent Stanford news stories focus on market design:
Symposium inaugurates Center for Computational Market Design. The new center will bring interdisciplinary expertise to bear on crafting rules and procedures for creating and improving markets.
"In an interview, Amin Saberi, a co-director of the center and professor of management science and engineering, said he hopes that research by the center’s members can inform market-related policy decisions in health care, education, transportation, electricity, and the environment.
“One of our goals is to collaborate with industry and the government to analyze existing markets and improve their performance,” Saberi said. “We also hope that the center becomes a launchpad for prototyping new marketplaces.”
Itai Ashlagi, the center’s other co-director and a professor of management science and engineering, said in an interview that the rise of artificial intelligence played a role in the decision to launch the center. “AI is going to be a big player in marketplaces,” he said.
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For the Colorado River and beyond, a new market could save the day. Stanford economist Paul Milgrom won a Nobel Prize in part for his role in enabling today’s mobile world. Now he’s tackling a different 21st century challenge: water scarcity.
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Earlier:
Sunday, January 7, 2024
Monday, April 8, 2024
Kidney Markets with Alvin Roth and Debra Satz (tomorrow, at Stanford)
Tomorrow Debra Satz and I will respectfully disagree with each other about the prospects for and desirability of compensation for kidney donors, as part of the series she is conducting on Democracy and Disagreement.
Kidney Markets with Alvin Roth and Debra Satz
FROM THE SERIES: Democracy and Disagreement
Tuesday, April 9, 2024 3:00pm - 4:50pm
CEMEX Auditorium, 655 Knight Way, Stanford, CA
Free
Stanford professors Alvin Roth and Debra Satz discuss kidney markets.
ABOUT THE SERIES: Democracy and Disagreement
Debra Satz, the Vernon R. and Lysbeth Warren Anderson Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, and Paul Brest, interim dean and professor emeritus at Stanford Law School, host faculty members on opposing sides of a given issue for discussions that model civil disagreement.
Open to the Stanford community.
Thursday, April 4, 2024
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
SITE 2024 Conference: Call For Papers for Summer 2024
Now is the time to be thinking of submitting papers for the summer sessions at Stanford. (Some deadlines are in April.)
Here's the call for papers:
SITE 2024 Conference: Call For Papers
Stanford Economics is proud to host its annual Stanford Institute for Theoretical Economics (SITE) Conference from July 1 to September 11 2024. SITE sponsors sessions that encompass both economic theory and empirical work and cover a broad range of topics. It brings together established and emerging scholars to present leading-edge economic research, to educate, and to collaborate.
These sessions are scheduled:
- Gender Monday, July 1, 2024, 8:00am - Tuesday, July 2, 2024, 5:00pm
- Empirical Implementation of Theoretical Models of Strategic Interaction and Dynamic Behavior Thursday, July 11, 2024, 8:00am - Friday, July 12, 2024, 5:00pm
- Trade and Finance Thursday, July 25, 2024, 8:00am - Friday, July 26, 2024, 5:00pm
- Fiscal Sustainability Thursday, August 1, 2024, 8:00am - Friday, August 2, 2024, 5:00pm
- Dynamic Games, Contracts, and Markets Monday, August 5, 2024, 8:00am - Wednesday, August 7, 2024, 5:00pm
- The Micro and Macro of Labor Markets Tuesday, August 6, 2024, 8:00am - Wednesday, August 7, 2024, 5:00pm
- Political Economic Theory Thursday, August 8, 2024, 8:00am - Friday, August 9, 2024, 5:00pm
- Market Design Thursday, August 8, 2024, 8:00am - Friday, August 9, 2024, 5:00pm
- Market Failures and Public Policy Wednesday, August 14, 2024, 8:00am - Thursday, August 15, 2024, 5:00pm
- Empirical Market Design Thursday, August 15, 2024, 8:00am - Friday, August 16, 2024, 5:00pm
- Climate Finance and Banking Monday, August 19, 2024, 8:00am - Tuesday, August 20, 2024, 8:00am
- Frontiers of Macroeconomic Research Wednesday, August 21, 2024, 8:00am - Friday, August 23, 2024, 5:00pm
- Experimental Economics Thursday, August 22, 2024, 8:00am - Friday, August 23, 2024, 5:00pm
- Psychology and Economics Monday, August 26, 2024, 8:00am - Tuesday, August 27, 2024, 9:00pm
- The Labor Market Experience of Vulnerable Populations of Workers Monday, August 26, 2024, 8:00am - 5:00pm
- Housing and Urban Economics Wednesday, August 28, 2024, 8:00am - Friday, August 30, 2024, 5:00pm
- The Macroeconomics of Uncertainty and Volatility Wednesday, September 4, 2024, 8:00am - Friday, September 6, 2024, 5:00pm
- New Research in Asset Pricing Wednesday, September 4, 2024, 8:00am - Friday, September 6, 2024, 5:00pm
- The Economics of Transparency Thursday, September 5, 2024, 8:00am - Friday, September 6, 2024, 5:00pm
- Financial Regulation Monday, September 9, 2024, 8:00am - Wednesday, September 11, 2024, 5:00pm
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Stanford Impact Labs announces support for kidney exchange in Brazil, India, and the U.S.
Stanford Impact Labs has announced an investment designed to help the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation (APKD) increase access to kidney exchange in Brazil, India, and the U.S. Here are three related web pages...
1. Stanford Impact Labs Invests in Global Collaboration to Increase Access to Kidney Transplants. $1.5 million over three years will support solutions-focused project led by Stanford’s Dr. Alvin Roth and the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation (APKD) by Kate Green Tripp
"Stanford Impact Labs (SIL) is delighted to announce a $1.5 million Stage 3: Amplify Impact investment to support Extending Kidney Exchange, a solutions-focused project established to increase access to lifesaving kidney transplants.
"The team, led by Stanford’s Dr. Alvin (Al) Roth, who shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on market design, and the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation (APKD) is working in close partnership with organ transplant specialists and medical centers in Brazil, India, and the U.S., including Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Juiz de Fora, the Institute of Kidney Diseases and Research Center and Dr. H L Trivedi Institute of Transplantation Sciences (IKDRC-ITS), and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
"Over the course of the next three years, the team aims to increase the number of transplant opportunities available to patients who need them by creating and growing kidney exchange programs in Brazil and India, where millions of people suffer from kidney disease yet exchange is minimal; and explore the effects of initiating donor chains with a deceased donor kidney (DDIC) in the U.S., an approach which could unlock hundreds more transplants each year.
..."
2. How Does Applied Economics Maximize Kidney Transplants? A project aimed at expanding kidney exchange and saving lives puts Nobel Prize-winning matching theory into practice. by Jenn Brown (including a video...)
"APKD uses open source software developed by Itai Ashlagi, Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, to facilitate the matching process for its NEAD chains, and they currently average 5 non-simultaneous transplants per chain.
"In Brazil, our team has launched a kidney exchange program within Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Juiz de Fora and Hospital Clínicas FMUSP in São Paulo and aims to expand to facilitating exchanges between these centers and others with the ultimate goal of kidney exchange transitioning from a research project to an officially approved practice in Brazil.
"In India, our team has deployed kidney matching software and resources for growth to the Institute of Kidney Diseases and Research Center and Dr. HL Trivedi Institute of Transplantation Sciences (IKDRC-ITS) to support kidney exchange programs. We aim to develop an evidence base for potential updates to organ transplantation laws that expand criteria for who can give and receive lifesaving kidneys.
"In the U.S., we are working with Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to test the use of deceased donor-initiated chains (DDIC) so as to generate hundreds of additional life-saving transplants each year that are not currently supported by today's practice of utilizing a deceased donor kidney to save the life of a single person on a transplant waitlist. "
Sunday, December 3, 2023
Photos from the daily market design activity at Stanford
Two photos remind me of the day to day market design activity at Stanford.
Tinglong Dai joined our Wednesday market design coffee and sent along this picture. (You can see who came by plane and who came by bike...) He wrote about his visit here.
And Matias Cersosimo successfully defended his dissertation on Friday, which included market design experiments like this one.
Welcome to the club, Matias.
Monday, June 19, 2023
Sunday, November 20, 2022
Vacuum-tube valley
Silicon valley didn't transition directly from fruit orchards to silicon chips. Vacuum tubes took center stage for a while.
Here's a California historical landmark on the NE corner of Emerson Street and Channing Avenue in Palo Alto, commemorating the Federal Telegraph Company, founded by radio/electronics pioneer Cyril Frank Elwell (August 20, 1884 – 1963), who graduated from Stanford in 1907.
Monday, November 7, 2022
Stanford Economics Ph.D. Job Market Candidates for the 2022-23 Economics Job Market.
22 candidates for the 2022-23 Economics Job Market, from B to Z.
Stanford, Department of Economics Job Market Candidates
Available November 2022 for positions in Summer/Fall 2023
Placement Officers: Pete Klenow 650-725-2620 klenow@stanford.edu and Liran Einav 650-723-3704 leinav@stanford.edu
Trevor Bakker
Aniket Baksy
Lukas Bolte
Yue Cao
Daniele Caratelli
Alex Chan
Fulya Ersoy
Tony Fan
Robin Han
Brian Higgins
Tingyan Jia
Matteo Leombroni
Gina Li
Negar Matoorian Pour
Agathe Pernoud
Beatriz Pousada
Maxwell Rong
Rachel Schuh
Martin Souchier
Reka Zempleni
Adam Zhang
Sally Zhang
Thursday, June 2, 2022
Stanford Economics Site Conferences 2022
Here's the full set of sessions for this summer:
- How Should We Fund Science? (June 30-June 30, 2022)
- The Economics of Animal Welfare (July 12-July 12, 2022)
- Empirical Implementation of Theoretical Models of Strategic Interaction and Dynamic Behavior (July 13-July 15, 2022)
- New Frontiers in Asset Pricing (July 18-July 20, 2022)
- Dynamic Games, Contracts, and Markets (August 8-August 10, 2022)
- Gender (August 11-August 12, 2022)
- Political Economic Theory (August 11-August 12, 2022)
- Macroeconomics and Inequality (August 15-August 17, 2022)
- Experimental Economics (August 15-August 16, 2022)
- Psychology and Economics (August 17-August 19, 2022)
- The Micro and Macro of Labor Markets (August 22-August 23, 2022)
- Migration (August 25-August 26, 2022)
- Labor Markets and Policies (August 29-August 31, 2022)
- Financial Regulation (August 29-August 31, 2022)
- IO of Healthcare and Consumer Finance Markets (August 31-September 1, 2022)
- Housing & Urban Economics (September 7-September 9, 2022)
- Climate Finance, Innovation and Challenges for Policy (September 12-September 13, 2022)
- The Macroeconomics of Uncertainty and Volatility (September 14-September 16, 2022)
Sunday, January 9, 2022
Stanford Institute for Theoretical Economics (SITE) Conference from July 1 to September 16, 2022.
Here's the call for papers for the series of summer conferences to be held at Stanford this summer, hopefully in person.
SITE 2022 Conference: Call for Papers
There are 17 mini-conferences this year: details at the link.
Saturday, January 1, 2022
Rainbow over Stanford
Sunday, September 19, 2021
Monday, February 1, 2021
Economics and Engineering (and market design): some history and prehistory, at Stanford and elsewhere
The December 2020 issue of History of Political Economy is devoted to Economics and Engineering.
Here's an account of Stanford and Bob Wilson (among others), written before the most recent Nobel prize to Wilson and Milgrom.
A Century of Economics and Engineering at Stanford by Beatrice Cherrier and Aurélien Saïdi
History of Political Economy (2020) 52 (S1): 85–111. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-8717936
"This article documents the disciplinary exchanges between economists and engineers at Stanford throughout the twentieth century. We outline the role of key scholars such as Kenneth Arrow and Robert Wilson, as well as engineers turned administrators like Frederick Terman. We show that engineers drew upon economic theories of decision and allocation to improve practical industrial management decisions. Reciprocally, economists found in engineering the tools that they needed to rethink production and growth theory (including linear programming, optimal control theory, an epistemology of “application” that emphasized awareness to institutional details, trials and errors and experiments). By the 2000s, they had turned into economic engineers designing markets and other allocation mechanisms. These cross-disciplinary exchanges were mediated by Stanford’s own institutional culture, notably its use of joint appointments, the development of multidisciplinary “programs” for students, the ability to attract a variety of visitors every year, the entrepreneurial and contract-oriented vision of its administrators, and the close ties with the industrial milieu that came to be called the Silicon Valley.
..
"This article should not be read as a history of economics, engineering, or management science at Stanford and their idiosyncrasies.4 None of the research programs or institutional arrangements we describe were unique to Stanford. Rather, we document how some of the engineering and economics theories, tools, and epistemologies developed elsewhere were recombined in a specific institutional setting and entrepreneurial culture, and thus came to infuse the vision that some Stanford economists developed and spread in the last decades."
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The pdf to the full article appears to be ungated, and will be especially rewarding to old Stanford hands, who will recognize a lot of names from Operations Research as well as from Econ.
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And here's the introduction to the whole December special issue, by its editors:
Introduction: From “Economics as Engineering” to “Economics and Engineering” by Pedro Garcia Duarte and Yann Giraud
History of Political Economy (2020) 52 (S1): 10–27. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-8717898
"Economists such as Alvin Roth and Esther Duflo have recently argued that economics in the late twentieth century has evolved from (social) science to engineering. On the other hand, historians such as Mary Morgan and Michel Armatte have argued that the transformation of economics into an engineering science has been a century-long development. Turning away from the “economics as engineering” analogy, our introduction suggests an alternative approach to account for the presumed transformation of economics into an engineering science. We encourage the development of a history of “economics and engineering,” which depicts how these two types of knowledge–and the communities who produce them–have interacted in various institutional and national contexts. Drawing on the contributions to this 2020 annual supplement of HOPE, we show how these narratives may help change the historiography of twentieth-century economics."
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As it happens, I had the privilege of discussing some of these papers in Atlanta in 2019 at the ASSA meetings, in a session sponsored by the History of Economics Society, and chaired by Pedro Garcia Duarte.
Another paper from that session that appears in this issue of HOPE is
Engineering the “Statistical Control of Business”: Malcolm Rorty, Telephone Engineering, and American Economics, 1900–1930 by Thomas A. Stapleford
History of Political Economy (2020) 52 (S1): 59–84. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-8717924
"Malcolm Rorty is best known to historians of economics as the primary organizer and founder of the National Bureau of Economic Research. This article situates Rorty’s interest in economics against the backdrop of his early career in telephone engineering at American Telephone & Telegraph. I argue that distinct structural features of telephone engineering in general, and AT&T in particular, created overlaps between the practices of engineering and economics, and also opened space for Rorty to craft a broader vision for the “statistical control of business” through quantitatively informed management."
Saturday, September 12, 2020
Politics and medicine, at Stanford and in Washington--an open letter from Stanford docs about corona virus policies
Politics and medicine can combine poorly, particularly in a politicized pandemic.
Here's an open letter from over a hundred faculty at Stanford's Medical school, disowning the positions about pandemic policies taken by one of their former colleagues, now in Washington, by way of Fox News. (Here's the letter in full; to see the signatories click on the link...)
An Open Letter from Stanford Doctors [Update: the letter has been taken down from the Stanford medicine website, but here is another copy...]
"As infectious diseases physicians and researchers, microbiologists and immunologists, epidemiologists and health policy leaders, we stand united in efforts to develop and promote science-based solutions that advance human health and prevent suffering from the coronavirus pandemic. In this pursuit, we share a commitment to a basic principle derived from the Hippocratic Oath: Primum Non Nocere (First, Do No Harm).
"To prevent harm to the public’s health, we also have both a moral and an ethical responsibility to call attention to the falsehoods and misrepresentations of science recently fostered by Dr. Scott Atlas, a former Stanford Medical School colleague and current senior fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. Many of his opinions and statements run counter to established science and, by doing so, undermine public-health authorities and the credible science that guides effective public health policy. The preponderance of data, accrued from around the world, currently supports each of the following statements:
● The use of face masks, social distancing, handwashing and hygiene have been shown to substantially reduce the spread of Covid-19. Crowded indoor spaces are settings that significantly increase the risk of community spread of SARS-CoV-2.
● Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 frequently occurs from asymptomatic people, including children and young adults, to family members and others. Therefore, testing asymptomatic individuals, especially those with probable Covid-19 exposure is important to break the chain of ongoing transmission.
● Children of all ages can be infected with SARS-CoV-2. While infection is less common in children than in adults, serious short-term and long-term consequences of Covid-19 are increasingly described in children and young people.
● The pandemic will be controlled when a large proportion of a population has developed immunity (referred to as herd immunity) and that the safest path to herd immunity is through deployment of rigorously evaluated, effective vaccines that have been approved by regulatory agencies.
● In contrast, encouraging herd immunity through unchecked community transmission is not a safe public health strategy. In fact, this approach would do the opposite, causing a significant increase in preventable cases, suffering and deaths, especially among vulnerable populations, such as older individuals and essential workers.
"Commitment to science-based decision-making is a fundamental obligation of public health policy. The rates of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the US, with consequent morbidity and mortality, are among the highest in the world. The policy response to this pandemic must reinforce the science, including that evidence-based prevention and the safe development, testing and delivery of efficacious therapies and preventive measures, including vaccines, represent the safest path forward. Failure to follow the science -- or deliberately misrepresenting the science – will lead to immense avoidable harm.
"We believe that social and economic activity can reopen safely, if we follow policies that are consistent with science. In fact, the countries that have reopened businesses and schools safely are those that have implemented the science-based strategies outlined above.
"As Stanford faculty with expertise in infectious diseases, epidemiology and health policy, our signatures support this statement with the hope that our voices affirm scientific, medical and public health approaches that promote the safety of our communities and nation."
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Here's a recent NY Times story on Dr. Atlas, a radiologist:
A New Coronavirus Adviser Roils the White House With Unorthodox Ideas
By Noah Weiland, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Michael D. Shear and Jim Tankersley, Sept. 2, 2020
"Before joining the task force, Dr. Atlas pitched his ideas as a health commentator on Fox News, which is in part how he attracted Mr. Trump’s attention. His arrival at the White House has coincided with less visible roles for Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases."
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Of course, medicine isn't the only kind of science that has been caught up in Washington lately. (I write this from smoky California, where climate change seems quite real).
Nor is it the only part of medicine that has been caught up in politics around the world: I'm reminded of yesterday's post about the politics of global health care. Science seems to be slowly gaining on politics there, and so I'm hopeful that's a general trend, although sometimes slow and uneven, with a high ratio of heat to light.
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Monday, July 27, 2020
JET Stanford
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Stanford GSB interviews Ashutosh Thakur PhD ’20, about market design, and coffee
"Ashutosh Thakur is using matching and game theory to study institutional design in some unusual places.
"Thakur, a doctoral candidate in political economics at Stanford GSB, is trying to determine if systems designed for matching, say, medical students with residency posts can also be used to improve the effectiveness of public administration. He is specifically interested in the allocation of civil servants to diverse regions across India and in the party-specific procedures used in the U.S. Senate to assign politicians to committees.
“These projects take the theoretical tools and apply them to real-world problems and systems in practice,” says the Princeton graduate. “I’m hoping to improve government administration and development, trying to not just write academic papers but also use the findings to inform policymaking.”
"Thakur is also an expert chess player and an accomplished musician — pastimes that connect in their own way to his work."
Read about his work at the link. Here's the final question and answer:
"Have you had any memorable Stanford GSB experiences or encounters?
"One of the primary reasons the Stanford market design group is so tightly knit is due to Alvin Roth’s efforts in bringing the group together. He institutionalized this 45-minute coffee every Wednesday morning. It’s an informal, interdisciplinary gathering of faculty and students from the economics department, business school, engineering, and computer science, along with occasional guests and practitioners who might be visiting the area. It’s just a bunch of people getting together to talk about things they find interesting and what they’re working on. It’s been great at helping to build a community across all these different disciplines and getting exposure to a broad range of topics and applications."
Tuesday, April 3, 2018
Bob Wilson, Paul Milgrom and Dave Kreps on the future (and past) of Economics
The Future of Economics
Three award-winning economists talk about where the field has been and where it’s heading.