NSF Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences--attack and defense

As budget talks go on in Washington, the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences division of the National Science Foundation has become a specific focus of discussion (as distinguished from support for other science funded by NSF). The Consortium of Social Science Associations posts a number of documents, including Talking Points, which highlights some of the economics research funded by NSF over the years, including several research streams in market design (e.g. spectrum auctions and kidney exchange).

"According to the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA), amendments will probably be offered to disproportionately cut or completely eliminate funding for the National Science Foundation's Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Sciences Directorate when NSF's 2012 appropriations are voted on by the House.
...
"Amendments to cut NSF/SBE funding are most likely to be submitted when the spending bill comes to the House floor in the first week of August.

"We are calling this to your attention now because there might not be enough time for AEA members to express their opinions once the amendment is proposed and before it is voted on. Economists of all people understand the need to take action to deal with the U.S. fiscal challenge. But these amendments might target the social sciences for disproportionate funding reductions and possibly elimination. Economic research has profound value for society and we want to make sure that this is understood by policymakers. Although the NSF budget for the social and behavioral sciences is small (in FY2010 $255 million out of a total NSF budget of $7 billion), eliminating it would have very negative consequences for economic research and economic policy.

"The following are some reasons why Republicans and Democrats both should oppose this amendment:
• Unique Role: NSF’s SBE Directorate is the only place in the Federal government with a broad mandate to maintain and strengthen the basic science of economics. It provides over one-half of all external support by the Federal government for basic research in economics. SBE’s Economics Program current budget is only $26.5 million. Although other government agencies, private foundations and the private sector support applied and some basic economics research, none have the resources and the incentives to support the new methods, data and broad range of substantive research funded by NSF. Severe cuts in an already small NSF budget for economics would be a major blow to the infrastructure needed to support the best research on extremely complex and important economic questions.

• Very High Return on Past Investments: Since 1994 spectrum auctions have generated more than $50 billion for the U.S. Treasury and worldwide revenues in excess of $200 billion. Researchers at Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology, supported by grants from NSF, developed the simultaneous ascending auction mechanism as a technique for auctioning off multiple goods whose values are not fixed but depend on each other. The mechanism was then tested experimentally in a laboratory, also financed by NSF, before its implementation by the Federal Communications Commission. These auctions not only benefit the US taxpayer, but ensure efficient allocation of spectra so that the winners of the auction are indeed the individuals who value the spectra the most. This method has also been extended to the sale of divisible goods in electricity, gas, and environmental markets.

• Innovation and Adoption of New Technologies: SBE funded a number of awards that have resulted in fundamental advances in our understanding of the economic factors that encourage innovation and the adoption of new technologies. For example, Nicholas Bloom at Stanford University was awarded a Faculty Early CAREER Development award for his research into the role innovation plays in determining economic productivity and growth. This research includes developing new data collection methods for measuring management practices and adoption of information technology (IT) in business. Using an innovative double-blind survey, he has been able to gather systematic evidence about the effects of specific management practices on the success and failure of firms. His research also has shed new light on the links between increased use of IT and patterns of international trade between the US and less developed countries. Other
work supported by SBE contributes to our understanding of how uncertainty shocks affect decisions made by businesses that in turn contribute to macroeconomic fluctuations.

• Lives Saved: Researchers in economics at Harvard University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Boston College have applied economic matching theory to develop a system that dramatically improves the ability of doctors to find compatible kidneys for patients on transplant lists. Organ donation is an example of an exchange that relies on mutual convergence of need; in this case, a donor and a recipient. This system allows matches to take place in a string of exchanges, shortening the waiting time and, in the case of organ transplants, potentially saving thousands of lives. Similar matching markets exist in other contexts, for example, for assigning doctors to residencies or students to schools.


• Millions Lifted out of Poverty: Microfinance has spread very rapidly in the last decade, raising the hope that it has the power to lift millions out of poverty by providing them with access to capital. Loans are often given to groups of five to ten women who are jointly liable for the loan to the group. Basic research findings from SBE grants have led to important practical advice for microfinance practitioners. SBE grantee Esther Duflo was named by TIME magazine one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2011 for her work this area.


• Many More Accomplishments: ...
******

In a possibly related development, the NSF recently (June 2011) highlighted some of our early (1992 and 2006) grants: Economists Design Life-Saving Exchange for Kidney Transplants

Congratulations to the winners of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)

Here's the announcement from the NSF:

President Obama honors early career scientists with top White House award

Twenty-one researchers nominated by the National Science Foundation receive awards for innovation, outreach in scientific community

and here's the list (one of which has "economics" in the citation...):

February 18, 2016

President Barack Obama today named 106 researchers as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), granting them the U.S. government's highest award for scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. The National Science Foundation (NSF) nominated 21 of the awardees.

PECASE recognizes scientists and engineers who show exceptional potential for leadership at the frontiers of scientific knowledge. Winners demonstrate the ability to broadly advance fundamental research and help the United States maintain its position as a leading producer of scientists and engineers.

"The awardees are outstanding scientists and engineers," said NSF Director France Córdova. "They are teacher-scholars who are developing new generations of outstanding scientists and engineers and ensuring this nation is a leading innovator. I applaud these recipients for their leadership, distinguished teaching and commitment to public outreach."

The NSF-nominated awardees come from universities around the country and excel in areas of science represented by NSF directorates: biology, computer and information science, education and human resources, engineering, geosciences, mathematics and physical sciences and social and behavioral sciences.

NSF vetted the research of its nominees through its rigorous peer review process. All of the NSF nominees have received five-year grants from the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program. CAREER awardees have proven themselves exemplary in integrating research and education. Selection is highly competitive: in 2012, NSF funded fewer than 20 percent of the 2,612 CAREER award applicants.

The Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President coordinated the PECASE awards, which were established by President Clinton in 1996. Awardees are selected on the basis of two criteria: pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and a commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education or community outreach.

This year's NSF recipients are:

Adam Abate, University of California, San Francisco

For his development of microfluidic approaches for creating single-cell bioreactors that may be applied to massively parallel approaches in single-cell genomics and transcriptomics and that can be implemented across a variety of disciplines including evolutionary biology, immunology, and cancer biology and for his outreach to underrepresented groups and veterans.

Marcel Agüeros, Columbia University

For his groundbreaking research in stellar astrophysics, and for his restless desire to ensure that minority students in sciences become tomorrow's leaders.

Arezoo Ardekani, University of Notre Dame

For research aimed to fundamentally understand, model and control bacterial biofilm formation through imaginative computations and elegant experiments, and for demonstrated commitment to increase underrepresented minority participation in STEM-related research.

Cullen Buie, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

For research to create highly sensitive systems that probe microbial physiology and thereby illustrate the coupling of cell phenotypes with virulence, and to train a new generation of underreprented minority scientists who become faculty.

Erin Carlson, Indiana University

For discovery of chemistry underlying a new approach to treat antibiotic-resistant infections, for leadership in the chemistry and women-chemists communities, and for developing new hands-on laboratory activities to engage K-12 students in natural product chemistry.

Antonius Dieker, Georgia Tech Research Corporation

For outstanding research on the stochastic behavior in engineered and physical systems; and for educational activities involving high school, undergraduate and graduate students.

Erika Edwards, Brown University

For innovative research leading to exciting breakthroughs in understanding the drivers of plant evolutionary innovation, and particularly the evolution of plant form and photosynthesis systems, and for engaging public outreach on plant biology.

Julia Grigsby, Boston College

For her work on the invariants of 3-manifolds, running advanced workshops, training graduate and undergraduate students, contributions to increasing participation of women in mathematical sciences and introducing talented middle-school girls to research mathematics.

Todd Gureckis, New York University

For his innovative work at the boundary of cognitive science, learning science and machine learning; for his work with museums to enhance the learning potential for children; and for creating an integrated, multidisciplinary curriculum for computational cognitive science for the workforce of the 21st century.

Tessa Hill, University of California, Davis

For her transdisciplinary research that places modern ocean acidification and ocean oxygenation into a long-term Earth-system context, and for training and outreach to K-12 teachers and students that offers them a better understanding of ocean science and climate change through inquiry-based learning.

Daniel Krashen, University of Georgia

For his work on local-to-global principles, organizing conferences and workshops, training graduate students and serving as a role model to underrepresented minorities in mathematics.

Daniel McCloskey, College of Staten Island, City University of New York

For research combining modeling, neurophysiology and systems biology/network science that will transform the field of social neuroscience by providing a comprehensive approach towards understanding the role of neuropetides in complex behavioral systems.

Rahul Mangharam, University of Pennsylvania

For inventing a new formal methodology to test and verify the correct operation of medical device software, saving lives and reducing care costs.

David Masiello, University of Washington

For his cutting-edge research in the emerging field of theoretical molecular nanophotonics, and for his comprehensive educational and outreach programs including an exemplary focus on enhancing the scientific communication abilities of young researchers.

Shwetak Patel, University of Washington

For inventing low-cost, easy-to-deploy sensor systems that leverage existing infrastructures to enable users to track household energy consumption and make the buildings we live in more responsive to our needs.

Aaron Roth, University of Pennsylvania

For visionary research on protecting personal data via differential privacy, and outstanding outreach that fosters interaction between the many communities that study data privacy from theoretical computer science to economics.

Sayeef Salahuddin, University of California, Berkeley

For pioneering research on the foundations of nanostructures as new, low-power electronics with potential influence on energy efficient systems, and for impact on industry, education and mentoring future scientists.

Jakita Thomas, Spelman College

For her research on how African-American middle-school girls develop computational algorithmic thinking within the context of designing games, a research project that explores the challenges African-American girls face and their self-perceptions as problem-solvers while at the same time educating them in mathematics, programming and reasoning.

Joachim Walther, University of Georgia

For building research capacity in engineering education by defining quality in qualitative research methods and leading communities of practice in this research, germane to and commonly used in broadening participation efforts.

Kristen Wendell, University of Massachusetts Boston

For her outstanding research work on how to integrate a community-based engineering design model into pre-service science elementary school teachers focused on crosscutting concepts, disciplinary core ideas and scientific and engineering practices.

Benjamin Williams, University of California, Los Angeles

For a comprehensive vision to advance Terahertz quantum-cascade lasers and devices for communications, sensing and imaging, and for leadership in enhancing undergraduate and graduate student learning experiences.

NSF is looking for a new Division Director, Social and Economic Sciences, SBE

This is an important job in government science:

Division Director, Social and Economic Sciences, SBE

Responsibilities
Serves as a member of the SBE Directorate leadership team and as a principal spokesperson in social and economic sciences for the Foundation.  Provides leadership and direction to the NSF Division responsible for funding research and education activities, both nationally and internationally, to develop and advance scientific knowledge and methods focusing on our understanding of individuals, social and organizational behavior by creating and sustaining social science infrastructure, and by supporting disciplinary and interdisciplinary research that advances knowledge in the social and economic sciences.  The incumbent has managerial and oversight responsibilities for the effective use of division staff and resources in meeting organizational goals and objectives (e.g., broadening participation).  Assesses needs and trends involving the social and economic sciences, implements overall strategic planning and policy setting for the Division, provides leadership and guidance to Division staff members, determines funding requirements, prepares and justifies budget estimates, balances program needs, allocates resources, oversees the evaluation of proposals and recommendations for awards and declinations, and represents NSF to relevant external groups.  Supervises and provides leadership and guidance to senior staff (Deputy Division Director), program officers, administrative and support personnel.  Fosters partnerships with other Divisions, Directorates, Federal agencies, scientific organizations, and the academic community.
***********

I'm a big fan of the NSF and the work it does, and very recently traveled to Washington D.C. to say thank you:

"And thank you to the NSF, and particularly to the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate, which must be one of the most cost-effective investments the government makes.  Social science isn’t very expensive, but it can be incredibly valuable. It can save lives.

"On a personal note, all of my work that was cited by the Nobel Prize committee was begun with funding from the NSF. Dan Newlon was the legendary director of the SBE Directorate, and he nurtured a generation of economists who made big changes in how economics is done. In the early 1990’s, when I was discouraged by the progress I was making on understanding matching, he encouraged me to stay the course. So for me, the NSF support was about much more than funding."
*********
Here's the set of my blog posts that mention the NSF

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce honors ideas

Country songwriters Lee Thomas Miller and Wendell Mobley share some of their ideas and IP at the Ideas in Bloom party sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce

Last Wednesday I flew to Washington DC to join a Chamber of Commerce celebration of  ideas and intellectual property, in various categories.

The innovation awards are both for lines of work that the National Science Foundation funded, and they were introduced by the NSF director, Dr. France Córdova. (I am happy to go to DC to help showcase the great work that the NSF does...see my remarks at the end of this post.)

Here's a link to the announcement:

The 2018 IP Champions Gala, September 12, 2018

IP Champion for Excellence in Enforcement
Peter O’Doherty, Head, Economic Crime Directorate, City of London Police
Nick Court, Chief Detective, Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, City of London Police

IP Champion for Excellence in Innovation
Alvin Roth, Founder, Kidney Exchange
Inderjit Jutla, Founder, Aluna

IP Champion for Excellence in Advocacy
Bart Herbison, President, Nashville Songwriters Association
Steve Bogart, Chairman, Nashville Songwriters Association

IP Champion for Excellence in Creativity
Kristie Macosko Krieger, Academy Award-nominated producer
Kira Goldberg, Executive Vice President, Production, 21st Century Fox

IP Champion for Excellence in IP Policy
Professor Liu Chuntian, Renmin University of China

IP Champion for Excellence in Innovation
Uzi Hanuni, CEO, Maxtech Networks

Musical Performance
Lee Thomas Miller, Nashville Mega-hit Songwriter
Wendell Mobley, Nashville Mega-hit Songwriter

**************
And here's a link to a subsequent press release:
U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE GLOBAL INNOVATION POLICY CENTER CELEBRATES IP LEADERS AT 2018 IP CHAMPIONS GALA

"IP Champion for Excellence in Innovation – Alvin Roth
...
"Since the first paired kidney exchange in 2000, thousands of people have received kidney transplants identified through paired exchanges."
**************
I scored a personal max for (travel time)/(speaking time).  Here are my prepared remarks:

"I flew here today to say thank you: to the Chamber of Commerce for recognizing not just my work but also the role that the NSF plays in fostering scientific innovation. 

And thank you to the NSF, and particularly to the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate, which must be one of the most cost-effective investments the government makes.  Social science isn’t very expensive, but it can be incredibly valuable. It can save lives.

On a personal note, all of my work that was cited by the Nobel Prize committee was begun with funding from the NSF. Dan Newlon was the legendary director of the SBE Directorate, and he nurtured a generation of economists who made big changes in how economics is done. In the early 1990’s, when I was discouraged by the progress I was making on understanding matching, he encouraged me to stay the course. So for me, the NSF support was about much more than funding.

So:Thank you all for coming here tonight, thank you Dr. Córdova, thank you to the NSF for all your support, starting when I was very young, and thank you to the Chamber of Commerce."
*******************

Here's a video link (that seems to start only after the first minute or so, and the NSF section begins with Dr. Córdova at minute 1:33 and goes to 1:45...) 

Market design for radio spectrum: new NSF program

Here's an   announcement that recently went out from the National Science Foundation:

"Dear Colleagues,

"I am writing to you today because of a just published NSF solicitation with the title “Enhancing Access to the Radio Spectrum (EARS)” [and a submission deadline of June 14, 2012]. The complete solicitation can be found here: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=503480 .

"The synopsis reads:

“The National Science Foundation's Directorates for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS), Engineering (ENG), Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) are coordinating efforts to identify bold new concepts with the potential to contribute to significant improvements in the efficiency of radio spectrum utilization, and in the ability for traditionally underserved Americans to benefit from current and future wireless-enabled goods and services. EARS seeks to fund innovative collaborative research that transcends the traditional boundaries of existing programs, such as research that spans disciplines covered by two or more of the participating NSF directorates.”

"A number of economists participated in an EARS Workshop here at the NSF in 2010. The final workshop-report can be found at: http://www.nsf.gov/mps/ast/nsf_ears_workshop_2010_final_report.pdf .

"It is my hope that you could spread the word among potentially interested social scientists who may want to submit an interdisciplinary proposal that has social science as its central component.

"According to the solicitation:

“The key research areas of interest to the EARS program include, but are not limited to, those that impact a wide range of technologies, applications, and users. Some broad examples and general topic areas include, but are not limited to:”

...

-       " Security of wireless signals and systems in the context of spectrum sharing.

-        ...

-      " Economic models for spectrum resource sharing. There exists a need for interdisciplinary research in the areas of market and non-market-based mechanisms for spectrum access and usage to efficiently organize the sharing of scarce spectrum resources. Examples of research themes include, but are not limited to, real-time auctions, market design, spectrum valuation, spectrum management for the home user and managing mixed-rights spectrum.

-        New and novel measurement-based spectrum management techniques, including agent-based systems, policy-based spectrum management, local and scalable spectrum management.”

"I would be thankful if you could forward information about the solicitation to other potentially interested researcher.

"Please feel free to send us any suggestions you may have to ensure that Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences will be prominently represented among the EARS proposal submissions."

Michael Reksulak, Ph.D.

Program Director, Economics

National Science Foundation

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 995

Arlington, VA  22230

mreksula@nsf.gov

Disrupting black markets

If markets can be facilitated, they can also be obstructed. The NSF announces some grants aimed at this:

NSF invests in research to help disrupt operations of illicit supply networks
9 early concept awards to detect, disrupt, disable networks that traffic people, weapons, drugs and more

"Networks that illegally traffic in everything from people and opioids to human organs and nuclear material pose threats to U.S. health, prosperity and security. Nine new awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will advance the scientific understanding of how such illicit supply networks function -- and how to dismantle them.

"The new awards support research that combines engineering with computer, physical and social sciences to address a danger that poses significant consequences for national and international security. Nimble and technologically sophisticated networks traffic in contraband that includes people, illegal weapons, drugs, looted antiquities, and exotic animal products. Unencumbered by national boundaries, they funnel illicit profits to criminal organizations, and fuel transnational and terrorist organizations.

"Other federal agencies and organizations have worked on this issue for many years, with involvement of specialized fields in the academic community. The new NSF awards leverage fundamental research, taking an engineering systems-based approach made far more powerful by the integration of other scientific disciplines.

"We've been studying commercial supply chains for years and figuring out how to make them resilient -- now we want to use these same principles to make illicit networks less resilient. We want to break them," said Georgia-Ann Klutke, NSF program director for Operations Engineering in the Directorate for Engineering. "These are systems that operate by the same dynamics and use the same infrastructure components as legal commercial distribution systems. Our goal is to provide fundamental insights into the operations and economics of these networks that other federal agencies and organizations can use to attack this very complex problem."
...

Below are the nine new projects being funded, along with the principal investigators and awardee organizations.

• Disrupting exploitation and trafficking labor supply networks in post-Harvey rebuild: an evidence-based multi-agent stochastic decision-making framework, Matt Kammer-Kerwick, University of Texas, Austin
• Network analysis and optimal interventions for disruption of organ trafficking, Naoru Koizumi, George Mason University
• A data analytic approach to understanding human trafficking networks, Renata Konrad, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
• Unraveling illicit supply chains for falsified pharmaceuticals with a citizen science approach, Marya Lieberman, University of Notre Dame
• Anticipatory interdiction in narco-trafficking networks, Nicholas Magliocca, University of Alabama
• Modeling operations of human trafficking networks for effective interdiction, Lauren Martin, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
• Detecting and disrupting illicit supply networks via traffic distribution systems, Nick Nikiforakis, Stony Brook University
• A new multi-layered network approach for improving the detection of human trafficking, Louise Shelley, George Mason University
• Advanced analytics, intelligence and processes for disrupting operations of illicit supply networks, Steven Simske, Colorado State University

What does the NSF do? What should it do? Reports from and about the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, and Dec 1 Webinar

What should the National Science Foundation division of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences be doing? They asked and we answered, and now they're having a webinar to report the results: here's the email announcement.

Dear Colleague:

Just a year ago, we stopped accepting SBE 2020 white papers.  The papers were released to the public in February and now we have completed a report, Rebuilding the Mosaic, which briefly describes the process, some of the themes we identified, and the programmatic implications of what we learned.  The report is available at: http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/sbe_2020/index.cfm, and we expect to host a webinar/town hall on December 1.  The login details are below.

All of your papers contributed to our thinking about the future of research in the SBE sciences, and we continue to be amazed at and grateful for your participation.  I hope that you will take a moment to read the report – all of the papers are listed in Appendix 5.  For the foreseeable future, we also expect to maintain the website (http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/sbe_2020/index.cfm), where the papers can be individually found and downloaded, since the report cannot substitute for the many ideas that you have shared with us and with the American people.

Although I have written to you before to express my appreciation, one more time, let me say:

Thank you.

Myron Gutmann

Directorate for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences

National Science Foundation

Details for participating in the webcast:

Date: December 1 at 11 a.m.

Webcast Title: Rebuilding the Mosaic: Listening to the Future in the SBE Sciences

Dial-in phone number:  888-469-1936

Verbal Passcode: Mosaic

Webcast URL:  http://live.science360.gov/    (will be active on Dec. 1.)

Webcast username: webcast

Webcast password: mosaic (case sensitive)

*********
Earlier, in a statement to Congress, Dr. Gutmann highlighted some of the tangible benefits derived from market design work that the NSF has supported:

Statement of
Dr. Myron P. Gutmann,
Assistant Director, Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences 
National Science Foundation

Before the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Science EducationUnited States House of Representatives

"3.1 SBE research has resulted in measurable gains for the U.S. taxpayer

Matching markets and kidney transplants. Researchers in economics at Harvard University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Boston College have applied economic matching theory to develop a system that dramatically improves the ability of doctors to find compatible kidneys for patients on transplant lists. Organ donation is an example of an exchange that relies on mutual convergence of need. In this case, a donor and a recipient. This system allows matches to take place in a string of exchanges, shortening the waiting time and, in the case of organ transplants, potentially saving thousands of lives.¹⁰ Similar matching markets exist in other contexts, for example, for assigning doctors to residencies.

Spectrum auctions. Spectrum auctions have generated $54 billion for the U.S. Treasury between 1994 and 2007 and worldwide revenues in excess of $200 billion. Researchers at Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology, supported by grants from SBE, developed the simultaneous ascending auction mechanism as a technique for auctioning off multiple goods whose values are not fixed but depend on each other. The mechanism was then tested experimentally and further refined before being implemented by the Federal Communications Commission. In this auction, all of the goods are on the selling block at the same time, and open for bids by any bidder. By giving bidders real-time information on the tentative price at each bid stage, bidders can develop a sense for where prices are likely to head and adjust their bids to get the package of goods they want. This process enables "price discovery," helping bidders to determine the values of all possible packages of goods. These auctions not only raise money, but ensure efficient allocation of spectra so that the winners of the auction are indeed the individuals who value the spectra the most. Applied with great benefit for the U.S. taxpayer in the FCC spectrum auctions, this method has also been extended to the sale of divisible goods in electricity, gas, and environmental markets.^11"

*****************
Here's an earlier post on congressional testimony:

NSF Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences--attack and defense

Support from the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF), and from the National Science Foundation (NSF)

The current newsletter of the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation has taken note of the early support that Ido Erev and I received from them, and I'm very happy to acknowledge it. I wonder how widespread are binational science foundations?

Alvin Roth's New Book and NPR Interview

"Roth is a pioneer in the field of game theory and experimental economics and in their application to the design of new economic institutions. Early in his career, he and Prof. Ido Erev from the Technion received BSF funding on three different occasions for their work on how reinforcement learning can make useful predictions in experimental games."

They also quote me in an NPR interview, about kidney exchange, saying
“I kind of think of economists as being helpers here,” he said. “We have some ideas, but we don't do any of the surgeries.”
*************

The NSF also takes note of the support it has given to Nobel laureates, and I am certainly grateful for the support I received:
NSF-funded Nobel Prize winners in science through 2015

ECONOMICS
1970 – Paul A. Samuelson*
1972 – Kenneth J. Arrow*
1973 – Wassily Leontief
1975 – Tjalling C. Koopmans
1978 – Herbert A. Simon
1980 – Lawrence R. Klein
1981 – James Tobin
1982 – George J. Stigler
1983 – Gerard Debreu
1985 – Franco Modigliani
1986 – James M. Buchanan Jr.
1987 – Robert M. Solow
1992 – Gary S. Becker
1993 – Robert W. Fogel, Douglass C. North
1994 – John C. Harsanyi, John F. Nash*
1995 – Robert E. Lucas
1997 – Robert C. Merton
1998 – Amartya Sen
1999 – Robert A. Mundell
2000 – James J. Heckman, Daniel L. McFadden
2001 – George Akerlof, Michael Spence, Joseph Stiglitz
2002 – Daniel Kahneman, Vernon Smith
2003 – Robert C. Engle, Clive W. Granger
2004 - Finn E. Kydland, Edward C. Prescott
2005 – Robert J. Aumann, Thomas C. Schelling
2006 – Edmund S. Phelps
2007 – Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson
2008 – Paul Krugman
2009 – Elinor Ostrom, Oliver E. Williamson
2010 – Peter A. Diamond, Dale Mortensen
2011 – Thomas J. Sargent, Christopher A. Sims
2012 – Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley
2013 – Eugene F. Fama, Lars Peter Hansen, Robert J. Shiller
2014 – Jean Tirole
2015 – Angus Deaton

* Received NSF support after receiving Nobel Prize.

Market Design, and NSF support of economics

Market design plays a role in the arguments both pro and con, in the recent symposium in the Journal of Economic Perspectives:

Symposium: NSF Funding for Economists

In Defense of the NSF Economics Program (#11) Robert A. Moffitt

Full-Text Access (Complimentary) | Supplementary Materials

A Skeptical View of the National Science Foundation's Role in Economic Research (#12) Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok

Full-Text Access (Complimentary) | Supplementary Materials

 Moffitt mentions auction design, kidney exchange and school choice (with a more general reference to deferred acceptance clearinghouses) as beneficiaries of NSF funding. Cowen and Tabarrok single out auction design as something whose private benefits might argue against government funding: "Indeed, few areas in economics have been as privately remunerative as auction theory."

NSF survey of earned doctorates

The NSF reports on doctoral degrees granted by American universities: National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics. 2009. Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities: Summary Report 2007–08. Special Report NSF 10-309. Arlington, VA. Available at http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf10309/.

The number of earned doctorates in Economics went from 800 in 1978 (when 27% were to women) to 1091 in 2008 (when 34% were to women).

House debates support for NSF, social science

The Chronicle of Higher Ed has the (gated) story: House GOP Allows Some Compromise in Bid to Focus NSF on Economic Value

"... in a sign of future compromise before the bill reaches the Democratic-controlled Senate, the Republican majority on the House Science Subcommittee on Research and Technology accepted nine separate Democratic amendments, including a partial retreat from plans to severely cut the NSF’s budget for social-science research.
...
"[Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois, the top Democrat on the subcommittee] listed economically valuable products of social-science research, including studies that help the police anticipate crime patterns and analyses that more efficiently match kidney donors and recipients. Reaching inside the NSF to set directorate-by-directorate budget limits—a practice that Congress already employs with the National Institutes of Health—"may open the door for partisan meddling from either side of the aisle," he said."

The NSF celebrates kidney exchange

Over at Science Nation, the NSF  published a short news article yesterday, together with a video, to  note the success of NSF funded research in helping establish kidney exchange (also called kidney paired donation, KPD).

Here's the article:
New Software Matches More Kidney Donations, Faster: Game theory and market dynamics inspire new software that streamlines complicated matches

"With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Harvard University economist Alvin Roth helped develop a suite of computer programs that match living kidney donors with recipients. His team includes market designer Itai Ashlagi and operations researcher David Gamarnik at MIT and economists Utku Unver and Tayfun Sonmez at Boston College."
...
"Transplant surgeon Michael Rees at the University of Toledo Medical center is CEO of the Alliance for Paired Donation (see www.paireddonation.org) [says]
..."game theory and market design have come together to find practical solutions for kidney disease patients."

 And here's the 2-minute video:
(Key question in the video, read in an incredulous tone: "What's an economist doing organizing kidney transplants?" Answer: "Turns out, an understanding of game theory and market dynamics is key...")

NSF 70th Anniversary Symposium--the video

I recently attended the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the National Science Foundation, a two-day symposium on Feb. 6-7, 2020. Below is a video of the first day, in which I took part in a session called Science Breakthroughs, which begins at hour 3:45 and goes for an hour. Hear a moderated discussion ranging back and forth over gravity waves, black holes, thermal vents, nanotechnology, and market design (school choice, kidney exchange, repugnant transactions and the fact that both markets and bans on markets require social support to work well).




Science Breakthroughs
Panel featuring NSF-funded science breakthroughs from the last decade. The topics covered in this panel will feature a mix of major breakthroughs, as well as research that has led to significant impacts on society. In addition, the panelists will be a diverse set of researchers, including those earlier in their careers.

Moderator: Amy Harmon, Correspondent, New York Times
Panelists: Jennifer Dionne, 2019 Waterman Award recipient & Associate Professor, Stanford University
Shep Doeleman, 2019 Breakthrough Prize & NSF Diamond Award recipient & Director, EHT at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Margaret Leinen, Director, Scripps Institute & Vice Chancellor & Dean, Marine Sciences
Nergis Mavalvala, Professor & Associate Head, Department of Physics, MIT
Alvin Roth, Nobel Prize in Economics 2012 & Professor of Economics, Stanford University

2022 NSF/CEME Decentralization Conference on Mechanism Design, call for papers

 2022 NSF/CEME Decentralization Conference 

 The Scope of Mechanism Design:  From Bespoke Mechanisms to General Insights

 

Multiple Locations  + Virtual Conference April 22-23, 2022

 Stanford University  Columbia University, University of Michigan, Plus one additional location.

Mechanism design provides a mathematical framework for deriving the implications of information and incentive constraints given an environment and an objective function.  The framework has also proven useful for analyzing institutions at a variety of scales from free markets to organ markets. The NSF/CEME Decentralization Conference provides an opportunity for deep, technical  discussions on theoretical, technical and practical aspects of mechanisms.  

The 2022 Decentralization Conference invites papers that speak to the scope of mechanism design -- from bespoke mechanisms that allocate spectra, assign seats in schools, match donors to kidneys or people to jobs to more general investigations of how to apply the principles of mechanism design to build institutions to address the multiple objectives embedded in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, most notably environmental sustainability and inequality.  This last theme builds from the 2021 Conference which focused on mechanism design for vulnerable populations. 

Owing to COVID concerns and in an effort to balance travel concerns with the benefits of deeper conversations, the conference will experiment with a simultaneous, multiple location format that will be implemented as follows: we already have three sites across the country. Once we have agreed on a collection of papers, we will try to identify a fourth location near a collection of presenters.

 

The idea will be for speakers to either walk, drive, take trains, or fly to the nearest location.   The NBER/CEME will provide funds for meals and for speakers to travel to locations.  Interested scholars from host and neighboring cities will also be encouraged to attend in person.

 

Presentations will be both on Zoom and to one of the live local audiences.  Our goal will be to have four in person sites, though possibly more.  

 Submissions will be accepted until Friday, March 12th, 2022.

 The Conference Program will be announced on March 25th.

 Given the short time window, full paper submissions  are preferred, but extended abstracts will also be considered.  If you are potentially interested in hosting, contact Scott Page at scottepage@gmail.com.

The National Science Foundation's History Wall and Murals

The NSF's history wall consists of three murals, to provide "a visual history of the National Science Foundation (NSF), spanning nearly 7 decades of scientific discovery and innovation and depicting artist Nicolle R. Fuller's interpretation of NSF’s impact on the nation. "  Here they are, although they are in fact arranged horizontally, rather than vertically as below.  The murals have numbered sections (you can get a better look by clicking on each mural at the link above).  On the third mural, number 45 is
45. Breakthroughs in economics inspired new software that streamlines organ matches like kidney exchanges.

Here's a blowup of segment 45 representing kidney exchange:

70th Anniversary of the National Science Foundation (NSF)

The (U.S.) National Science Foundation is celebrating its 70th anniversary today in Washington DC.
 Here's the program: 70th Anniversary Symposium

I'll be participating in the afternoon:

Science Breakthroughs
Panel featuring NSF-funded science breakthroughs from the last decade. The topics covered in this panel will feature a mix of major breakthroughs, as well as research that has led to significant impacts on society. In addition, the panelists will be a diverse set of researchers, including those earlier in their careers.

Moderator: Amy Harmon, Correspondent, New York Times
Panelists: Jennifer Dionne, 2019 Waterman Award recipient & Associate Professor, Stanford University
Shep Doeleman, 2019 Breakthrough Prize & NSF Diamond Award recipient & Director, EHT at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Margaret Leinen, Director, Scripps Institute & Vice Chancellor & Dean, Marine Sciences
Nergis Mavalvala, Professor & Associate Head, Department of Physics, MIT
Alvin Roth, Nobel Prize in Economics 2012 & Professor of Economics, Stanford University 

David Gale and Lloyd Shapley and I share the Golden Goose Award

Today I'm in Washington DC to accept The Golden Goose Award made jointly to me, to Lloyd Shapley, who won't be able to attend, and to the late David Gale, whose death kept him from the Nobel celebration of his work with Shapley last December.

As I understand it, the award is for funny sounding  ("seemingly obscure," "wacky title," "left field") research that was supported by federal funds and eventually proved to be useful:

ABOUT THE GOLDEN GOOSE AWARD

What: The purpose of the “Golden Goose” award is to demonstrate the human and economic benefits of federally funded research by highlighting examples of seemingly obscure studies that have led to major breakthroughs and resulted in significant societal impact.  Such breakthroughs include development of life-saving medicines and treatments; game-changing social and behavioral insights; and major technological advances related to national security, energy, the environment, communications, and public health. Such breakthroughs may also have resulted in economic growth through the creation of new industries or companies.

Congressman Jim Cooper (D-TN) originally conceived of the Golden Goose award as a means of educating Members of Congress and the general public about the value of federal funding of basic scientific research. The name of the award is a play on the “Golden Fleece” awards issued between 1975 and 1988 by Senator William Proxmire (D-WI), which targeted specific federally funded research grants as examples of government waste. The name also alludes to the fable of the goose that laid the golden eggs. Researchers who have used federal funding to make their research breakthroughs constitute the “goose,” and the innovations stemming from their work are the “golden eggs.” The Golden Goose Award explicitly links the two.

Who: The Golden Goose Awards will be announced three to four times a year, with an annual awards event in Washington to honor awardees. Honorees will be selected from a pool of potential nominees developed by a partnership of founding universities, think tanks, and businesses led by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the Breakthrough Institute, the Progressive Policy Institute, The Science Coalition, the Task Force on American Innovation, and United for Medical Research. The criteria for selecting awardees are:

• Nominees must have received a federally funded research grant within the past 60 years that contributed to an important discovery or breakthrough (Grant agencies include, but are not limited to, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, and Energy.);
• Nominees’ research must already have led to demonstrable, significant human and economic benefits (the Golden Goose Award is not intended to honor current research that might lead to breakthroughs in the future);
• Research teams are eligible to receive a nomination for their work;
• Individuals may be nominated for their work posthumously, but only if an individual or organizational representative is available to accept the award at an event;

“We’ve all read stories about the study with the wacky title, the research project from left field,” Rep. Cooper said. “But off-the-wall science yields medical miracles. We can’t abandon research funding only because we can’t predict how the next miracle will happen.”


This is only the second time the award is being given, and this year's awards will go to Dr. John Eng, whose study of the poisonous venom produced by the Gila monster led to a drug helps treat diabetes, to microbiologist Thomas Brock and glycobiologist Hudson Freeze for their studies of bacteria that thrive in very hot water that yielded a key to the technology of the polymerase chain reaction,  and to David and Lloyd and me. Here's the announcement about our part of the prize, which mentions the funding we received from the NSF and the ONR.

AWARDEES: Alvin Roth, David Gale, Lloyd Shapley

SCIENCE:Market Design 

FEDERAL FUNDING AGENCY: Office of Naval Research, National Science Foundation

The part of the work that I'm being honored for is in fact a team effort: I've been lucky in my colleagues (Utku Unver and Tayfun Sonmez are named in the press release, and some of the others are shouted out to here).

I think the part of our work that is mentioned and that best fits the storyline of "obscure research makes good" is the line that begins with the 1974 paper by Shapley and Scarf in the first issue of the Journal of Mathematical Economics. They proposed a model of exchange of an indivisible good, without the use of money, and called the goods "houses." Since we are obviously able to use money to buy houses (I just bought one and can testify that it cost money), this was funny-sounding research that might have attracted the ire of Senator Proxmire. But playing with toy models is how economic theory gets ready to deal with unanticipated problems. They introduced Gale's top trading cycle algorithm (ttc), which Andy Postlewaite used to further explore the model in a 1977 paper. In a 1982 paper I showed that ttc makes it a dominant strategy for players to reveal their true preferences. Atila Abdulkadiroglu and Sonmez later generalized the mechanism in ways that, when it came time to organize kidney exchange, made it easy to propose that it be organized in a ttc way involving cycles and chains, with the dominant strategy property being an important piece of the puzzle. Whilettc isn't how we eventually helped organize kidney exchange (we had to start with just pairwise exchanges for logistical reasons), the practice of kidney exchange has been evolving in the direction of cycles and (long) chains, in ways that Itai Ashlagi and our surgical colleagues have been working to understand and build upon.  So, what started with a model of exchanging houses without money has evolved into exchanging kidneys in a way that's become a standard part of transplantation in the U.S. in the last few years.

This is an opportunity to remind Congress and the public of the importance of investigator-initiated, peer reviewed research.  Go NSF! (NSF posts on kidney exchange are here and here.)

If you're a fan of science as a public good, you might be glad to know if your congressman is one of those involved:

What Members of Congress are endorsing the Golden Goose Award?

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN)

Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA)

Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA)

Rep. Robert Dold (R-IL)

Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ)

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY)

NSF report on Doctorate Recipients in the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE): 2017

Here's the Doctorate Recipients in the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE): 2017
NSF 20-310   |   March 16, 2020

There were almost 1,000 more doctorates awarded in Psychology in 2017 than the total in Economics plus Political Science plus Sociology.

I was surprised to note that the gender ratio of Economics doctorates is less extreme than that of Psychology doctorates, although in the opposite direction, and that Poli Sci doctorates are more evenly distributed between women and men (and the gender imbalance in Sociology is very close to Economics, also in the opposite direction.)


Here's a figure and a table from the pdf file.

NAS report on The Value of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences to National Priorities

As Congress continues to debate funding for science, here's a new report from the National Academies of Science: The Value of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences to National Priorities:  A Report for the National Science Foundation

Two paragraphs on the uses of game theory and  market design caught my eye (you should be able to make them biglier by clicking on them...) :

*********

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Update: here's the NSF news release on the NAS report:
New report concludes social, behavioral and economic sciences help advance national health, prosperity and defense
National Academies releases 'The Value of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences to National Priorities'

"The full report mentions specific examples of NSF-supported SBE research that has advanced welfare, prosperity and security, including the creation of kidney exchange programs, improved cybersecurity and improved counterterrorism efforts.

"Like all sciences, the SBE sciences bring a rigorous, methodological approach to pursuing knowledge," the report states, noting that SBE scientists have contributed new methods of data collection and analysis now used by governments, researchers and business.

The National Academies will host a public discussion Wednesday, July 19, from 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. EDT at its headquarters at 2101 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, D.C."

Market Design conference(s) in June at Stanford

Scott Page sends the following email announcement:

Dear All,

I have exciting news about the 2014 NSF/CEME Decentralization Conference.

- It will take place on June 8-9, 2014 in Palo Alto, California.

- Fuhito Kojimo of Stanford University will be the local organizer.

- The conference will be collocated with two other major mechanism design conferences: the NBER Market Design Conference and the ACM Conference on Economics and Computation.  The conferences will run sequentially with overlapping plenary sessions, with the Decentralization Conference running for the first two days, followed by the Market Design Conference and then ACM.

- Participants are encouraged to attend all three conferences and to bring graduates students.

-  We will be sending out an official call for papers in about a month.

I think this will be an incredible opportunity to bring together three communities that look at similar questions and use similar tools.  I recognize that the June date is later than our typical March or April meeting, and apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.  

Here is the “official” announcement from Susan Athey, David Parkes and myself.  Please feel free to forward this email to anyone who might be interested.

         ACM, Market Design and Decentralization Conference

                                    June 8 -12, 2014

  Palo Alto, CA

The ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC'14), the NBER Market Design Conference, and the NSF/CEME Decentralization Conference will collocate this June at Stanford University.  The jointly run conferences will include both joint and independent sessions to facilitate greater interactions across the three research communities.  The joint sessions will include invited keynote presentations by leaders in the fields of incentives, market design, computation, and decentralization. Proposals for presentations in the independent sessions should be submitted following the procedures of each individual conference.  Individuals who normally participate in one of the conferences are strongly encouraged to also attend the other conferences so as to build a more interdisciplinary community of scholars interested in common topics.