More governments seek to limit TikTok over data concerns

The NYT has the story:

Why Countries Are Trying to Ban TikTok

Governments have expressed concerns that TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, may endanger sensitive user data.  By Sapna Maheshwari and Amanda Holpuch

“In recent months, lawmakers in the United States, Europe and Canada have escalated efforts to restrict access to TikTok, the massively popular short-form video app that is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, citing security threats.

The White House told federal agencies on Feb. 27 that they had 30 days to delete the app from government devices. A growing number of other countries and government bodies — including Britain and its Parliament, Canada, the executive arm of the European Union, France and New Zealand’s Parliament — have also recently banned the app from official devices. On April 4, Australia became the latest country to announce that it was prohibiting the TikTok app on government devices on advice from intelligence and security agencies.

On March 1, a House committee backed an even more extreme step, voting to advance legislation that would allow President Biden to ban TikTok from all devices nationwide. 

…

“Lawmakers and regulators in the West have increasingly expressed concern that TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, may put sensitive user data, like location information, into the hands of the Chinese government. They have pointed to laws that allow the Chinese government to secretly demand data from Chinese companies and citizens for intelligence-gathering operations. They are also worried that China could use TikTok’s content recommendations for misinformation.

…

“India banned the platform in mid-2020, costing ByteDance one of its biggest markets, as the government cracked down on 59 Chinese-owned apps, claiming that they were secretly transmitting users’ data to servers outside India.”

Is an End to Child Marriage within Reach? Not yet... Unicef report, and Lancet summary

 Unicef has issued the following report focused on the continued prevalence of child marriage, particularly in the poorest communities:

Is an End to Child Marriage within Reach? Latest trends and future prospects. May 2023

"The practice of child marriage has continued to decline globally. Today, one in five young women aged 20 to 24 years were married as children versus nearly one in four 10 years ago. Yet progress has been uneven around the world, and in many places the gains have not been equitable, leaving the most vulnerable girls behind.

"This year marks the halfway point to the deadline for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and when it comes to ending child marriage, a number of challenges loom large. Despite global advances, reductions are not fast enough to meet the target of eliminating the practice by 2030. In fact, at the current rate, it will take another 300 years until child marriage is eliminated."

***********

And here's an article in the Lancet:

Child marriage could be history by 2030, or last 300 more years, by Claudia Cappa, Colleen Murray and Nankali Maksud 

"UNICEF's analysis reveals only slight declines in child marriage in west and central Africa, which is the region with the highest prevalence of child marriage.1 There has been no change in Latin American and the Caribbean, which, if the current trajectory continues, would have the second highest prevalence of child marriage worldwide by 2030.1 After steady progress between 1997 and 2012, the Middle East, north Africa, eastern Europe, and central Asia regions have all seen stagnation in reducing child marriage in the past decade.

...

"Countries in sub-Saharan Africa with the highest projected population growth have the highest levels of child marriage, meaning the number of marriages is expected to increase there.

...

"declining child marriage prevalence is concentrated among girls from wealthier households. Girls from the richest quintile are less likely to become child brides and are the first to benefit from progress in averting child marriage, resulting in a widening gap in child marriage prevalence between rich and poor.1 In south Asia, wealthier households had three times more averted cases of child marriages than poor households in the past 25 years.1 If the rate of success in the richest quintile of south Asian families had been achieved globally, only 9% of girls would be married in childhood, far less than the current 19% worldwide prevalence of child marriage.1 Further progress in reducing child marriage largely depends on reaching girls who are otherwise left behind, including girls from the poorest households living without the resources and opportunities of their wealthier peers."

The Comstock Act returns from the dead, post Roe

 While there's no agreement about whether life begins at conception, it appears that the Comstock Act has risen from the dead to play a role in contemporary legal duels about abortion.

CNN brings it all back:

The 150-year-old chastity law that may be the next big fight over abortion By Tierney Sneed

"A law passed 150 years ago that banned the mailing of contraceptives, lewd materials and drugs that induce abortions could provide a pathway for effectively banning abortion nationwide – even in states where the procedure is legal.

"When the Supreme Court last summer reversed Roe v. Wade and eliminated constitutional protections that guaranteed abortion rights nationwide, the conservative majority fashioned its ruling as returning the matter of abortion policy-making to elected officials, particularly in state legislatures.

"But the battle lines now being drawn around the Reconstruction-era federal law – the Comstock Act – are an example of how the picture after Roe v. Wade is far more complicated as abortion opponents are challenging the means of abortion, such as the drug mifepristone, in court.

"The most sweeping Comstock Act arguments from anti-abortion activists could at the very least end the availability of medication abortion, which make up the majority of abortions in the US today, and could have the effect of eliminating surgical abortions as well by restricting the shipment of medical instruments and supplies used in the procedure.

...

"The Comstock Act, first passed in 1873, is named after Anthony Comstock, who was a special agent of the US Postal Service and an anti-vice crusader.

...

"Prosecutions under the law were bought in the first few decades after its passage, but by the 1930s, courts began whittling down some of its provisions and enforcement of the law ceased. Congress meanwhile amended it in the 1970s to remove its ban on mailing birth control.

...

"The Biden administration, in an internal advisory opinion released by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, argues that the law does not apply to the mailing of abortion pills if they’re not being sent with the intent of unlawful use. The opinion pointed to how 20th century courts had interpreted it narrowly as excluding drugs mailed with legitimate intent."

*********

Earlier:

Monday, April 10, 2023

Comstockery and abortifacients, on the way to the Supreme Court

Pushback against high prices in academic publishing: open access fees and e-textbooks to libraries

 The Guardian has the story:

‘Too greedy’: mass walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees. Entire board resigns over actions of academic publisher whose profit margins outstrip even Google and Amazon  by Anna Fazackerley

"The entire academic board of the journal Neuroimage, including professors from Oxford University, King’s College London and Cardiff University resigned after Elsevier refused to reduce publication charges.

Academics around the world have applauded what many hope is the start of a rebellion against the huge profit margins in academic publishing, which outstrip those made by Apple, Google and Amazon.

Neuroimage, the leading publication globally for brain-imaging research, is one of many journals that are now “open access” rather than sitting behind a subscription paywall. But its charges to authors reflect its prestige, and academics now pay over £2,700 for a research paper to be published. The former editors say this is “unethical” and bears no relation to the costs involved.

...

"Elsevier, a Dutch company that claims to publish 18% of the world’s scientific papers, reported a 10% increase in its revenue to £2.9bn last year. But it’s the profit margins, nearing 40%, according to its 2019 accounts, which anger academics most. The big scientific publishers keep costs low because academics write up their research – typically funded by charities and the public purse – for free. They “peer review” each other’s work to verify it is worth publishing for free, and academic editors collate it for free or for a small stipend. Academics are then often charged thousands of pounds to have their work published in open-access journals, or universities will pay very high subscription charges.

...

"Meanwhile, university libraries are angry about the cost of the online textbooks they say students now overwhelmingly want to read – often many times more expensive than their paper equivalent. Professor Chris Pressler, director of Manchester University Library, said: “We are facing a sustained onslaught of exploitative price models in both teaching and research.”

"According to a spreadsheet of costs quoted to university librarians, Manchester University gave a recent example of being quoted £75 for a popular plant biology textbook in print, but £975 for a three-user ebook licence. Meanwhile Learning to Read Mathematics in the Secondary School, a textbook for trainee teachers published by Routledge, was £35.99 in print and £560 for a single user ebook.

"A spokesperson for Taylor and Francis, which owns Routledge, said: “We strive to ensure that book prices are both affordable and a fair representation of their value.” He said a print book could be checked out for weeks at a time whereas ebooks could be checked in and out rapidly and had a much wider distribution."

Human trafficking conviction in England, in kidney case-""the consent of the person trafficked is no defense."

 The BBC has the story, which is apparently the first such conviction for kidney trafficking under Britain's anti-slavery law. Reading the previous stories, it sounds like the young man in question was being deceived.  But even informed consent apparently wouldn't be a defense under British law...

Kidney-plot politician Ike Ekweremadu jailed By Tom Symonds

"A wealthy Nigerian politician, his wife and their "middleman" have been jailed for an organ-trafficking plot, after bringing a man to the UK from Lagos.

"Senator Ike Ekweremadu, 60, and his wife Beatrice, 56, wanted a new kidney for their 25-year-old daughter Sonia, the Old Bailey heard.

"The pair and Dr Obinna Obeta, 50, were previously convicted of conspiring to exploit the man.

"It is said to be the first such case under modern slavery laws.

...

"Lynette Woodrow, deputy chief crown prosecutor and national modern slavery lead at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said it had been "our first conviction for trafficking for the purposes of organ removal in England and Wales".

"She said it highlighted an important legal principle which made it irrelevant whether the trafficking victim knew he was coming to the UK to provide a kidney.

"With all trafficking offences," Ms Woodrow said, "the consent of the person trafficked is no defence. The law is clear; you cannot consent to your own exploitation."

HT: Dr. Jlateh Vincent Jappah

“DESIGN FOR THE NEXT GENERATION” May 17-19, Bol, Island Brač, Croatia

 This should be an eclectic conference:

Challenges of Europe  “DESIGN FOR THE NEXT GENERATION”

14th International Conference

Faculty of Economics, Business and Tourism,
University of Split
Cvite Fiskovića 5
HR-21000 Split, Croatia

17th - 19th May, 2023 / Bol, Island Brač, Croatia

Bluesun Hotel Elaphusa

“The content of this conference has not been approved by the United Nations and does not reflect the views of the United Nations or its officials or Member States”

Keynote Speakers

Prof. Eric Maskin, Adams University Professor at Harvard University, Nobel Laureate in Economics 2007, Lecture title: “A Resolution of Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem”

Prof. Alvin Roth, Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University, Nobel Laureate in Economics 2012, Lecture title: “Controversial markets”

Prof. EDWARD ALTMAN, Max L. Heine Professor of  Finance, Emeritus, New York University, USA, Lecture title: “Global Zombies: a new type of corporate resiliency”

Prof. DAVID REIBSTEIN William S. Woodside Professor of Marketing, University of Pennsylvania, USA  Lecture title: “Nation Branding - How the Image of a Country Affects Its Economy

Prof. ÖZGE ÖNER  Associate Professor in Spatial Economics and Real Estate, University of Cambridge, UK Lecture title: “It’s the geography, stupid!”

"Over the last two decades, this biennial conference has become an important place of encounter between scholars and practitioners from different countries, cultures and backgrounds discussing contemporary economic issues regarding Europe as an important global player as well as the issues within the European economic system itself, facing various changes in a dynamic environment."

Eliminating Hepatitis C, now that there's a cure (even though it's expensive)

 There's growing discussion about eliminating Hep C in the U.S., doing appropriate deals with the two drug companies whose patents still run for another six years.

Fleurence RL, Collins FS. A National Hepatitis C Elimination Program in the United States: A Historic Opportunity. JAMA. 2023;329(15):1251–1252. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.3692

"One of the most dramatic scientific achievements of the last few decades has been the development of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) that can cure hepatitis C in more than 95% of people infected. But 9 years after the first such treatment was approved in the United States, the simple 8- to 12-week oral cure is not reaching a significant fraction of the more than 2.4 million US residents chronically infected with hepatitis C.1 More than 15 000 US residents die of hepatitis C every year unnecessarily. In its fiscal year 2024 budget proposal, the Biden-Harris administration has put forward a bold 5-year program to put the nation on course to eliminate hepatitis C in the United States.

"The consequences of untreated hepatitis C can be severe: cirrhosis, liver failure, hepatocellular cancer, and death. Curative treatment stops transmission, prevents liver cancer and liver failure, and saves lives. It is even likely to be cost-saving, by avoiding expensive medical treatments for liver failure and liver cancer. So why is this not a public health success story? One major reason is that many people with hepatitis C have poor access to health care and experience other chronic health and social inequities. Hepatitis C disproportionately affects individuals without insurance, American Indian and Alaska Native persons, non-Hispanic Black persons, justice-involved populations, and people who use illicit drugs.2

...

"Among those diagnosed, hepatitis C treatment coverage is far below what is needed to achieve elimination goals. Only about one-third of people diagnosed with hepatitis C who have private insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid get treated, and the proportion is probably even lower for those without insurance.4 This is in part due to current restrictions, such as requirements for patient sobriety, requirements to document evidence of liver fibrosis, and the restriction of access to treatment only to those seen by specialists, that have been put in place by public and private insurers in reaction to the high cost of DAAs ($90 000 per patient initially, still around $20 000). Low rates of treatment may also reflect the complexity of traversing the full cascade of care in our health care delivery system.

"Addressing this missed opportunity can save both lives and money. A national effort can build on lessons from programs launched by jurisdictions such as the states of Louisiana and Washington, the Cherokee Nation, the Veterans Health Administration, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. For example, the Veterans Health Administration has treated more than 92 000 veterans with hepatitis C virus since 2014, with cure rates exceeding 90%.5 A key lesson from these initiatives is that success requires both managing the cost of the medications and developing a comprehensive public health effort to identify persons with hepatitis C and link them to care.

...

"the program aims to provide broad access to curative hepatitis C medications. A key element will be a national subscription model to purchase DAAs for those who are particularly underserved today: Medicaid beneficiaries, justice-involved populations, people without insurance, and American Indian and Alaska Native individuals who are treated through the Indian Health Service. With this approach to drug purchasing pioneered in Louisiana,7 the federal government will negotiate with manufacturers to purchase as much treatment as needed for all individuals in the designated groups. The pharmaceutical industry can expect more revenue for DAAs for these populations than it is receiving today, but at a much lower per-patient cost. That’s a win-win. Beyond the subscription model, the program will seek to provide additional co-pay assistance to Medicare beneficiaries. Private insurers will also be strongly encouraged to increase coverage for hepatitis C testing and treatment and limit out-of-pocket costs where possible."

Morality in Economics, as viewed from Sociology (Georg Kanitsar in European J. of Sociology)

Georg Kanitsar, a young sociologist, undertakes the task of looking at how economists think about morality (with a focus on experimental and behavioral econ, and market design). His view of how economists think may shed some light (for economists) on how sociologists think. (I quote below from near the beginning and near the end of his paper.)

Kanitsar, G. (2023). Putting Morals into Economics: From Value Neutrality to the Moral Economy and the Economization of Morality. European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes De Sociologie, 1-30. doi:10.1017/

"Abstract: The economic discipline plays a performative role in constructing the moral order of market society. Yet, little attention has been paid to what economists explicitly regard as moral or how they conceive of morality. This article reflects a recent attempt to put morals into economics, that is, to introduce morality as a research topic in behavioural and experimental economics. It maps three research programs that theorize the moral economy. The programs emphasize the moral foundations of market society, the moral limits of market expansion, and the moral consequences of market trading and, thus, appear irreconcilable with classifications of economists as market enthusiasts or moral agnostics. At the same time, however, the literature centres on an “economized” form of morality that is corrective to market inefficiencies, attributed to the responsibility of the individual, and expressed in rational terms. In doing so, this literature contributes to redefining moral problems in economic terms."

"I consider efforts to incorporate morality into an economic framework advanced by two influential branches of the discipline—behavioural economics and market experiments. To gain an overview of relevant research in these branches, I assemble a database of 39 recent articles and identify 20 key articles among them.

...

" I explore the “economization of morality” by elucidating the moral arguments and the moral background of two authoritative programs in present-day economics: behavioural economics/experiments and market design/experiments. While many renowned economists have produced notable work on morality, these two research programs currently exert a unique influence on the economic discipline and are highly industrious in exporting its findings to policy making.

...

"Discourse in the economic mainstream was long dominated by market enthusiasts and moral agnostics, but the recent surge of behavioural and market experiments has again drawn attention to morality as a research topic in economics. At the argumentative level, the reviewed literature reveals a genuine break with market fundamentalism in the narrow sense. I have identified three strands that shed light on the moral economy and emphasize the moral foundations, limitations, and consequences of markets. Thus, economics has not been deaf to appeals to “put morals into markets” [Amable Reference Amable2011]. At the background level, however, the integration of morality is steered by the discipline’s theoretical and methodological underpinnings. In consequence, a very specific understanding of morality lies at the heart of these research efforts; a form of morality that is functional to market efficiency and attributed to utility-maximizing individuals.

...

"Behavioural economics thus strikes out in the opposite direction as scholarship in economic sociology. On the surface, both disciplines take as a starting point a view of market society as divided in arm’s-length transactions and social ties, and both disciplines have rediscovered morality as their subject matter. Yet, behavioural economics addresses the social sphere with tools that were tailor-made for the neoclassical analysis of markets. The field maintains the analytical primacy on efficiency and rationality, which it inherited from its parent discipline. In experiments, social exchanges are represented as contractual, anonymous, and temporary encounters, and money is regarded as a neutral tool used to express valuations. Conversely, economic sociology views markets as diverse “arenas of social interaction” [Beckert Reference Beckert2009: 245]. Market transactions are considered as far from universal, arelational, and disembedded [Aspers Reference Aspers, Beckert and Zafirovski2005], and the cultural meanings of money rarely reduce it to a qualityless, neutral, and homogenous medium of exchange [Zelizer Reference Zelizer1989]. Thus, the “moral economy” of behavioural economics is situated next to the “amoral economy” of neoclassical economics [Bowles Reference Bowles2016], echoing the traditional opposition between separate spheres of the economic and the moral [Thompson Reference Thompson E1971]. By contrast, economic sociology is increasingly devoted to identifying the multiple moralities underlying economic processes [Beckert Reference Beckert2012; Zelizer Rotman Reference Zelizer Rotman2017], convinced that “all economies are moral economies” [Fourcade Reference Fourcade2017: 665]."

Organ donation in the U.S.: some background information

Here's a background piece from a few weeks ago about the organ donation system in the US, focusing on California (and passing quickly over political controversies) from the LA Times:

Millions of Californians are willing to donate organs, but relatively few do. Here’s why BY JON HEALEY

"You don’t have to die to be an organ donor — you can donate one of your two healthy kidneys and a big chunk of your liver, among other body parts. But even though the total number of living and deceased donors is about 50% higher now than in 2016, a wide gap still remains between the demand for organs and the supply.

...

"The first successful organ transplant on record took place more than 150 years ago, when a Swiss-born physician grafted small pieces of a patient’s skin into a wound in the patient’s arm to speed healing. (Yes, your skin is an organ. In fact, it’s the body’s largest organ.) But transplanting an organ from one person to another is significantly harder because the recipient’s immune system tries to reject the foreign tissue as if it were an invader, not a potential savior.

...

"In 1984, the National Organ Transplant Act brought the regional efforts together into a national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Among other duties, the network was tasked with creating a list of individuals who need organs, developing a computerized system for matching them with donors, and helping organ procurement organizations distribute organs “equitably among transplant patients” nationwide.

"The network is currently operated by a single contractor: the United Network for Organ Sharing, usually referred to by its initials, UNOS.

...

"Perhaps the biggest limit on organ donation is how quickly organs deteriorate in the body after the heart stops beating. When organs are deprived of oxygenated blood for more than 20 to 30 minutes, they become too damaged to be transplanted, Mone said, adding, “Nobody’s solved that medical riddle yet.” (The clock ticks more slowly for bone and tissue, which can be recovered up to 24 hours after the donor’s time of death, Mone said.)

"As a consequence, kidneys, livers and other vital organs are taken only from patients who die in a hospital while on a ventilator. Only 1% of the roughly 2.8 million people who die in the U.S. each year fit into that category, Mone said, and of that group, less than half of the organs available are fit to transplant.

...

"According to Mone and Sellers, properly packaged kidneys ordinarily last for 24 to 36 hours outside the body, while a healthy liver can typically last six to eight hours, and a heart or lungs only three to four hours. Given the short shelf life, Mone said, OPOs typically won’t remove organs other than kidneys if no recipients have been lined up.

...

"White and Latino patients and their survivors authorize donations at a significantly higher rate than Black or Asian patients and survivors, a situation that Mone said reflects distrust of the system and cultural opposition to organ donation. Although the organ donation authorization rate in OneLegacy’s region was 87% for white and 73% for Latino patients from 2017 to 2020, it was only 58% for potential Black and Asian donors, the organization says. The rates for the U.S. as a whole follow a similar pattern.

...

"According to OneLegacy’s statistics for 2021, nonwhite people in its region receive a share of the transplants that’s proportionate to their numbers, but not to their need. Making matters worse, Mone said, Black Americans suffer from kidney failure at three times the rate of white Americans, yet they aren’t getting on the waiting list for transplants at that rate."

HT: Frank McCormick

Market Shaping at the University of Chicago: Promoting needed innovation

 One of many exciting talks yesterday at the first day of the New Directions in Market Design conference was by U. Chicago's Rachel Glennerster who announced the new market design initiative at U. Chicago:

Introducing the University of Chicago's Market Shaping Accelerator. Designing market shaping mechanisms to spur innovation to help solve some of the biggest global challenges.

"Accelerating Innovation

"Threats to the global community — such as climate change and pandemics — demand urgent innovation and action at scale. But when commercial incentives for innovation trail behind the social value, market shaping instruments are required to credibly signal demand and spur and scale up innovation.

"The Market Shaping Accelerator aims to harness the momentum and interest in these tools generated from global successes in vaccine development to accelerate their adoption by governments, multilateral institutions, and philanthropies to solve the world’s most pressing challenges.

"Nobel Laureates, Leading Scholars and Innovators Advance the Use of Market Shaping Instruments to Address Global Challenges​

"The Market Shaping Accelerator brings together the world’s leading market shaping experts. The team behind the Accelerator has contributed to both foundational research and prominent policy successes of market shaping mechanisms, including the Pneumococcal and Frontier Advanced Market Commitments (AMCs)."

Rachel Glennerster speaking about market shaping

Telehealth restrictions and medical aid in dying/death with dignity

 Medical aid in dying (MAID) is now available to some extent in eleven U.S. jurisdictions (10 States and the District of Columbia), mostly with the requirement that eligible patients are within six months of dying naturally.  So these patients are pretty ill, which makes it difficult for some of them--particularly rural patients--to schedule in-person final appointments with their physicians, to receive the drugs that they will take.  Telehealth appointments and prescriptions have been important for these patients, and those may be going away.

Statnews has the story:

Dying patients protest looming telehealth crackdown By JoNel Aleccia 

"Online prescribing rules for controlled drugs were relaxed three years ago under emergency waivers to ensure critical medications remained available during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has proposed a rule that would reinstate most previously longstanding requirements that doctors see patients in person before prescribing narcotic drugs such as Oxycontin, amphetamines such as Adderall, and a host of other potentially dangerous drugs.

"The aim is to reduce improper prescribing of these drugs by telehealth companies that boomed during the pandemic. Given the ongoing opioid epidemic, allowing continued broad use of telemedicine prescribing “would pose too great a risk to the public health and safety,” the proposed rule said. It also cracks down on how doctors can prescribe other less-addictive drugs, like Xanax, used to treat anxiety, and buprenorphine, a narcotic used to treat opioid addiction.

...

"The proposal has sparked a massive backlash, including more than 35,000 comments to a federal portal and calls from advocates, members of Congress and medical groups to reconsider certain patients or provisions.

“They completely forgot that there was a population of people who are dying,” said Dr. Lonny Shavelson, a California physician who chairs the American Clinicians Academy on Medical Aid in Dying, a coalition of doctors who help patients access care under so-called right-to-die laws.

"Among the biggest complaints: The rule would delay or block access for patients who seek medically assisted suicide and hospice care, critics said. Many of the comments — including nearly 10,000 delivered in person to DEA offices — came from doctors and patients protesting the effect of the rule on seriously ill and dying patients."

New Directions in Market Design, NBER conference May 11-12, 2023 in Washington DC (and on YouTube)

 I'm on my way to this conference, celebrating a quarter of a century of practical market design by economists.

New Directions in Market Design, NBER conference May 11-12, 2023 (US Eastern Time)

LOCATION Convene, 600 14th St NW in Washington, DC. and livestreamed on YouTube 

ORGANIZERS Irene Y. Lo, Michael Ostrovsky, and Parag A. Pathak

 NBER conferences are by invitation. All participants are expected to comply with the NBER's Conference Code of Conduct.

Supported by Schmidt Futures

 Thursday, May 11

8:30 am Continental Breakfast

9:00 am Opening Talk: Alvin Roth, Stanford University and NBER ("Market Design and Maintenance") 

9:30 am Break

9:45 am Electricity and Renewable Energy Market Design

Overview: Mar Reguant, Northwestern University and NBER

Viewpoint 1: Martin Bichler, Technical University of Munich

Viewpoint 2: Richard O’Neill, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

11:05 am Market Design for the Environment

Overview: Estelle Cantillon, ULB

Viewpoint 1: Rachel Glennerster, University of Chicago and NBER

Viewpoint 2: Nathan Keohane, Environmental Defense Fund

12:25 pm Lunch discussions

2:00 pm Market Design in Healthcare

Overview: Benjamin Handel, University of California at Berkeley and NBER

Viewpoint 1: Mark Miller, Arnold Ventures

Viewpoint 2: Fanyin Zheng, Columbia University

3:20 pm Market Design for Organ Transplantation

Overview: Tayfun Sonmez, Boston College

Viewpoint 1: Nikhil Agarwal, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER

Viewpoint 2: Jennifer Erickson, Organize

4:40 pm Break

5:00 pm Market Design for Education

Overview: Parag Pathak, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER

Viewpoint 1: Derek Neal, University of Chicago and NBER

Viewpoint 2: Irene Lo, Stanford University

6:20 pm Adjourn

6:45 pm Group Dinner - JW Marriott

Friday, May 12

8:00 am Continental Breakfast

8:30 am Market Design for Public Housing

Overview: Nathan Hendren, Harvard University and NBER

Viewpoint 1: Winnie van Dijk, Harvard University and NBER

Viewpoint 2: Mary Cunningham, Urban Institute

9:50 am Market Design in Transportation

Overview: Michael Ostrovsky, Stanford University and NBER

Viewpoint 1: David Shmoys, Cornell University

Viewpoint 2: Wai Yan Leong, Singapore Land Transport Authority

11:10 am Break

11:30 am Market Design in Financial Markets

Overview: Haoxiang Zhu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER

Viewpoint 1: Eric Budish, University of Chicago and NBER

Viewpoint 2: Scott Mixon, CFTC

12:50 pm

Lunch discussions

2:20 pm Market Design Tools in the Regulation of Online Marketplaces

Overview: Susan Athey, Stanford University and NBER

Viewpoint 1: Preston McAfee, Google

Viewpoint 2: Michael Schwarz, Microsoft

3:40 pm Artificial Intelligence and Market Design

Overview: Kevin Leyton-Brown, University of British Columbia

Viewpoint 1: Hal Varian, Google

Viewpoint 2: Nikhil Devanur, Amazon

5:00 pm Break

5:20 pm Closing Talk: Paul Milgrom, Stanford University

5:50 pm Adjourn

6:30 pm Group Dinner - JW Marriott

How much compensation for U.S. kidney donors would end the kidney transplant shortage?

 Here's a paper with a forbidding title but an important message (and an eye-catching first paragraph...:)

McCormick, Frank, Philip J. Held, Glenn M. Chertow, Thomas G. Peters, and John P. Roberts. "Projecting the economic impact of compensating living kidney donors in the United States: cost-benefit analysis demonstrates substantial patient and societal gains." Value in Health Volume 25, Issue 12, December 2022, Pages 2028-2033

"Abstract:

Objectives: The aim of this study was to show how the US government could save approximately 47 000 patients with chronic kidney failure each year from suffering on dialysis and premature death by compensating living kidney donors enough to completely end the kidney shortage.

Methods: Supply and demand analysis was used to estimate the number of donated kidneys needed to end the kidney shortage and the level of compensation required to encourage this number of donations. These results were then input into a detailed cost-benefit analysis to estimate the economic value of kidney transplantation to (1) the average kidney recipient and their caregiver, (2) taxpayers, and (3) society in general.

Results: We estimate half of patients diagnosed with kidney failure each year—approximately 62 000 patients—could be saved from suffering on dialysis and premature death if they could receive an average of 1½ kidney transplants. However, currently there are only enough donated kidneys to save approximately 15 000 patients. To encourage sufficient donations to save the other 47 000 patients, the government would have to compensate living kidney donors approximately $77 000 (±50%) per donor. The value of transplantation to an average kidney recipient (and caregiver) would be approximately $1.5 million, and the savings from the recipient not needing expensive dialysis treatments would be approximately $1.2 million.

Conclusions: This analysis reveals the huge benefit that compensating living kidney donors would provide to patients with kidney failure and their caregivers and, conversely, the huge cost that is being imposed on these patients and their families by the current legal prohibition against such compensation."

and here's the first paragraph:

"Economics Nobel Laureate Alvin Roth has played a crucial role in developing paired kidney donation, which is currently saving >1100 US patients with kidney failure per year from suffering on dialysis and dying prematurely. Nevertheless, Professor Roth often points out that this is a victory in a war that we are losing.1 The number of patients diagnosed with kidney failure each year in the United States is not only much greater than the number who receive kidney transplants; it is rising at a faster rate.2,3 Thus, the number of patients diagnosed with kidney failure who are fated to suffer on dialysis for an average of 4 to 5 years while their health steadily deteriorates until they die prematurely has trended upward and is now >100 000 per year."

Guns and gun control

 In the U.S., gun sales are both a protected transaction and a repugnant one. The right to bear arms is protected by the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution, but as school shootings and other mass casualty attacks on innocents have become a staple of the news, there have been periodic attempts to curb sales, particularly of automatic weapons.  The state of Washington is the latest to ban the sale of certain particular automatic weapons, which are legally available in other states, and already very widely distributed.

The NYT has the story:

Selling AR-15-Style Rifles Is Now Banned in 9 States  By Mike Baker and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs

"Washington State approved a package of gun control measures on Tuesday that includes a ban on the sale of military-style semiautomatic weapons, making it the ninth state to join efforts to prevent the distribution of AR-15s and other powerful rifles often used in mass shootings.

"The new laws put Washington in the ranks of states with the strongest gun control measures in the nation. They include a 10-day waiting period on gun purchases, gun safety training requirements and a provision allowing the state attorney general and consumers to sue gun manufacturers or dealers under public nuisance laws if they negligently allow their guns to fall into the hands of minors or “dangerous individuals.”

"Gun rights proponents swiftly filed a lawsuit to challenge the semiautomatic rifle ban, saying it infringed on Second Amendment rights.

"Washington is among a series of states, largely led by Democrats, that have advanced gun legislation this year as the nation continues to grapple with repeated mass shootings. Republicans have moved in the opposite direction, with lawmakers in several states introducing legislation to expand the ability to carry concealed weapons without a permit and eliminate such things as gun-free zones, background checks and red-flag laws, which allow the removal of guns from people deemed to be at high risk of violence or self-harm.

...

"All of the bans currently in place allow people to keep weapons previously purchased, but states vary on how those so-called legacy weapons are regulated, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence."

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Earlier:

Sunday, April 16, 2023

The (American) market for assault rifles

Supervised drug use sites to be banned in Pennsylvania

 Statnews has the story:

Pennsylvania set to ban supervised drug use sites, in setback for harm reduction  By Lev Facher

"Pennsylvania lawmakers are set to pass a new ban on supervised drug consumption, effectively ending a Philadelphia nonprofit’s long-running effort to offer a sanctioned substance-use site meant to prevent overdose and death.

"A bill outlawing sites that “knowingly” provide a space for drug consumption passed a committee vote by a wide margin on Tuesday. It now advances to the full state senate, where it is also expected to pass. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, has expressed strong opposition to supervised injection sites in the past, and is expected to sign the legislation.

...

"While the Biden administration has expressed unprecedented support for harm reduction, many Americans remain hostile to the approach.

"Some harm-reduction tools, like syringe exchanges and fentanyl test strips, have gained a degree of acceptance, but supervised consumption is still largely taboo. Pennsylvania advocates had high hopes for a planned site in Philadelphia, however, and say the legislation would deal a demoralizing blow to local efforts to avert overdoses and save lives.

...

"Offering medical supervision as people consume drugs that can cause overdose, like heroin and fentanyl, is among the most controversial tactics employed to prevent overdoses. But in recent years, as U.S. drug deaths have surpassed 100,000 annually, the strategy has gained support among some public health advocates. While critics argue that supervised injection condones drug use, studies from cities including Vancouver and Barcelona show that offering the service can lead to a marked reduction in overdose deaths.

...

"Currently, only a few supervised consumption sites are in operation around the U.S. — and none have formally received the federal government’s blessing. Most notably, the nonprofit OnPoint NYC opened two supervised consumption sites in Manhattan late last year. Rhode Island has legalized supervised consumption sites as well, though it’s unclear when a planned site in Providence will open. "

Wild coffee and climate change

 Climate change is threatening coffee crops. But there are some wild variants that show signs of robustness:)

The NYT has the story:

What Climate Change Could Mean for the Coffee You Drink  By Somini Sengupta

"The two types of coffee that most of us drink — Arabica and robusta — are at grave risk in the era of climate change.

"Now the good news. Farmers in one of Africa’s biggest coffee exporting countries are growing a whole other variety that better withstands the heat, drought and disease supersized by global warming.

"For years, they’ve just been mixing it into bags of low-priced robusta. This year, they’re trying to sell it to the world under its own true name: Liberica excelsa.

...

"If it works, it could hold important lessons for smallholder coffee farmers elsewhere, demonstrating the importance of wild coffee varieties in a warming world. Liberica excelsa is native to tropical Central Africa. 

...

"While Arabica and robusta are the two widely cultivated species of coffee, more than 100 species grow in the wild."

New York doesn't ban Menthol cigarettes, amid controversy

 The NYT has the stories, first about the proposed ban, and then about the budget compromise that defeated it:

Black Smokers at Center of New York Fight to Ban Menthol Cigarettes. A proposal to make New York the third state to ban menthol cigarettes has created a furious and expensive lobbying war, and has divided Black leaders. By Luis Ferré-Sadurní

"A push by Gov. Kathy Hochul to ban menthol-flavored cigarettes in New York has become the focal point of a fierce and expensive lobbying fight, pitting Big Tobacco against the medical community.

"Caught in the middle are Black smokers, who smoke menthol cigarettes at higher rates than white smokers, and are the main group the ban is meant to help. Decades of aggressive marketing by tobacco companies have caused Black smokers to consume menthol cigarettes, whose cooling sensation on the throat makes them more appealing and addictive.

...

 "Well intentioned as the ban may be, it has angered some Black leaders, including a group of ministers who have rallied against Ms. Hochul’s proposal because they worry it could increase encounters between Black people and the police if menthol cigarettes were to go underground and authorities crack down on sellers.

"Other Black opponents of the ban suggest it may be discriminatory, a heavy-handed crackdown on the preferred nicotine fix of Black smokers, even if African American men have the highest rates of lung cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

...

"Although lawmakers have signaled their support for the tax increase, the menthol ban’s prospects are far less certain, according to four officials familiar with the negotiations.

The issue has divided Black lawmakers, leaving the measure hanging by a thread in the State Capitol "and potentially forcing Ms. Hochul to weigh how much political capital she should expend on the ban, as opposed to other policy priorities."

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And here's a story saying that the governor abandoned the proposed ban in a set of budget compromises:

New York Would Change Minimum Wage and Bail in $229 Billion Budget Deal. After weeks of dissension, leaders in Albany reached a handshake agreement on a budget that saw Gov. Kathy Hochul fall short on some of her key objectives. By Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Grace Ashford

"Lawmakers managed to knock down other divisive ideas, including ... a ban on the sale of menthol cigarettes that was opposed by Big Tobacco and had divided Black leaders. Lawmakers did agree, however, to raise taxes on cigarettes to $5.35 a pack, up from $4.35."

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All posts so far on menthol

It's hard to dis-intermediate insurance salespeople

 The WSJ has the story:

How Life Insurance Agents Beat Back a Tech Onslaught. Startups tried to bypass salespeople but now embrace them.  By Leslie Scism

"A decade ago, technology startups were planning to steamroll the stodgy life-insurance industry.

"They thought the glad-handing life-insurance agent who cornered customers at Little League games and closed deals at the kitchen table was a relic. Snazzy websites and sophisticated analytics would replace the one-on-one sales pitches and tedious application process that often involved a medical exam.

"The agents won the battle, and now the tech firms are courting them. Of seven startups that together raised more than $1.2 billion to sell life insurance directly to consumers, at least five now promote services to help agents sell policies, according to Coverager.com, which tracks so-called insurtech activity. One of the startups, five-year-old Sproutt, last month bought an insurance brokerage.

...

"Many of the tech firms now better appreciate an old industry adage: Life insurance is sold, not bought.

...

"Glenn Williams, president of life-insurance and financial-services firm Primerica Inc., said his company’s more than 135,000 full- and part-time agents are in people’s homes, “drinking your coffee, eating your brownies…getting the sale done.” 

Market Design at the Max Planck Institute: Axel Ockenfels will become a Director, of ‘Economic Design & Behavior’

 Here's the announcement from the Max Planck Institutes:

Axel Ockenfels Appointed New Director at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn

"University of Cologne economist and expert in market design will establish the research department ‘Economic Design & Behavior’ at the MPI in addition to his work at the University of Cologne

"Axel Ockenfels, professor at the University of Cologne, will become a new director at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn in August 2023. He will establish a new department there, to be called ‘Economic Design & Behavior’. Its aim will be to design market, incentive, and decision architectures, based on modern behavioral research. Professor Dr. Ockenfels will thus complement the departments of Professor Dr. Matthias Sutter and Professor Dr. Christoph Engel at the institute, which focus on behavioral research from an economic and legal perspective. He will continue to teach and conduct research at the University of Cologne.

"As a faculty member of the University of Cologne, Professor Ockenfels heads the Cologne Laboratory for Economic Research and coordinates both the ‘Center for Social and Economic Behavior’ and the research division ‘Market Design & Behavior’ of the Cologne-Bonn Cluster of Excellence, ECONtribute. His appointment to the MPI in Bonn will further intensify the cooperation between the Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne and the MPI in Bonn, a cooperation that has already contributed to the creation of a prestigious research center for economic behavior and design research in recent years.

...

"The new department at the Bonn MPI will also investigate ethical aspects of institutions and behavior as well as the opportunities and risks of modern computer technology for new markets. Most recently, Ockenfels has contributed to crisis management, for example with proposals for a market design to secure the supply of vaccines, to avoid supply disruptions in the energy sector, and to reduce energy consumption.

...

"Brief CV Axel Ockenfels

"Axel Ockenfels studied economics at the University of Bonn until 1994. He received his doctorate and habilitation from the University of Magdeburg, with periods abroad at Penn State University and Harvard University. Subsequently, he was Emmy-Noether Junior Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Economics in Jena. In 2003, he became Professor of Economics at the University of Cologne. Research periods have taken him to Stanford University and, currently, to the University of California in San Diego, among other places.

"In 2005, Ockenfels became the first economist in 17 years to be awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation (DFG). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and the National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech). He also sits at the Economists’ Round Table in the Federal Chancellery and on the Scientific Advisory Board at the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK)."

Payment to college athletes: Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) Deals

 The recent changes in what college athletes can be paid for  (and in their ability to transfer freely between schools) has made it profitable for some football players who are eligible for the NFL draft to remain in school.  The NYT has the story:

How transfer, NIL rules thinned out NFL draft QB class: ‘It’s an anemic quarterback class’ by Kalyn Kahler

"the reason for the mid-to-late-round quarterback mass desertion has a lot to do with the growth of the transfer portal and name, image and likeness (NIL) deals.

"In April 2021, the NCAA changed its rules to allow transfers without sitting out a season. A little more than two months later, the NCAA announced its first-ever NIL policy, allowing college athletes to take deals with individual companies, like Bose, and sign deals with collectives affiliated with their schools.

"Collectives are generally made up of donor funds, and they offer contracts to athletes in return for services like autograph signings or event appearances. And in the second season of NIL, collectives are succeeding at incentivizing players at all positions to return to school, and most of all the most important position on the team.

“You’re not necessarily allowed to pay players to return. Like, that can’t be the reason,” said an executive for a collective affiliated with a West Coast university who, like others in this story, was granted anonymity in order to openly discuss details of the hush-hush world of NIL. “But you can talk about their potential when they come back, you’ll have significantly more NIL opportunities than maybe you had the prior year.

...

"You’re not exactly allowed to disclose what people are making,” said the West Coast collective executive. “It has not been laid out from the NCAA and a lot of schools on exactly what you can and can’t talk about. It’s very unclear in a lot of situations, so people naturally get uncomfortable because they don’t know the rules, especially coaches.”

"A veteran NFL agent who represented two draft-eligible Power 5 quarterbacks for their NIL deals said that one transferred to a new program this offseason with the understanding he would make a million-plus through that school’s collective. The agent said the other turned down an offer of more than a million in favor of a transfer to the best football situation, where he’s been promised an amount comparable to an NFL practice-squad salary (in the $200,000 range)."

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Related posts on (previously repugnant) payments to student athletes here.

Jerusalem summer school in Economic Theory: Imperfect Cognition and Economic Behaviour: June 26-July 5

 Here's the announcement and call for applications:

The 33rd Advanced School in Economic Theory: Imperfect Cognition and Economic Behaviour

Mon, 26/06/2023 to Wed, 05/07/2023

GENERAL DIRECTOR: Eric Maskin, Harvard University

ORGANIZERS: Elchanan Ben-Porath, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Michael Woodford, Columbia University

SPEAKERS:

Robert Aumann, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Rava Azeredo da Silveira, ENS Paris & University of Basel

Ido Erev, Technion - Institute of Technology

Itzhak Gilboa, Tel Aviv University & HEC Paris

Tom Griffiths, Princeton University

Eric Maskin, Harvard University

Ariel Rubinstein, Tel Aviv University & New York University

Ran Spiegler, Tel Aviv University & UCL

Jakub Steiner, University of Zurich

Luminita Stevens, University of Maryland

Tomasz Strzalecki, Harvard University

Michael Woodford, Columbia University

Noga Zaslavsky, MIT

ABSTRACT: While economic analysis typically assumes that people reliably choose the available action that is best suited to their current circumstances, experimental psychology has instead emphasized the imprecision of both perceptions and recollections of the objective features of one's environment. This summer school explores whether the kind of cognitive imprecision that is well-documented in sensory domains may also limit the accuracy of economic decisions, and help to account for experimentally documented anomalies for normative models of decision making.