Showing posts sorted by date for query NSF. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query NSF. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Sunday, February 27, 2022

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.


Saturday, January 30, 2021

Mechanism design conference (virtually) at Pitt, April 15-17, with keynotes by Tuomas Sandholm and Utku Unver

 Here's the announcement: the conference is sponsored by the NBER

Mechanism Design for Vulnerable Populations

Thurs Apr 15- Sat Apr 17, 2021

Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA)

University of Pittsburgh

"We are delighted to share that the NSF/CEME Decentralization 2021 conference, which had to be postponed from 2020 due to COVID-19, will take place virtually on April 15-17 this year! This conference series is funded by the National Science Foundation and is administered through the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). This is the 50th anniversary of the Decentralization conference - the first Decentralization Conference was held at UC Berkeley in 1971.

"The goal of this year's conference is to apply and extend mechanism design to the practical needs of institutions that serve vulnerable populations. These populations pose conceptual and technical challenges for the designer due to the high stakes decision making environments, complex constraints on agents’ action space, and the cumulative effects of disadvantaged participation in previous mechanisms. We are excited to have Tuomas Sandholm (Carnegie Mellon University) and M. Utku Unver (Boston College) as keynote speakers.

"Talks (including discussions) are 30-45 minutes and spans general mechanism design theory as well as topics such as matching and assignment problems in foster care, refugee resettlement, low-income housing, affirmative action, and criminal justice. Each talk will be followed by an open chat with the audience and two discussants - for session #2-5 this will be an academic and a practitioner. Breakout groups at the end of each module allows for more substantial engagement with each topic."

 

Thursday, March 26, 2020

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.





Monday, March 2, 2020

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



Thursday, February 6, 2020

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 

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Conference on Mechanism design for vulnerable populations in April at Pitt--call for papers: Update--Postponed!

Here's the call for papers:

Call for papers: 2020 NSF/CEME Decentralization Conference
Mechanism Design for Vulnerable Populations
April 17-19, 2020

Center for Analytical Approaches to Social Innovation (CAASI)
Graduate School of Public and International A airs
University of Pittsburgh

Submission Deadline: Friday, January 31th, 2020

The goal of this conference is to apply and extend mechanism design to the practical needs of institutions that serve vulnerable populations. These populations pose conceptual and technical challenges for the designer due to the high stakes decision making environments, complex constraints on agents' action space, and the cumulative effects of disadvantaged participation in previous mechanisms. We welcome both theoretical and empirical approaches.


The field of mechanism design has played a significant role in designing public sector allocative mechanisms, making important contributions to the FCC spectrum auctions, the creation of electricity markets, school matching algorithms, and more. Recently, scholars have begun to apply the tools of mechanism design towards institutions that serve vulnerable populations such as the construction of social safety nets. This endeavour will be challenging. Whether it is families facing housing insecurity, returning veterans, or the previously incarcerated, the daily struggles of these individuals are often unobserved by the designer, making it difficult to form accurate assumptions about agent types, action spaces, or perceptions of the mechanism. For vulnerable populations, small behavioral deviations or changes in allocations can result in dramatic differences, e.g. a missed car payment resulting in a job loss. In addition, marginalization is often the cumulative outcome of a sequence of mechanisms: the housing market affecting a child's school choice, which constrains his options in the job market, which in turn affects his outcome in the criminal justice system.


For the conference, we seek theoretical and empirical papers that try to bridge the gap between mechanism design theory and the needs of vulnerable population. Topics could include (but are not limited to):
* General theoretical papers on behavioral mechanism design and robust mechanism design
* Social work: service referral, adoption / foster care, transition to workforce, substance abuse treatments, mentoring programs
* Basic needs: low-income housing, housing integration by income and identity, food banks
* Education (school matching), transportation (route selection, transport markets) and criminal justice
* Public goods, participatory democracy and budgeting mechanisms

Submissions will be accepted until Friday, January 31th, 2020. Full papers are preferred, but extended abstracts will also be considered. Please email all submissions to jinyong.jeong@pitt.edu with the subject line Decentralization Submission. We will announce the conference program by Friday, February 14, 2020. All participants should confirm their attendance by Friday February 21, 2020.


Organizers:
Sera Linardi (University of Pittsburgh)
Jinyong Jeong (University of Pittsburgh)
Scott E. Page (University of Michigan)

Program Committee:
Rediet Abebe (Harvard University)
Yan Chen (University of Michigan)
Selman Erol (Carnegie Mellon University)
Osea Giuntella (University of Pittsburgh)
Daniel Jones (University of Pittsburgh)
John Ledyard (California Institute of Technology)
Irene Lo (Stanford University)
Adam Kapor (Princeton University)
Luca Rigotti (University of Pittsburgh)
Utku Unver (Boston College)
Richard Van Weelden (University of Pittsburgh)
M. Bumin Yenmez (Boston College)

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

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.

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

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

Sunday, September 16, 2018

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:


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...) 

Thursday, September 13, 2018

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:

Friday, July 7, 2017

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...) :


*********
************

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."

Saturday, December 31, 2016

NSF grant on collaborative kidney exchange: final report

I had a long-running NSF grant at the NBER in the years when I was at Harvard, called "Collaborative Research on Kidney Exchange." I recently filed a final report for the last leg of it, which ran from 2011-2016. (I'm still collaborating on kidney exchange, and anticipate doing so for some time, with my long term collaborators Itai Ashlagi and Mike Rees.)
Here is the link to the page on which you can find the report by searching for Federal Award ID Number 1061932  (that takes you to a page that has found the grant, and then you have to click on the number to get the report--your government dollars at work as we used to say:)

For some reason, the final report is missing many of the publications reported in the annual progress reports...but it gives an idea of what we were thinking when we began this leg of the work, and some of the different directions in which we were led.

A more comprehensive list of publications from this work in the period 2011-16 is below, I may have more to say about them in the future.

1.      Ashlagi, Itai, Duncan S. Gilchrist, Alvin E. Roth, and Michael A. Rees, “Nonsimultaneous Chains and Dominos in Kidney Paired Donation – Revisited,” American Journal of Transplantation, 11, 5, May 2011, 984-994  http://www.stanford.edu/~alroth/papers/Nonsimultaneous%20Chains%20AJT%202011.pdf
2.      Ashlagi, Itai, Duncan S. Gilchrist, Alvin E. Roth, and Michael A. Rees, “NEAD Chains in Transplantation,” American Journal of Transplantation, December 2011; 11: 2780–2781. http://web.stanford.edu/~iashlagi/papers/NeadChains2.pdf
3.      Wallis, C. Bradley, Kannan P. Samy, Alvin E. Roth, and Michael A. Rees, “Kidney Paired Donation,” Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, July 2011, 26 (7): 2091-2099 (published online March 31, 2011; doi: 10.1093/ndt/gfr155, https://academic.oup.com/ndt/article/26/7/2091/1896342

6.      Ashlagi, Itai and Alvin E. Roth, “New challenges in multi-hospital kidney exchange,” American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 102,3,  May 2012, 354-59.
7.      Rees, Michael A.,  Mark A. Schnitzler, Edward Zavala, James A. Cutler,  Alvin E. Roth, F. Dennis Irwin, Stephen W. Crawford,and Alan B.  Leichtman, “Call to Develop a Standard Acquisition Charge Model for Kidney Paired Donation,” American Journal of Transplantation, 2012, 12, 6 (June), 1392-1397. (published online 9 April 2012 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-6143.2012.04034.x/abstract ).
8.      Kessler, Judd B. and Alvin E. Roth, “Organ Allocation Policy and the Decision to Donate,” American Economic Review, Vol. 102 No. 5 (August 2012), 2018-47.

14.   Kessler, Judd B. and Alvin E. Roth, “Getting More Organs for Transplantation,” American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, May 2014,104 (5): 425-30.
15.   Kessler, Judd B. and Alvin E. Roth, “Loopholes Undermine Donation: An Experiment Motivated by an Organ Donation Priority Loophole in Israel, “Journal of Public Economics, 114, June 2014, 19-28.

17.   Ashlagi, Itai, and Alvin E. Roth, "Free Riding and Participation in Large Scale, Multi-hospital Kidney Exchange,” Theoretical Economics 9 (2014), 817–863. http://econtheory.org/ojs/index.php/te/article/viewFile/1357/11619/357
18.   Niederle, Muriel and Alvin E. Roth, “Philanthropically Funded Heroism Awards for Kidney Donors?, Law & Contemporary Problems, 77:3, 2014, 131-144. http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4696&context=lcp

21.   Anderson, Ross, Itai Ashlagi, David Gamarnik and Alvin E. Roth, “Finding long chains in kidney exchange using the traveling salesmen problem,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), January 20, 2015 | vol. 112 | no. 3 | 663–668, http://www.pnas.org/content/112/3/663.full.pdf+html 
22.   Anderson, Ross, Itai Ashlagi, David Gamarnik, Michael Rees, Alvin E. Roth, Tayfun Sönmez and M. Utku Ünver, " Kidney Exchange and the Alliance for Paired Donation: Operations Research Changes the Way Kidneys are Transplanted," Edelman Award Competition, Interfaces, 2015, 45(1), pp. 26–42. http://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/pdf/10.1287/inte.2014.0766
23.   Roth, Alvin E., “Transplantation: One Economist’s Perspective,” Transplantation, February 2015,  Volume 99 - Issue 2 - p 261–264. http://marketdesigner.blogspot.com/2015/02/an-economists-perspective-on.html

26.   Ambuehl, Sandro, Muriel Niederle, and Alvin E. Roth, “More Money, More Problems? Can High Pay be Coercive and Repugnant?,” American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, May 2015, 105(5): 357-60.            .
27.   Fumo, D.E., V. Kapoor, L.J. Reece, S.M. Stepkowski,J.E. Kopke, S.E. Rees, C. Smith, A.E. Roth, A.B. Leichtman, M.A. Rees, “Improving matching strategies in kidney paired donation: the 7-year evolution of a web based virtual matching system,” American Journal of Transplantation, October 2015, 15(10), 2646-2654 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/ajt.13337/ (designated one of 10 “best of AJT 2015”)

29.   Melcher, Marc L., John P. Roberts, Alan B. Leichtman, Alvin E. Roth, and Michael A. Rees, “Utilization of Deceased Donor Kidneys to Initiate Living Donor Chains,” American Journal of Transplantation, 16, 5, May 2016, 1367–1370.
a.      Melcher, Marc L., John P. Roberts, Alan B. Leichtman, Alvin E. Roth, and Michael A. Rees, “We need to take the next step,” American Journal of Transplantation, forthcoming
30.   Stoler, Avraham,  Judd B. Kessler, Tamar Ashkenazi, Alvin E. Roth, Jacob Lavee, “Incentivizing Authorization for Deceased Organ Donation with Organ Allocation Priority: the First Five Years,” American Journal of Transplantation, Volume 16, Issue 9, September 2016,  2639–2645.
31.   Stoler, Avraham, Judd B. Kessler, Tamar Ashkenazi, Alvin E. Roth, Jacob Lavee, “Incentivizing Organ Donor Registrations with Organ Allocation Priority,”, Health Economics, April 2016 online http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hec.3328/full ; doi: 10.1002/hec.3328.


33.   Michael A. Rees, Ty B. Dunn, Christian S. Kuhr, Christopher L. Marsh, Jeffrey Rogers, Susan E. Rees, Alejandra Cicero, Laurie J. Reece, Alvin E. Roth, Obi Ekwenna, David E. Fumo, Kimberly D. Krawiec, Jonathan E. Kopke, Samay Jain, Miguel Tan and Siegfredo R. Paloyo, “Kidney Exchange to Overcome Financial Barriers to Kidney Transplantation,” American Journal of Transplantation, forthcoming. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajt.14106/full

Friday, August 12, 2016

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

 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."

Thursday, February 18, 2016

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

Here's the announcement from the NSF:

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 CaliforniaLos 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.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

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.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

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."

Sunday, December 8, 2013

EC14, now called Economics and Computation, at Stanford June 8-12 (submission deadline is Feb 11)

Here's the announcement and call for papers. The deadline is Feb 11 for paper submission.

Two related conferences will be coordinated at Stanford at the same time, the NBER market design conference, and the NSF Decentralization conference (see the announcement here).

You can also see how closely interwoven computer science and economics/market design have become by looking at the program committee, which includes both computer scientists and economists mixed up (or maybe mixed up computer scientists and economists):

General Chair: 
Moshe BabaioffMicrosoft Research
ec14-general-chair@acm.orgDescription: Description: email
Program Chairs:
Vincent ConitzerDuke University
ec14-pc-chairs@acm.orgDescription: Description: email
David EasleyCornell University
ec14-pc-chairs@acm.orgDescription: Description: email
Workshop Chair:
Robert KleinbergCornell University
ec14-workshops-chair@acm.orgDescription: Description: email
Tutorial Chair:
Shuchi ChawlaUniversity of Wisconsin - Madison
ec14-tutorial-chair@acm.orgDescription: Description: email
Senior Program Committee (one per area):
Theory and Foundations SPC:

Larry BlumeCornell University
Aaron Bodoh-CreedUC Berkeley
Felix BrandtTU Munich
Shuchi ChawlaUniversity of Wisconsin - Madison
Edith ElkindOxford University
Joan FeigenbaumYale University
Michal FeldmanHebrew University of Jerusalem
Drew FudenbergHarvard University
Nicole ImmorlicaNorthwestern University and Microsoft Research
Anna KarlinUniversity of Washington
David KempeUniversity of Southern California
Scott KominersHarvard University
Ron LaviTechnion - Israel Institute of Technology
Vahab MirrokniGoogle Research
Utku UnverBoston College

Artificial Intelligence and Applied Game Theory SPC:

Itai AshlagiMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Yiling ChenHarvard University
Arpita GhoshCornell University
Kate LarsonUniversity of Waterloo
Kevin Leyton-Brown, University of British Columbia
David PennockMicrosoft Research
Ariel ProcacciaCarnegie Mellon University
Tuomas SandholmCarnegie Mellon University
Experimental, Empirical, and Application SPC:

Eric BudishUniversity of Chicago
Yan ChenUniversity of Michigan
Ben EdelmanHarvard University
Ashish GoelStanford University
Muthu Muthukrishnan, Rutgers
Denis NekipelovUC Berkeley
Sid SuriMicrosoft Research
Steven TadelisUC Berkeley
Local Arrangements:
Yoav Shoham, Stanford University