Here's a link to an interview with Scott Cunningham, whose work on sex work I've blogged about before. There's a surprising amount of discussion about causal inference and differences in differences. (I always suspected that econometrics was sexy, but this is the first time I’ve heard a podcast about that.)
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query cunningham. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query cunningham. Sort by date Show all posts
Friday, February 16, 2018
Friday, July 1, 2022
Scott Cunningham's Mixtape Podcast Interview with Alvin Roth
Here's Scott Cunningham's Mixtape Podcast Interview with Alvin Roth... "We discuss Gale and Shapley, Roth and Sotomayor, game theory and more"
You can listen to our conversation at the link above. He drew me out about some things I hadn't thought of in a while, such as my varied relationships with Gale, Shapley and Bob Wilson, and how my ideas about matching markets developed over the course of my career (which started in Operations Research and then morphed into Economics...)
He also reveals the manner in which he was the perfect reader of my 1990 book Two-Sided Matching with Marilda Sotomayor.
His site is multi-media, if you scroll down you'll find a video (the one below in on YouTube), and if you keep scrolling down you'll find an essay he wrote called "Paying it Forward..." which recounts more about what our book meant to him and some of our subsequent interactions over the years. And below that is his Transcript of [our] podcast interview, for those who prefer to read rather than listen or watch.
**********
I've had occasion to blog about Scott:
Friday, February 16, 2018
Sex work, Craigslist, and the law; podcast with Scott Cunningham
Here's a link to an interview with Scott Cunningham, whose work on sex work I've blogged about before. There's a surprising amount of discussion about causal inference and differences in differences. (I always suspected that econometrics was sexy, but this is the first time I’ve heard a podcast about that.)
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
The accidental experiment with legal prostitution in Rhode Island
A scholarly paper and an easy to read-or-listen-to NPR report recount the period in which indoor prostitution was legal in Rhode Island.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
The accidental experiment with legal prostitution in Rhode Island
A scholarly paper and an easy to read-or-listen-to NPR report recount the period in which indoor prostitution was legal in Rhode Island.
The paper (forthcoming in Review of Economic Studies):
Decriminalizing Indoor Prostitution:Implications for Sexual Violence and Public Health by Scott Cunningham and Manisha Shah
Abstract:
Most governments in the world, including the United States, prohibit sex work.Given these types of laws rarely change and are fairly uniform across regions, our knowledge about the impact of decriminalizing sex work is largely conjectural. We exploit the fact that a Rhode Island District Court judge unexpectedly decriminalized indoor sex work to provide causal estimates of the impact of decriminalization on the composition of the sex market, reported rape offenses, and sexually transmit-ted infections. While decriminalization increases the size of the indoor sex market, reported rape offenses fall by 30 percent and female gonorrhea incidence declines by over 40 percent.
***********
And here's the NPR report and podcast:
Prostitution decriminalized: Rhode Island’s experiment
It's worth reading, with lots of interesting bits, and links. Here is a section of the transcript that struck me:
Scott Cunningham has been studying black markets for some time, and I'm a long time fan of his work. Here are some of my earlier posts covering it.
The paper (forthcoming in Review of Economic Studies):
Decriminalizing Indoor Prostitution:Implications for Sexual Violence and Public Health by Scott Cunningham and Manisha Shah
Abstract:
Most governments in the world, including the United States, prohibit sex work.Given these types of laws rarely change and are fairly uniform across regions, our knowledge about the impact of decriminalizing sex work is largely conjectural. We exploit the fact that a Rhode Island District Court judge unexpectedly decriminalized indoor sex work to provide causal estimates of the impact of decriminalization on the composition of the sex market, reported rape offenses, and sexually transmit-ted infections. While decriminalization increases the size of the indoor sex market, reported rape offenses fall by 30 percent and female gonorrhea incidence declines by over 40 percent.
***********
And here's the NPR report and podcast:
Prostitution decriminalized: Rhode Island’s experiment
It's worth reading, with lots of interesting bits, and links. Here is a section of the transcript that struck me:
"So, what did she and her colleague, Scott Cunningham at Baylor University, find?
The obvious: sex work exploded.
But then, the not so obvious: female gonorrhea rates statewide plummetedduring the overt decriminalization period.
"It goes down by around 40 percent," Shah said. "We spent a lot of time beating up the data and estimating these things in different ways, and we just can't get the results to go away, regardless of what we do, they're there.
A forty percent drop is a big deal in the world of public health. Shah thinks one of the reasons for this positive outcome is that legalization empowered sex workers to say no to riskier sexual behavior. She also wonders if newer people were entering the market and didn't have as big of an STD risk.
Still, perhaps even more surprising than the decrease in gonorrhea was another public health development. Sexual violence, or rapes, dipped dramatically. And this wasn't just amongst sex workers. It was across the board, according to FBI crime reports and jurisdiction level data.
"Reported rape offenses decreased by about 30 percent," Shah said.
That's another big decrease. Shah says, if anything, you'd expect rape to go up as when prostitution is decriminalized, sex workers are more likely to report rapes. She compared this to neighboring states, too. The drop was only in Rhode Island. So she examined other crime data in Rhode Island, like burglaries and murders, to see if there had just been a drop in crime generally.
It didn't match. So what happened?
That, she says is harder to answer. She has a theory, though, in that while she knows for some men rape is about power, "I think the argument that we're making is that that might not be true for all men, and for some, these activities could be substitutes."
In other words, for some men, rape may be just about sex. And if there's a legal and accessible market for it, the number of rapes in a community may go down.
This has not been a popular theory or study. And for many, it challenges the notion that rape is about violence and power, and not sex.
"So I consider myself a feminist, but I think this finding angers a lot of feminists," Shah said. "It is a very controversial idea."
And then there's that other controversial area: could decriminalization fuel sex trafficking and sexual exploitation?
"I definitely worry about that," Shah said. "It's an area that I would love to, to be able to do more with."
Still Shah believes there's no solid evidence yet that decriminalizing prostitution does lead to an increase in trafficking women and forcing them into prostitution.
"There is not good empirical evidence for this either way, and part of that is because it's just very, very hard to collect good data on numbers of human trafficking."
*************Scott Cunningham has been studying black markets for some time, and I'm a long time fan of his work. Here are some of my earlier posts covering it.
Monday, July 25, 2016
Trust and crime: Reputation in the (illegal) market for sex
Quartz has an article on how sex workers can vet new customers, in the age of the internet: Sex workers have created the perfect method for keeping people honest online. (I like the url better than the headline: http://qz.com/621994/trust-and-crime/
"If you work at Goldman Sachs in New York City and you want to tie up a woman and then have sex with her, there’s a good chance you’ll first have to speak to Rita.
She’ll insist on calling your office, speaking to the switchboard operator, and being patched through to your desk. Then she will want to check out your profile on the company website and LinkedIn. She’ll demand you send her message from your work email, and require a scan of either your passport or driver’s license.
...
"Mid-range prostitution is a relatively new market, enabled by technology. Before the internet, it was hard for escorts to find customers: They had to either walk the streets searching for customers (the lower end of the market), rely on word-of-mouth, or work with agencies. Walking the streets was dangerous, while agencies ate up a large share of workers’ profit and autonomy, and created a bottleneck to entering the market. The internet changed all that.
“Before the internet, agencies provided the steady flow of clients and screening, but their capacity was capped,” Baylor University economist Scott Cunningham said. Soon after Craigslist launched in 1995, US escorts quickly started marketing directly to customers online. This newfound ability to advertise on the internet grew the market, said Cunningham, because more women and men could work independently
...
"Even criminals need someone they can trust
"If you’re selling something illegal, you can’t rely on the law to make sure the buyer upholds their end of the deal. Once the bill comes, clients might turn violent, or turn out to be cops. That means trust commands a large premium and that’s the centerpiece of Rita’s business model: watertight background checks on would-be johns.
"Rita represents sex workers who offer BDSM in addition to sex. When rough play is on the list of services you offer, a high level of trust is essential; hence, Rita’s elaborate screening process, which can take days. “I am looking to weed out police and crazies,” she said. She estimates that only one in four potential customers ultimately passes. Those who do win some time with a professional escort/dominatrix, but it comes at a hefty price: Each hour can cost up to $800, and Rita’s cut is 30%."
"If you work at Goldman Sachs in New York City and you want to tie up a woman and then have sex with her, there’s a good chance you’ll first have to speak to Rita.
She’ll insist on calling your office, speaking to the switchboard operator, and being patched through to your desk. Then she will want to check out your profile on the company website and LinkedIn. She’ll demand you send her message from your work email, and require a scan of either your passport or driver’s license.
...
"Mid-range prostitution is a relatively new market, enabled by technology. Before the internet, it was hard for escorts to find customers: They had to either walk the streets searching for customers (the lower end of the market), rely on word-of-mouth, or work with agencies. Walking the streets was dangerous, while agencies ate up a large share of workers’ profit and autonomy, and created a bottleneck to entering the market. The internet changed all that.
“Before the internet, agencies provided the steady flow of clients and screening, but their capacity was capped,” Baylor University economist Scott Cunningham said. Soon after Craigslist launched in 1995, US escorts quickly started marketing directly to customers online. This newfound ability to advertise on the internet grew the market, said Cunningham, because more women and men could work independently
...
"Even criminals need someone they can trust
"If you’re selling something illegal, you can’t rely on the law to make sure the buyer upholds their end of the deal. Once the bill comes, clients might turn violent, or turn out to be cops. That means trust commands a large premium and that’s the centerpiece of Rita’s business model: watertight background checks on would-be johns.
"Rita represents sex workers who offer BDSM in addition to sex. When rough play is on the list of services you offer, a high level of trust is essential; hence, Rita’s elaborate screening process, which can take days. “I am looking to weed out police and crazies,” she said. She estimates that only one in four potential customers ultimately passes. Those who do win some time with a professional escort/dominatrix, but it comes at a hefty price: Each hour can cost up to $800, and Rita’s cut is 30%."
Wednesday, September 25, 2024
Mohammad Akbarpour, interviewed by Scott Cunningham
Here's an interview of Mohammad Akbarpour, as part of Scott Cunningham's growing series of interviews of interesting economists. (Even the picture of the two of them looks interesting, and it gets better:)
Scott writes:
"Welcome to the Mixtape with
Scott! Sometimes the shortest distance between point A and point B is a
straight line, but other times the shortest distance is a winding path. This
week’s guest, Mohammad
Akbarpour from Stanford University, is perhaps an example of the
latter. Mohammad is a micro theorist at Stanford who specializes in networks,
mechanism and design and two sided matching. Mohammad is an emerging young
theorist at Stanford, student of such luminaries as Matt Jackson and Al Roth,
whose background in engineering, mathematics and computer science has given him
a fresh approach to topics that I associate with Stanford’s theory people as a
whole — policy oriented, applied work, mechanism design, networks and matching.
He got into economics “the long way” — growing up in Iran, majoring in
engineering, and then moving into Stanford’s operations research PhD program.
In this interview, he generously shares a snippet of the arc of his life, and
it’s a remarkable story, and one I really enjoyed hearing. I think you will
too."
Friday, July 18, 2014
What is the effect of legalizing indoor prostitution?
In 2009 I wrote a blog post about the unusual situation in Rhode Island, in which a change in legislation had inadvertently made only outdoor prostitution illegal:
(That was a situation that Cheap Talk characterized as "happy endings but no beginnings.").
But now a serious paper has been written on the effect of this change (which was reversed later in 2009):
The story has been picked up:
Here's Vox, Rhode Island accidentally decriminalized prostitution, and good things happened
That post concludes as follows
"Why is this research important?
"According to a 2013 estimate, prostitution is an industry that generates over $14 billion annually in the United States. That's despite the fact that it's almost universally illegal across the country, save for some regulated brothels in some parts of Nevada. (Recall that Rhode Island recriminalized sex work in 2009.)
"Despite the industry being huge and persistent, almost everything we know about decriminalizing prostitution is rooted in speculation, rather than good data.
"Prior research has been plagued by problems, like relying on small sample sizes that aren't necessarily representative of the industry. According to the authors, most of the studies that exist examine street prostitution, even though 85 percent of all sex-work activity is considered part of the indoor market.
"Sex work is a predictably fraught policy issue, because it gets entangled in matters of morality. But this study adds to a body of research that suggests criminalizing prostitution causes higher rates of victimization and unsafe practices."
******
And the Washington Post weighs in here, with a wider discussion of prostitution and its repugnance,
**********
For those of you who don't know Scott Cunningham, he's a serious student of the dark side of the economy...see a previous post on his work here.
Where it's illegal for prostitutes to give massages
The complicated legal situation in Rhode Island makes indoor prostitution legal, but requires masseurs to be licensed, so prosecutors "brought charges against alleged brothels for performing unlicensed massages."
But now a serious paper has been written on the effect of this change (which was reversed later in 2009):
Decriminalizing Indoor Prostitution: Implications for Sexual Violence and Public Health
Scott Cunningham, Manisha Shah
Most governments in the world including the United States prohibit prostitution. Given these types of laws rarely change and are fairly uniform across regions, our knowledge about the impact of decriminalizing sex work is largely conjectural. We exploit the fact that a Rhode Island District Court judge unexpectedly decriminalized indoor prostitution in 2003 to provide the first causal estimates of the impact of decriminalization on the composition of the sex market, rape offenses, and sexually transmitted infection outcomes. Not surprisingly, we find that decriminalization increased the size of the indoor market. However, we also find that decriminalization caused both forcible rape offenses and gonorrhea incidence to decline for the overall population. Our synthetic control model finds 824 fewer reported rape offenses (31 percent decrease) and 1,035 fewer cases of female gonorrhea (39 percent decrease) from 2004 to 2009.
The story has been picked up:
Here's Vox, Rhode Island accidentally decriminalized prostitution, and good things happened
That post concludes as follows
"Why is this research important?
"According to a 2013 estimate, prostitution is an industry that generates over $14 billion annually in the United States. That's despite the fact that it's almost universally illegal across the country, save for some regulated brothels in some parts of Nevada. (Recall that Rhode Island recriminalized sex work in 2009.)
"Despite the industry being huge and persistent, almost everything we know about decriminalizing prostitution is rooted in speculation, rather than good data.
"Prior research has been plagued by problems, like relying on small sample sizes that aren't necessarily representative of the industry. According to the authors, most of the studies that exist examine street prostitution, even though 85 percent of all sex-work activity is considered part of the indoor market.
"Sex work is a predictably fraught policy issue, because it gets entangled in matters of morality. But this study adds to a body of research that suggests criminalizing prostitution causes higher rates of victimization and unsafe practices."
******
And the Washington Post weighs in here, with a wider discussion of prostitution and its repugnance,
**********
For those of you who don't know Scott Cunningham, he's a serious student of the dark side of the economy...see a previous post on his work here.
Wednesday, July 26, 2023
Paying it forward
Scott Cunningham, an economist who devotes a lot of his efforts to providing public goods, recently had a post on the phrase "paying it forward." He writes that he connected it with a movie with a similar name, but has recently come to view it differently (for reasons I find too embarrassing to quote, but related to the fact that I use the phrase now and then.)
Wikipedia says "Pay it forward is an expression for describing the beneficiary of a good deed repaying the kindness to others instead of to the original benefactor." It goes on to say "Robert Heinlein's 1951 novel Between Planets helped popularize the phrase." I could have first seen it there, as I read much of Heinlein's science fiction when I was a boy.
My associations with the phrase now mostly come from the motivations and actions of some living kidney donors, particularly in kidney exchange chains.
The phrase is certainly is evocative of what we do so much of in academia (when we're doing academia well): it describes the relationship between studying and teaching, and between teachers and students.
********
Scott's post announced that, as part of paying things forward, he's funding a prize for young economists.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
The assignation game: attempting to make an illegal market safe
Scott Cunningham (who studies risky behavior, crime, and illicit labor markets) points me to this story, which illustrates some of the difficulties of running a recommender system for an illegal transaction: Fairleigh Dickinson professor accused of running prostitution website
"a professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, was arrested Sunday while sitting in a Starbucks in Albuquerque, N.M., said Lt. William Roseman of the Albuquerque police."
...
"Flory’s website, Southwest Companions, had operated for months before several prostitutes in Albuquerque mentioned the site to police and they began investigating late last year, Roseman said.
"Users were split into three categories, and first-time visitors had to first gain the trust of Flory before gaining any access. Ordinarily this was done, Roseman said, by "sleeping with a prostitute." The prostitute would then report to Flory what sexual acts the two had engaged in, as well as how much money was exchanged.
"After that process, users were designated as "Verified," gaining access to a wider circle of women to choose from, Roseman said. If users became more frequent customers, their status was increased to "Trusted," which gave them access to more women and more portions of the website, including message boards explaining how to avoid the police, Roseman said.
"They had descriptions of my officers, phone numbers they used, videos of an attorney telling them that if you get busted by the police, here’s what you should do," Roseman said. "This was a website designed, managed and run fully for prostitution."
"The site also included message boards where users could rate the prostitutes with stars, including the rating of specific sexual acts, Roseman said.
"Roseman said Flory told police he did not make money off of the website and instead saw it as a hobby, "a safe place for guys to find female prostitutes," Roseman said."
*******
Another news account gives more details on the police operation, which made use of an informant:
"Seemingly aware of possible legal issues, the site notes its content is for "entertainment purposes" only.
"Police, however, contend that Flory knew he was promoting illegal activity. A detective infiltrated the site, gaining a “verified account” through an informant, according to an arrest warrant. Using the screen name “David8,” the warrant said Flory posted “helpful tips” on how to avoid arrest and removed users who he thought had contact with authorities.
"Through a subpoena to Internet domain registration company GoDaddy.com, police learned that Flory used his FDU e-mail account to create the site. A GoDaddy spokesman declined to comment on the case, but issued a statement noting the company "routinely" works with law enforcement. According to the warrant, Flory also used DCF8.org for e-mail on the prostitution site, with the domain matching his initials. "
"a professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, was arrested Sunday while sitting in a Starbucks in Albuquerque, N.M., said Lt. William Roseman of the Albuquerque police."
...
"Flory’s website, Southwest Companions, had operated for months before several prostitutes in Albuquerque mentioned the site to police and they began investigating late last year, Roseman said.
"Users were split into three categories, and first-time visitors had to first gain the trust of Flory before gaining any access. Ordinarily this was done, Roseman said, by "sleeping with a prostitute." The prostitute would then report to Flory what sexual acts the two had engaged in, as well as how much money was exchanged.
"After that process, users were designated as "Verified," gaining access to a wider circle of women to choose from, Roseman said. If users became more frequent customers, their status was increased to "Trusted," which gave them access to more women and more portions of the website, including message boards explaining how to avoid the police, Roseman said.
"They had descriptions of my officers, phone numbers they used, videos of an attorney telling them that if you get busted by the police, here’s what you should do," Roseman said. "This was a website designed, managed and run fully for prostitution."
"The site also included message boards where users could rate the prostitutes with stars, including the rating of specific sexual acts, Roseman said.
"Roseman said Flory told police he did not make money off of the website and instead saw it as a hobby, "a safe place for guys to find female prostitutes," Roseman said."
*******
Another news account gives more details on the police operation, which made use of an informant:
"Seemingly aware of possible legal issues, the site notes its content is for "entertainment purposes" only.
"Police, however, contend that Flory knew he was promoting illegal activity. A detective infiltrated the site, gaining a “verified account” through an informant, according to an arrest warrant. Using the screen name “David8,” the warrant said Flory posted “helpful tips” on how to avoid arrest and removed users who he thought had contact with authorities.
"Through a subpoena to Internet domain registration company GoDaddy.com, police learned that Flory used his FDU e-mail account to create the site. A GoDaddy spokesman declined to comment on the case, but issued a statement noting the company "routinely" works with law enforcement. According to the warrant, Flory also used DCF8.org for e-mail on the prostitution site, with the domain matching his initials. "
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
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
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Prostitution and the internet
Scott Cunningham and Todd Kendall have two papers on prostitution, which discuss among other things how sex is sold on the internet:
“Prostitution, Technology and the Law: New Data and Directions” in Handbook on Family Law and Economics, Edward Elgar, Forthcoming 2010.
“Sex for Sale: Online Commerce in the World’s Oldest Profession in Crime Online: Correlates, Causes and Controls, ed. Tom Holt, Carolina Academic Press, Forthcoming 2010.
Along with sites that offer sex for sale, there's been a growth in sites that offer customer reviews. E.g. PunterNet, a site that reviews British prostitutes (but is on a California computer) became briefly famous when a British politician announced that she would ask California's governator to shut it down: Terminate degrading site - Harman "Harriet Harman says she has asked California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to shut down a website containing reviews of prostitutes."
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Alternatives to the NBA draft?
Scott Cunningham points me to this proposal to change the way professional basketball teams acquire new players. The present system rewards teams for poor performance by giving teams that lose lots of games a higher probability of very early draft choices. Early draft choices are important, because basketball is a game in which a single player can have a very big influence on team performance, and a small number of players are very good while still very young. So there may be an incentive, for a team having a poor season, to "tank" and try to be the worst team in order to have the highest probability of the first draft pick. The proposal would be to make draft choices independent of performance, and instead to alternate draft choices in a fixed schedule: The NBA's Possible Solution for Tanking: Good-bye to the Lottery, Hello to the Wheel
************
For more about the current draft system and how it is connected to player salaries, see Alicia Jessop on The Structure of NBA Rookie Contracts
************
For more about the current draft system and how it is connected to player salaries, see Alicia Jessop on The Structure of NBA Rookie Contracts
Saturday, April 4, 2009
More on recommender systems for escorts
Scott Cunningham of Baylor writes:
"I saw today your post on the screening sites that prostitutes use ["Problem customer" registries for prostitutes]. I just wanted to pass along to you a paper I'm currently working on with Todd Kendall called "Prostitution 2.0: Estimating the Effect of the Internet on the Market for Commercial Sex in the US."
http://business.baylor.edu/scott_cunningham/Research_files/pro20-4.pdf
"We have been surveying online prostitutes for the last 10 months using data collected from The Erotic Review, which is a large "mall" that clients use to record detailed information about prostitutes in various cities. In the course of the surveys, we have been studying the way in which the Internet has facilitated improved screening, and even in some cases, signaling between clients and prostitutes. One of the more ingenious things that we have found is a case of signaling from clients to prostitutes wherein they send letters of recommendation to prostitutes, usually in the form of sending along information [from] another prostitute with whom they've already visited. This, we argue, has enabled prostitutes to update their beliefs that a new client is not a cop (or a violent client) because these letters are relatively more expensive for cops to send. A case in point - see this story about two police officers who were sleeping with prostitutes in Beaumont, Texas allegedly in order to make a case on a drug trafficker. When the public learned, the men were fired, and the officers are now suing the Beaumont, Texas police department for wrongful termination. (It's suggestive that indeed the private costs of using these kinds of methods are prohibitively high for cops, which we argue is evidence that the costs of signaling type to prostitutes is such that the separating equilibria and not the pooling equilibria is more likely to be happening). "
Here is The Erotic Review, and here is what they say about customers getting recommendations from escorts:
"TER White List
If you have a good reputation with the ladies, encourage them to visit the TER White List and submit a referral for you. The TER White List is an easy way for providers to give positive references about members they have seen. "
"I saw today your post on the screening sites that prostitutes use ["Problem customer" registries for prostitutes]. I just wanted to pass along to you a paper I'm currently working on with Todd Kendall called "Prostitution 2.0: Estimating the Effect of the Internet on the Market for Commercial Sex in the US."
http://business.baylor.edu/scott_cunningham/Research_files/pro20-4.pdf
"We have been surveying online prostitutes for the last 10 months using data collected from The Erotic Review, which is a large "mall" that clients use to record detailed information about prostitutes in various cities. In the course of the surveys, we have been studying the way in which the Internet has facilitated improved screening, and even in some cases, signaling between clients and prostitutes. One of the more ingenious things that we have found is a case of signaling from clients to prostitutes wherein they send letters of recommendation to prostitutes, usually in the form of sending along information [from] another prostitute with whom they've already visited. This, we argue, has enabled prostitutes to update their beliefs that a new client is not a cop (or a violent client) because these letters are relatively more expensive for cops to send. A case in point - see this story about two police officers who were sleeping with prostitutes in Beaumont, Texas allegedly in order to make a case on a drug trafficker. When the public learned, the men were fired, and the officers are now suing the Beaumont, Texas police department for wrongful termination. (It's suggestive that indeed the private costs of using these kinds of methods are prohibitively high for cops, which we argue is evidence that the costs of signaling type to prostitutes is such that the separating equilibria and not the pooling equilibria is more likely to be happening). "
Here is The Erotic Review, and here is what they say about customers getting recommendations from escorts:
"TER White List
If you have a good reputation with the ladies, encourage them to visit the TER White List and submit a referral for you. The TER White List is an easy way for providers to give positive references about members they have seen. "
Sunday, March 18, 2012
The market for hitmen
If two men who have just met discuss a contract killing in a bar, there's an excellent chance that at least one of them is employed in some branch of law enforcement. So you would think that a website offering to match buyers and sellers in this market wouldn't have a lot of customers, but it appears from some recent court cases that you are overestimating the sophistication of internet shoppers. Here's a recent story from the LA Times. Apparently the proprietor of the site wasn't content to act as a matchmaker, he tried to play both sides of the market by selling hits and then contacting the intended victims and offering to be bought off. But it appears that the demand side was real, and some of them are serving time too...
Website matches targets and hit man
"The case began with a website called HitmanForHire.net. The designer thought it was a joke, but the FBI and Irish police soon learned that Essam Ahmed Eid, a Las Vegas poker dealer, was in business."
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In another twist, the domain name http://hitmanforhire.net/ has been acquired by someone who apparently hopes to make a movie about the case, and from the look of it thinks it might be a comedy:.
HT: Scott Cunningham, who keeps an economist's eye on the dark side
Website matches targets and hit man
"The case began with a website called HitmanForHire.net. The designer thought it was a joke, but the FBI and Irish police soon learned that Essam Ahmed Eid, a Las Vegas poker dealer, was in business."
************
In another twist, the domain name http://hitmanforhire.net/ has been acquired by someone who apparently hopes to make a movie about the case, and from the look of it thinks it might be a comedy:.
HT: Scott Cunningham, who keeps an economist's eye on the dark side
Sunday, March 5, 2023
Australia legalizes medical use of psychedelics
Scott Cunningham points out that Australia has become the first country to legalize the medical use of certain psychedelics.
Here's the announcement from the Australian Government's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)
Change to classification of psilocybin and MDMA to enable prescribing by authorised psychiatrists
"From 1 July this year, medicines containing the psychedelic substances psilocybin and MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine) can be prescribed by specifically authorised psychiatrists for the treatment of certain mental health conditions.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) will permit the prescribing of MDMA for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression. These are the only conditions where there is currently sufficient evidence for potential benefits in certain patients.
Prescribing will be limited to psychiatrists, given their specialised qualifications and expertise to diagnose and treat patients with serious mental health conditions, with therapies that are not yet well established. To prescribe, psychiatrists will need to be approved under the Authorised Prescriber Scheme by the TGA following approval by a human research ethics committee. The Authorised Prescriber Scheme allows prescribing permissions to be granted under strict controls that ensure the safety of patients.
The decision acknowledges the current lack of options for patients with specific treatment-resistant mental illnesses. It means that psilocybin and MDMA can be used therapeutically in a controlled medical setting. However, patients may be vulnerable during psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, requiring controls to protect these patients.
For these specific uses, psilocybin and MDMA will be listed as Schedule 8 (Controlled Drugs) medicines in the Poisons Standard. For all other uses, they will remain in Schedule 9 (Prohibited Substances) which largely restricts their supply to clinical trials."
*********
Scott shares a post by Shane Pennington on drugs that contrasts the Australian (medical) decision with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's (legal) decision to maintain the ban on these drugs, despite the growing medical evidence (from U.S. studies, on which the Australian government relied) that psychedelics have some important medical uses.
"To support its decision, the TGA relied heavily on studies conducted in the U.S. and recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decisions recognizing psilocybin and MDMA’s extraordinary therapeutic potential. Around the same time, DEA shot down a petition—based on those same arguments and evidence—that Matt and I submitted on behalf of a palliative-care doctor, requesting rescheduling of psilocybin under U.S. law. The DEA’s four-sentence analysis completely ignored the same studies and FDA decisions that persuaded the Australian regulator to reschedule.
"The dramatically different fates of these similar petitions reveal a troubling reality about U.S. drug law: Under DEA’s watch, the scientific and medical determinations of the nation’s leading public health agency carry considerable weight around the world but are often ignored at home. That revelation should terrify anyone interested in rational, evidence-driven drug policy. "
******
But the States are the laboratory of democracy: here's an earlier related post.
Sunday, November 13, 2022
Tuesday, November 2, 2021
Venus of Willendorf, on OnlyFans
The NY Times has the story:
OnlyFans May Be a Refuge for Nude Fine Art. The Vienna Tourist Board has joined the adults-only site to display artworks that other social platforms have censored. By Valeriya Safronova
"OnlyFans has a surprising new member: the Vienna Tourist Board.
"No, its account will not feature after-hours photos of employees. Instead, the board will use the adults-only site to show images of paintings and sculptures displayed in the Austrian capital that have been blocked by social media sites for nudity or sexual content.
"The offending artworks include the Venus of Willendorf, a 25,000-year-old limestone figurine of a woman. Facebook removed a photo of it from the Vienna Museum of Natural History’s page several years ago for being “pornographic.”
...
"Vienna is hardly the only city whose art has been censored online. Many artworks, from all over the world, have been incorrectly identified by A.I. as pornography. Facebook has taken down pictures posted by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (of Imogen Cunningham’s photographs of nude bodies), the Philadelphia Museum of Art (of a painting by Evelyne Axell in which a woman is licking an ice cream cone) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (of a 1917 painting of a nude woman by Amedeo Modigliani).
***************
Here's the Wikipedia page for Venus of Willendorf
Saturday, October 21, 2023
Repugnance is hard to predict
Widespread repugnance, or its absence, is hard to predict. Why do the U.S. and western Europe have almost opposite positions on the legality of surrogacy and prostitution for example?
Here's a paper that carefully looked for, and failed to find evidence of a repugnance reaction from consumers about a scandal involving a company spokesperson (but unrelated to the company's business).
The Role of Repugnance in Markets: How the Jared Fogle Scandal Affected Patronage of Subway by John Cawley, Julia Eddelbuettel, Scott Cunningham, Matthew D. Eisenberg, Alan D. Mathios & Rosemary J. Avery NBER WORKING PAPER 31782 DOI 10.3386/w31782 October 2023
Economics has long studied how consumers respond to the disclosure of information about firms. We study a case in which the disclosed information is unrelated to the product or firm leadership, but which could still potentially affect consumer patronage through the mechanism of repugnance, as described in Roth (2007). The information in this case concerns the arrest of Jared Fogle, the advertising pitchman for the Subway sandwich franchise, who was arrested in 2015 on charges of sex with a minor and child pornography. We study how the disclosure of this information, which was widely covered in the media, affected patronage of Subway. We estimate synthetic control models using data from a large nationwide survey of consumers regarding the restaurants they patronize. Despite the close and long-standing association of Jared Fogle with Subway, and heavy publicity of his crimes, we consistently fail to detect any effect of the Jared Fogle scandal on the probability of visiting a Subway restaurant. These results contrast with past studies of negative information disclosure, which tend to find negative impacts on sales, revenue, or stock price of the relevant companies. The absence of an effect in this case suggests that repugnance did not drive demand, and that consumers largely separated the offenses of a symbol of the firm from the products of the firm.
Thursday, June 27, 2024
Freakonomics interviews John Cawley about celebrity advertisements and repugnance (when the celebrity goes bad)
My email this morning included this announcement:
"Thank you for sitting down with Freakonomics Radio to discuss your work. The episode "Your Brand’s Spokesperson Just Got Arrested — Now What?" includes your interview and has just been released. You can listen and find the transcript on our website here, or download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We will be posting the episode on our Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn pages and would love it if you could share it on your social media as well."
The episode interviews John Cawley about this paper:
The Role of Repugnance in Markets: How the Jared Fogle Scandal Affected Patronage of Subway by John Cawley, Julia Eddelbuettel, Scott Cunningham, Matthew D. Eisenberg, Alan D. Mathios & Rosemary J. Avery NBER WORKING PAPER 31782 DOI 10.3386/w31782 October 2023
And they chat with me a bit about repugnance.
I had blogged about that paper here:
Saturday, October 21, 2023
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The Craigslist market for erotic/adult services
Scott Cunningham at Baylor, who is a serious student of illicit labor markets (e.g. the market for sex), writes
"Not sure if you saw this or not. Adult services censored on Craigslist
"It's not clear whether Craigslist has shut down the adult services section or not. That it is censored from the US but not from the rest of the country, though, suggests to some maybe.
"You've probably at least been peripherally aware that in the last month, approximately 20 state attorney generals had begun a new public campaign calling for Craigslist to shut down "adult services" altogether. FWIW, I have a chapter entitled "Sex for Sale: Online Commerce in the World's Oldest Profession" (with Todd Kendall) in the 2010 forthcoming book _Crime Online: Correlates, Causes and Controls_ edited by Tom Hold through Carolina Academic Press in which we explore, among other things, what happened the last time Craigslist implemented a major change to its erotic services section (namely, requiring all cities/markets to pay the $5-10 per ad and replacing erotic services with adult services, which was more heavily screened by Craigslist staff to identify prostitution advertisements). There was a temporary drop in ads, but they began to grow again as the weeks and months went on. But more importantly perhaps, there was a sudden spike in prostitution advertisements at a separate classified website operated by Village Voice called "backpage.com". Before Craigslist implemented that policy, backpage was never really used at all, but after that policy, it both saw a shortrun spike, and a longrun trend upwards in terms of daily posts, suggesting if nothing else that the cross-price elasticity of supply for these kinds of ads is not zero in the shortrun, but especially the longrun."
And here's the NY Times story: Craigslist Blocks Access to ‘Adult Services’ Pages, and two further stories that note that it will be easy for prostitution ads to relocate to other sites: How Censoring Craigslist Helps Pimps, Child Traffickers and Other Abusive Scumbags; and Pimp Mobile--Craigslist shuts its "adult" section. Where will sex ads go now? More recently, the "censored" label has been removed but the section remains closed: Craigslist Pulls ‘Censored’ Label From Sex Ads Area
Update (Sept. 15): ‘Adult Services’ Closed, Craigslist Says
"Craigslist, for the first time since it unexpectedly blocked sex ads from its site this month, said Wednesday that it had permanently closed its “adult services” section but defended its right to post sex-related ads as well as its efforts to fight sex trafficking.
"William Clinton Powell, director of customer relations and law enforcement relations at Craigslist, made the remarks Wednesday in testimony prepared for a hearing on sex trafficking of minors before the House Judiciary Committee.
“Craigslist has terminated its adult services section,” Mr. Powell said in his prepared remarks. “Those who formerly posted adult services ads on Craigslist will now advertise at countless other venues.”
"Not sure if you saw this or not. Adult services censored on Craigslist
"It's not clear whether Craigslist has shut down the adult services section or not. That it is censored from the US but not from the rest of the country, though, suggests to some maybe.
"You've probably at least been peripherally aware that in the last month, approximately 20 state attorney generals had begun a new public campaign calling for Craigslist to shut down "adult services" altogether. FWIW, I have a chapter entitled "Sex for Sale: Online Commerce in the World's Oldest Profession" (with Todd Kendall) in the 2010 forthcoming book _Crime Online: Correlates, Causes and Controls_ edited by Tom Hold through Carolina Academic Press in which we explore, among other things, what happened the last time Craigslist implemented a major change to its erotic services section (namely, requiring all cities/markets to pay the $5-10 per ad and replacing erotic services with adult services, which was more heavily screened by Craigslist staff to identify prostitution advertisements). There was a temporary drop in ads, but they began to grow again as the weeks and months went on. But more importantly perhaps, there was a sudden spike in prostitution advertisements at a separate classified website operated by Village Voice called "backpage.com". Before Craigslist implemented that policy, backpage was never really used at all, but after that policy, it both saw a shortrun spike, and a longrun trend upwards in terms of daily posts, suggesting if nothing else that the cross-price elasticity of supply for these kinds of ads is not zero in the shortrun, but especially the longrun."
And here's the NY Times story: Craigslist Blocks Access to ‘Adult Services’ Pages, and two further stories that note that it will be easy for prostitution ads to relocate to other sites: How Censoring Craigslist Helps Pimps, Child Traffickers and Other Abusive Scumbags; and Pimp Mobile--Craigslist shuts its "adult" section. Where will sex ads go now? More recently, the "censored" label has been removed but the section remains closed: Craigslist Pulls ‘Censored’ Label From Sex Ads Area
Update (Sept. 15): ‘Adult Services’ Closed, Craigslist Says
"Craigslist, for the first time since it unexpectedly blocked sex ads from its site this month, said Wednesday that it had permanently closed its “adult services” section but defended its right to post sex-related ads as well as its efforts to fight sex trafficking.
"William Clinton Powell, director of customer relations and law enforcement relations at Craigslist, made the remarks Wednesday in testimony prepared for a hearing on sex trafficking of minors before the House Judiciary Committee.
“Craigslist has terminated its adult services section,” Mr. Powell said in his prepared remarks. “Those who formerly posted adult services ads on Craigslist will now advertise at countless other venues.”
Friday, January 6, 2012
Market design at the ASSA meetings in Chicago
First, good luck to all those on the job market at the ASSA meetings going on in Chicago now.
The ASSA meetings aren't only a job market, however, and there are a number of sessions in which papers on matching and market design are being presented . These are the ones I noticed on scanning the program:
Jan 06, 2012 12:30 pm, Hyatt Regency, New Orleans
Transportation & Public Utilities Group
***********
Jan 06, 2012 2:30 pm, Hyatt Regency, Columbus EF
American Economic Association
************
Jan 06, 2012 2:30 pm, Hyatt Regency, Regency D
American Economic Association
The ASSA meetings aren't only a job market, however, and there are a number of sessions in which papers on matching and market design are being presented . These are the ones I noticed on scanning the program:
Jan 06, 2012 12:30 pm, Hyatt Regency, New Orleans
Transportation & Public Utilities Group
Auction Design (L9)
Presiding: ERIC RALPH (Federal Communications Commission)
Auction Design for Universal Service
Procurement auctions to supply broadband over differing regions with quality differentiation
Distributing Universal Service Subsidies by Competitive Bidding
Discussants:
GREG ROSSTON (Stanford University)
***********
Jan 06, 2012 2:30 pm, Hyatt Regency, Columbus EF
American Economic Association
Incentives and Matching in Marriage and Dating Markets (J1)
Presiding: GARY BECKER (University of Chicago)
Matching with a Handicap: The Economics of Marital Smoking
Peer Effects in Sexual Initiation: Separating Demand from Supply
[Download Preview]
Terms of Endearment: An Equilibrium Model Of Sex and Matching
[Download Preview]
Dating Market Incentives to Improve Physical Appearance
Discussants:
SCOTT CUNNINGHAM (Baylor University)
JEREMY FOX (University of Michigan)
ALOYSIUS SIOW (University of Toronto)
JOHN CAWLEY (Cornell University)
************
Jan 06, 2012 2:30 pm, Hyatt Regency, Regency D
American Economic Association
New Challenges for Market Design (A1)
Presiding: MURIEL NIEDERLE (Stanford University)
Individual Rationality and Participation in Large Scale, Multi-Hospital Kidney Exchange
Holdout in the Assembly of Complements: A Problem for Market Design
[Download Preview]
Improving Efficiency in Matching Markets with Regional Caps: The Case of the Japan Residency Matching Program
[Download Preview]
Price Controls, Non-Price Quality Competition, and the Nonexistence of Competitive Equilibrium
[Download Preview]
Discussants:
PARAG PATHAK (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
THOMAS PALFREY (California Institute of Technology)
PAUL MILGROM (Stanford University)
MURIEL NIEDERLE (Stanford University)
********
Jan 07, 2012 8:00 am, Hyatt Regency, Columbus KL
American Economic Association
Jan 07, 2012 8:00 am, Hyatt Regency, Columbus KL
American Economic Association
Price Theory and Market Design (D4)
Presiding: ERIC BUDISH (University of chicago)
Market Power Screens Willingness-to-Pay
[Download Preview]
The Form of Incentive Contracts: Agency with Moral Hazard, Risk Neutrality, and Limited Liability
[Download Preview]
A Supply and Demand Framework for Two-Sided Matching Markets
[Download Preview]
Multilateral Matching
[Download Preview]
Discussants:
PIERRE-ANDRE CHIAPPORI (Columbia University)
DAVID SRAER (Princeton University)
THEODORE BERGSTROM (University of California-Santa Barbara)
ALI HORTACSU (University of Chicago)
**********
Jan 08, 2012 8:00 am, Hyatt Regency, Atlanta
American Economic Association
**********
Jan 08, 2012 10:15 am, Hyatt Regency, Wrigley
Econometric Society
**********
Jan 08, 2012 1:00 pm, Hyatt Regency, Columbus CD
American Economic Association
Jan 08, 2012 8:00 am, Hyatt Regency, Atlanta
American Economic Association
Advance in the Theory of Contests and Tournaments (C7)
Presiding: RON SIEGEL (Northwestern University)
Head Starts in Contests
[Download Preview]
Contests with Endogenous and Stochastic Entry
[Download Preview]
Sequential All-Pay Auctions with Head Starts and Noisy Outputs
[Download Preview]
The Optimal Design of Rewards in Contests
[Download Preview]
Discussants:
RON SIEGEL (Northwestern University)
QIANG FU (National University of Singapore)
ELLA SEGEV (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
TODD R. KAPLAN (University of Exeter and University of Haifa)
**********
Jan 08, 2012 10:15 am, Hyatt Regency, Wrigley
Econometric Society
Economics of Internet Markets (L1)
Presiding: JONATHAN LEVIN (Stanford University)
Multidimensional Heterogeneity and Platform Design
Price Discrimination in Many-to-Many Matching Markets
Social Advertising
Sales Mechanisms in Online Markets: What Happened to Internet Auctions?
Discussants:
PRESTON MCAFEE (Research Yahoo!)
JONATHAN BAKER (American Universityi)
**********
Jan 08, 2012 1:00 pm, Hyatt Regency, Columbus CD
American Economic Association
Designing Effective School Choice Mechanisms (I2)
Presiding: DIANE SCHANZENBACH (Northwestern University)
School Choice, School Quality and College Attendance
[Download Preview]
Charter School Entry and Student Choice: The Case of Washington, D.C.
[Download Preview]
Promoting School Competition through School Choice: A Market Design Approach
[Download Preview]
From Boston to Shanghai to Deferred Acceptance: Theory and Experiments on A Family of School Choice Mechanisms
Discussants:
KEVIN STANGE (University of Michigan)
JUSTINE HASTINGS (Brown University)
ONUR KESTEN (Carnegie Mellon University)
FUHITO KOJIMA (Stanford University)
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