Saturday, January 29, 2011

The market for used books

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There have always been markets for used books , and it's one of the markets that has been most changed by the internet. I recently rece...
Friday, January 28, 2011

Unraveling of pathology fellowships

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A forthcoming paper in the journal Human Pathology gives a detailed account of the unraveling of the market for Pathology subspecialty fell...
Thursday, January 27, 2011

Sales by museums

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The NY Times reports on a Philadelphia museum's sales of parts of its collection to finance renovations, and on the controversy this has...
Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Call for papers: Game Theory in Trade and Development

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Avinash Dixit writes: "  I am organizing a two-day (July 19-20) workshop on applications of game theory in the fields of international ...
Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Kidney transplantation in Canada

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A new report, Treatment of End-Stage Organ Failure in Canada; 2000 to 2009 draws on data from CIHI's Canadian Organ Replacement Registe...
Monday, January 24, 2011

Swiss parliament proposes to decriminalize incest

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Switzerland considers repealing incest laws "The upper house of the Swiss parliament has drafted a law decriminalising sex between co...
Sunday, January 23, 2011

Sniping on eBay, in Australia (radio interview)

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Apparently eBay users in Australia are concerned about sniping (last minute bidding). I was interviewed for a radio report on the subject by...
1 comment:
Saturday, January 22, 2011

Colbert on school choice in Wake County

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Stephen Colbert explains the logic behind returning to a system of local schools (video, funny). HT: Tim Gray
Friday, January 21, 2011

Jobs in kidney exchange

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Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital in San Antonio is advertising for a Vice President, Transplant Services In their ad they highl...

Homophobia: gay sex remains a repugnant transaction for many

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If a repugnant transaction is one that some people want to engage in and others don't want them to, then sex is surely the most ancient...
Thursday, January 20, 2011

European carbon markets suspended

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The suspension of trading on European carbon emissions markets has been covered fairly widely, with the most interesting (and critical) stor...
Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Kidney chains in India, and a millionaire nondirected donor

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Kidney chains are coming to India, and one of the first (maybe the first) non-directed donors is a millionaire businessman: Kidney donation ...
Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Barter in a recession

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In a Tight Holiday Season, Some Turn to Barter "The proliferation of Web sites with names like  Swap.com  and  SwapMamas  have moved ...
3 comments:
Monday, January 17, 2011

Greg Lewis' market design course at Harvard

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My colleague Greg Lewis will be teaching a market design course this semester, and sends this email: "I just wanted to advertise th...
Sunday, January 16, 2011

Organ donation in Tucson tragedy

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9-year-old shooting victim's organs help save child "Christina-Taylor Green, the 9-year-old girl killed in Saturday's shootin...
1 comment:
Saturday, January 15, 2011

Economics job market in Europe

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The big marketplace for new Ph.D. economists is the one that takes place in North America each year in early January (see this recent paper ...
3 comments:

Tribal customs of academic disciplines

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Some of the different ways that different academic disciplines organize their scholarship, and the signals they send about it, are discussed...
1 comment:
Friday, January 14, 2011

In France, civil unions aren't just for same sex couples

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A pacte civil de solidarité in France is a civil union, something like a civil marriage, originally intended to help same-sex couples forma...
1 comment:
Thursday, January 13, 2011

Pictures from a matching conference (and a new matching paper)

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I returned from Milan to the following cheerful message from Atila Abdulkadiroglu : Dear all, I hope you have had a cheerful holiday sea...
Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Specialized dating sites for the disabled

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Searching for a mate is hard work, and it can be hard to find a match if you have special needs. So there's a demand for specialized dat...
Monday, January 10, 2011

Tips, Tip Pooling, and Tip Credits

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Restaurant wait-staff in the United States make a significant part of their incomes in tips left by satisfied or habit-driven or social-norm...
2 comments:
Sunday, January 9, 2011

Wikipedia fundraising, randomized experiments

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You know those fundraising appeals that appear at the top of Wikipedia pages? They are randomized so that reliable information can be collec...

Game theory for college teachers at the AEA continuing education program

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Preliminary reading list for an introduction to Game Theory at the AEA Continuing Education Program January 2011 taught by Avinash Dixit a...
Friday, January 7, 2011

Slavery in the U.S.

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At the conference I'm attending in Finland, there's been a good deal of discussion (with more to come) of repugnant transactions, wi...
Thursday, January 6, 2011

Markets, broadly defined

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I'm in Helsinki, participating in the second workshop of the Markets & Marketization program, that will bring together philosophers...
1 comment:
Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Blasphemy law in Pakistan

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One of the oldest repugnant transactions, different worship, is as repugnant as ever in Pakistan: Pakistanis Rally in Support of Blasphemy L...
4 comments:

More on the debate over kidney sales: transcript of interview

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In my earlier post, Dubner interviews me about kidney sales , I promised to link to a transcript when it became available, and now it has: t...
3 comments:
Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Polygamy in the Negev

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Haaretz highlights some ads that have been appearing in the Negev: Over 30 and single? Try polygamy "Local Bedouin newspaper sparks c...
Monday, January 3, 2011

Unraveling of loan maturities: inefficiency in borrowing and lending

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The Maturity Rat Race by Markus K. Brunnermeier and Martin Oehmke Abstract: "We develop a model of endogenous maturity structure for...
Sunday, January 2, 2011

Baroque kidney donation story from Mississippi

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Sister's kidney donation condition of Miss. parole "JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — For 16 years, sisters Jamie and Gladys Scott have share...
Saturday, January 1, 2011

Peter Cramton's Market Design blog

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Welcome to fellow market designer and now fellow blogger Peter Cramton, who has just initiated his Market Design blog.
1 comment:

Experiments by psychologists and economists (on happiness)

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From The Economist: an article on happiness leads indirectly to a very important conclusion about experiments (see below): The U-bend of lif...
Friday, December 31, 2010

Top 2010 stories about repugnant transactions (and all time top repugnant transactions)

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Repugnant transactions are those that some people don't want other people to engage in. They have had a big effect on which transactions...
Thursday, December 30, 2010

Dubner interviews me about kidney sales and such

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Repugnance radio* turns out to have two parts, and the second part is a Freakonomics blog post with a link to a podcast (which you can also...

Repugnance radio

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Freakonomics Radio on NPR's Marketplace had a short segment called  It's repugnant, but hey, it's efficient! , in which they spe...
Wednesday, December 29, 2010

First live kidney donor dies at 79 (56 years after donating to his twin)

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Ronald Lee Herrick became the first live kidney donor when, as a college freshman, he donated a kidney to his twin. Here's the Globe ob...

Elton John and husband have a son by a surrogate mom

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Lots of formerly repugnant transactions get mentioned in this brief, happy story:  Elton John, Husband Welcome New Son "Elton John mu...
1 comment:
Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Medical marijuana in NJ

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Marijuana--an herb whose recreational properties became well known before its medicinal ones--continues to be regarded as a repugnant transa...
Monday, December 27, 2010

Joel Klein steps down as NYC school chancellor

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In an interview in the NY Times about his tenure as chancellor ( Departing Schools Chief: ‘We Weren’t Bold Enough’ ), Klein says this about ...
Sunday, December 26, 2010

Repugnance by residence: only Dutch can buy marijuana in Maastricht now

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It's official : The prohibition on the admission of non-residents to Netherlands ‘coffee-shops’ complies with European Union law ...
1 comment:
Saturday, December 25, 2010

'tis the season to exchange gift cards

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Cardpool is making a market in gift cards, offering to buy yours, and sell you those cashed in by others. "You are always buying dire...
1 comment:
Friday, December 24, 2010

The market for clinical rotations for medical students

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After studying in classrooms for two years, medical students head to hospitals for medical roations or clerkships. Some of the Carribean med...
Thursday, December 23, 2010

Internet poker

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Internet poker has gotten awfully popular without yet getting correspondingly legal: Legalizing Internet poker gets push from Harry Reid in ...
Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Incest is still a repugnant transaction

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Professor charged with incest with his daughter "Political science professor xxx, 46, was charged Thursday with having a sexual relati...
Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Surrogate births, payments, and legal rights in Britain, continued

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The Telegraph reports Childless couples win the right to pay surrogate mothers: Childless couples will be able to pay surrogate mothers larg...
Monday, December 20, 2010

Mathematics and medicine: a cautionary tale

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Mathematics is valuable in many areas of application, including medicine, but there are hazards to having doctors diagnose their own mathema...
Sunday, December 19, 2010

Prizes for solutions to problems

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An Australian firm, Kaggle , hosts problem solving and prediction competitions, and describes itself this way: "Kaggle is an innovativ...
Saturday, December 18, 2010

The end of 'don't ask don't tell...'

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Senate Repeals ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Another formerly repugnant transaction bites the dust...