Welfare in a behavioral world

This is a behavioral economics intensive week at Stanford, with the experimental SITE session just ended, and the Psychology and Economics session underway.

There are a lot of hard problems in behavioral economics: in some senses, it's harder to figure out what people may do if we aren't perfectly rational. But a particular problem is how we should take care of each other, if it isn't always clear how to evaluate someone's welfare.

For example, we had two talks in the earlier SITE session on paternalism--under what circumstances can we make people better off by giving someone else the power to make choices for them?  More generally, if people aren't always good at making choices, how can we tell what's good for them, i.e. how can we evaluate welfare?

Doug Bernheim and Dmitry Taubinsky tackle this question in a chapter in the forthcoming

Handbook  of  Behavioral  Economics,  Volume  1, edited by B.  Douglas  Bernheim,  Stefano  DellaVigna,  and  David  Laibson.

You can find it here as an NBER working paper:

Behavioral Public Economics
B. Douglas Bernheim, Dmitry Taubinsky
NBER Working Paper No. 24828
Issued in July 2018


"This chapter surveys work in behavioral public economics, emphasizing the normative implications of non-standard decision making for the design of welfare-improving and/or optimal policies. We highlight combinations of theoretical and empirical approaches that together can produce robust qualitative and quantitative prescriptions for optimal policy under a range of assumptions concerning consumer behavior. The chapter proceeds in four parts. First, we discuss the foundations and methods of behavioral welfare economics, focusing on choice-oriented approaches and the measurement of self-reported well-being. Second, we examine commodity taxes and related policies: we summarize research on optimal corrective taxes, the efficiency costs of sales taxes that are not fully salient, the distributional effects of sin taxes, the use of non-price policies such as nudges, the tax treatment of giving, and luxury taxes. Third, we examine policies affecting saving, including capital income taxation, commitment opportunities, default contribution provisions for pension plans, financial education, and mandatory saving programs. Fourth, we detail the manner in which under-provision of labor supply and misunderstandings of policy instruments impact optimal labor income taxation and social insurance. We close with some recommendations for future work in behavioral public economics."

Repugnant prediction markets on a blockchain (Augur)

Augur is a decentralized (i.e. unmoderated) prediction market, built on a blockchain.  Somewhere there is a fundamental law of internet that says that anonymity leads to bad manners, and for a prediction market, that means death pools.

Here's the story from CCN, a news service that focuses on cryptocurrencies and blockchains:

Assassination Markets Let Augur Users Gamble on Trump Murder

"this market exists, and, though not the most popular bet on Augur, more than 50 shares have been traded on it as of the time of writing. Similar markets, moreover, exist for a number of other public figures, allowing users to gamble on whether 96-year-old actress Betty White and U.S. Senator John McCain — who has been diagnosed with brain cancer — will survive until Jan. 1, 2019."
********

Earlier, see

Monday, September 7, 2009

"Death pools", coming to life again

HT: MR

Deceased donor chains: Market design language is entering transplantation

Here's some more argument in favor of starting kidney chains with deceased donors, from the journal
Clinical Transplantation Volume 32, Issue 7:

Lessons from Uber and Airbnb: Why we should link the deceased and living donor pools

by Avi Baskin  Ariella Maghen  Tom Mone  Jeffrey Veale

"Deceased donor organs are currently underutilized and undervalued, particularly in kidney chains, similar to how parked cars and vacant homes were before Uber and Airbnb. The ride‐sharing company Uber has been hailed for allowing people to drive their cars to generate more benefit from this underutilized resource. Similarly, Airbnb enables people to rent out their unused property, increasing the potential of an otherwise missed opportunity. Together, Uber and Airbnb represent a new era, amplifying the benefit of cars and property that would be otherwise underused.

"Likewise, the world of transplantation should take note as software programs and mathematical algorithms could also be applied to maximize the benefits of available kidneys for transplant."
*********

The authors are all transplant professionals, not an economist among them. We've come a long way from the days when it was hard to convince the transplant community that kidney transplantation, and kidney exchange in particular, could be usefully thought about in connection with markets, marketplaces, and market design.

Experimental economics at Stanford SITE, Aug 6-7

Here's the program:

Session 4: Experimental Economics

SITE Summer Workshops 2018

August 6 - 7, 2018

Organized by:

• Lucas Coffman, Harvard University
• Christine Exley, Harvard  Business School
• Muriel Niederle, Stanford University
• Alvin Roth, Stanford University
• Lise Vesterlund, University of Pittsburgh

This session is being held in the Koret Room of the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building, 366 Galvez Street (SIEPR) Next to the Economics Building

This workshop will be dedicated to advances in experimental economics combining laboratory and field-experimental methodologies with theoretical and psychological insights on decision-making, strategic interaction and policy. We invite papers in lab experiments, field experiments and their combination that test theory, demonstrate the importance of psychological phenomena, and explore social and policy issues. In addition to senior faculty members, invited presenters will include junior faculty as well as graduate students.

IN THIS SESSION

Aug 6 |

9:20 am to 9:50 am

The Myth of the Male Negotiator: Gender’s Effect on Negotiation Strategies and Outcomes

Presented by: Connie Low, University of Pennsylvania

Co-Author(s): Jennie Huang, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School

Aug 6 |

9:50 am to 10:20 am

Gender Differences in Alternating-Offer Bargaining: An Experimental Study

Download paper

Presented by: Nagore Iriberri, University of the Basque Country

Co-Author(s): Inigo Hernandez-Arenaz, University of Balearic Islands

Aug 6 |

11:00 am to 11:30 am

Beliefs About Behavioral Responses to Taxation

Presented by: Bertil Tungodden, NHH Norwegian School of Economics

Co-Author(s): Alexander W. Cappelen, NHH Norwegian School of Economics; Ingar Haaland, NHH Norwegian School of Economics

Aug 6 |

11:30 am to 12:00 pm

The Welfare Effects of Social Recognition: Theory and Evidence from the YMCA

Presented by: Dmitry Taubinsky, University of California, Berkeley

Co-Author(s): Robert Metcalfe, Boston University; Luigi Butera, University of Chicago

Aug 6 |

12:00 pm to 12:30 pm

Heterogeneity of Experimental Findings: Forecasts and Evidence

Presented by: Stefano DellaVigna, University of California, Berkeley

Co-Author(s): Devin Pope, University of Chicago, Booth School of Business

Aug 6 |

2:00 pm to 2:30 pm

Why Do Some Clearinghouses Yield Stable Outcomes? Experimental Evidence on Out-of-Equilibrium Truth-Telling

Presented by: Clayton Featherstone, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School

Co-Author(s): Colin Sullivan, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School; Eric Mayefsky, Quora

Aug 6 |

2:30 pm to 3:00 pm

Protective Paternalism

Presented by: Sandro Ambuehl, University of Toronto

Aug 6 |

3:30 pm to 4:00 pm

Paternalism

Presented by: Muriel Niederle

Aug 6 |

4:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Gender Preferences for Competition: Children versus Parents

Presented by: Jonas Tungodden, University of California, Berkeley

Aug 6 |

4:15 pm to 4:30 pm

Revealed Privacy Preferences: Are Privacy Choices Rational?

Presented by: Yi-Shan Lee, University of Zurich

Co-Author(s): Roberto Weber, University of Zurich

Aug 6 |

5:00 pm to 5:15 pm

The Thrill of the Deal: Quantifying the Price of Perceived Discounts and Mark-Ups

Presented by: Jennie Huang, University of Pennsylvania

Aug 6 |

5:15 pm to 5:30 pm

Social Comparisons in Peer Effects

Download paper

Presented by: Seung-Keun Martinez, Univeristy of California, San Diego

Aug 6 |

5:30 pm to 5:45 pm

It Takes Two: Gender Differences in Group Work

Presented by: Siri Isaksson, Harvard University

Aug 7 |

9:20 am to 9:50 am

Can Individuals Satisfice Under Selected Information? an Experimental Investigation

Presented by: Daniel Fragiadakis, Texas A&M University

Co-Author(s): Alex Brown, Texas A&M University

Aug 7 |

9:50 am to 10:20 am

Belief Formation Under Signal Correlation

Download paper

Presented by: Tanjim Hossain, University of Toronto

Co-Author(s): Ryo Okui, New York University, Shanghai

Aug 7 |

11:00 am to 11:30 am

Do People Avoid Morally Relevant Information? Evidence from the Refugee Crisis

Download paper

Presented by: Eleonora Freddi, Tilburg University

Aug 7 |

11:30 am to 12:00 pm

Paying People to Look at How Sausage is Made

Presented by: Daylian Cain, Yale University

Co-Author(s): Jason Dana, Yale University; Bethany Burum, Harvard University

Aug 7 |

12:00 pm to 12:30 pm

Do Markets Undermine Morality?

Presented by: Björn Bartling, University of Zurich

Co-Author(s): Ernst Fehr, University of Zurich; Yagiz Özdemir, University of Zurich

Aug 7 |

2:00 pm to 2:30 pm

Spin Doctors

Presented by: Peter Schwardmann, University of Munich

Co-Author(s): Marvin Deversi, University of Munich; Alessandro Ispano, University of Cergy Pontoise

Aug 7 |

2:30 pm to 3:00 pm

How Do People Choose Between Biased Information Sources? Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment

Presented by: Sevgi Yuksel, University of California, Santa Barbara

Aug 7 |

3:30 pm to 4:00 pm

Heterogeneity of Loss Aversion and Expectations-Based Reference Point

Presented by: Charlie Sprenger, University of California, San Diego

Co-Author(s): Lorenz Goette, University of Bonn; Thomas Graeber, University of Bonn; Alexander Kellog, University of California, San Diego

Aug 7 |

4:00 pm to 4:15 pm

Self-Control, Uncertainty, and Commitment

Presented by: Veena Jeevanandam Blume, University of California, San Diego

Aug 7 |

4:15 pm to 4:30 pm

Preferences for the Resolution of Uncertainty and the Timing of Information

Download paper

Presented by: Kirby Nielsen, Ohio State University

Aug 7 |

5:00 pm to 5:15 pm

Coordination in the Network Minimum Game

Presented by: Johannes Hoelzemann, University of New South Wales Business School

Co-Author(s): Hongyi Li, University of New South Wales Business School

Aug 7 |

5:15 pm to 5:30 pm

New Experimental Evidence on Expectations Formation

Presented by: Yueran Ma, Harvard University

Co-Author(s): Augustin Landier, HEC Paris; David Thesmar, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Aug 7 |

5:30 pm to 5:45 pm

Inattentive Inference

Presented by: Thomas Graeber, University of Bonn

Two bills aimed at increasing the number of transplants

The Niskanen Center has a post on two proposed pieces of legislation (together with some thoughts on why incremental policy oriented work is important):

TWO NEW BILLS WILL HELP WITH THE KIDNEY SHORTAGE. BUT PAYING DONORS COULD HELP EVEN MORE.
BY SAMUEL HAMMOND

Here's the  first paragraph of their article, and the  last.


"Last week, the Organ Donation Clarification Act was released by Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA) with 14 cosponsors. The bill would clarify the National Organ Transplant Act’s (NOTA) definition of “valuable consideration,” making it clear that donors can be compensated for medical expenses and lost wages. It would also permit the U.S. government to run pilot programs to test the viability of noncash rewards to incentivize donors. And now this week, Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC) has announced a set of amendments to NOTA that seek to orient the Health Resources and Services Administration toward increasing organ procurement, rather than simply distributing an inadequate supply."

...
"At the same time, the Niskanen Center’s overall mission eschews ideal theories in favor of pragmatic policy change. Thus, as much as I’d love to see someone like Al Roth appointed as the organ transplant czar, with a mandate to design an optimal market in organs, politics is a long game of persuasion and compromise. That’s why the two new bills from Reps. Cartwright and Rice remain immensely important, even if they don’t nearly go far enough."

Interview on market design and repugnance with Yale sophomore Eric Wallach

Here's the transcript of a recent telephone interview I did with ERIC WALLACH, a sophomore at Yale, for The Politic, Yale’s undergraduate journal of politics and culture.

 An Interview with Alvin Roth

Here's the one Q&A he chose as a highlight, at the top of the page:

"How do you approach issues that may be ethically constrained? Do you think there’s a way to minimize the value judgements you make as an economist?

It’s interesting you ask the question that way. For a long time, economists seemed to agree with the implicit assumption of your question that we should minimize the ethical judgements we make. I’m not sure that’s a universal position anymore. Among economists, there’s some discussion that maybe we should be taking ethical positions about some of the markets we see, and especially with repugnant markets."

Transcripts of conversations are a bit disorganized, but this interview covered some issues  different from the ones I normally get asked about (and it's short).

**********

Update: and here's Mr. Wallach's interview with Avinash Dixit:

An Interview with Avinash Dixit, Professor of Economics Emeritus at Princeton University

Nevanlinna Prize winner Constantinos Daskalakis, and the Fields medalists (and one of the Fields medals)

Here's a video that touches on his work on computational complexity of Nash equilibria, and auctioning multiple items.



Here's some more on that from AFT, focusing as well on the Fields medalist Alessio Figalli

THE 2018 FIELDS MEDAL AND ITS SURPRISING CONNECTION TO ECONOMICS!



And here's more still, from Quanta:

2018 Fields Medal And Nevanlinna Prize Winners


And in case less is more, here's a short announcement from Science:
Five superstars win ‘math’s Nobel Prize’

And then there's this, from the prize ceremony in Rio...
Winner of top mathematics prize has medal stolen from him minutes later

Politico summarizes the Backpage story

Here's an article for those who haven't been following this first amendment/prostitution/human trafficking story...

The Sex-Trafficking Case Testing the Limits of the First Amendment
How a couple of crusading journalists made a fortune selling adult escort ads and in the process became unlikely and widely reviled First Amendment advocates.
By PAUL DEMKO July 29, 2018

Many of the people quoted focus on the motivations of the protagonists (get rich, versus defend the First Amendment press freedoms...). I wonder what role if any those questions will play in the legal proceedings.


Here are my other posts about  Backpage and related matters.

How to split the check using social skills or mechanism design

The Washington Post ran a column yesterday that offers advice on
How to split the check without the accusations and awkwardness.

The article points out that restaurants' point of sale software can help if you alert the waiter before you order.

For other fair-division problems, here's a website, Spliddit , that offers tools (and the underlying references to the literature) to help:

• SHARE RENT 
• SPLIT FARE
• ASSIGN CREDIT
• DIVIDE GOODS
• DISTRIBUTE TASKS

If your problem meets the assumptions of the underlying model, you can take it from there.

This seems to be a project of Ariel Procaccia and various colleagues, with Hervé Moulin   as an advisor.

He has another site, RoboVote, which seems more like a general social choice tool for aggregating information or preferences.

A look inside Harvard's admissions process

College admissions is a matching process--you can't just study at an elite university, even if you can afford the tuition--you first have to be admitted.

Harvard's admissions process is the subject of a lawsuit, and the discovery process is shedding some light on the deliberations that go on behind the closed doors of the admissions committee.  Here's an account from the NY Times:

‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions Secrets

Now you know some Harvard admissions jargon: "tips" are aspects of a candidates case that might tip him or her over the bar to admission. "Lops" are people tentatively admitted who get lopped off the admit list as it is trimmed to create a class that is balanced the way the admissions office wants.  And the "Z-List" consist of people admitted at the last minute, and required to defer admission for a year, who often have family connections to Harvard.

Ant financial

When I visited Hangzhou recently I learned a bit about Ant Financial, the offspring of Alibaba and the proprieter of AliPay.  Here's a story from the WSJ about how big they've grown, and the attention it is starting to bring them from Chinese regulators:

Jack Ma’s Giant Financial Startup Is Shaking the Chinese Banking System
Ant Financial is transforming how Chinese run their daily finances, drawing flak from big banks and warning shots from the government

"It handled more payments last year than Mastercard , controls the world’s largest money-market fund and has made loans to tens of millions of people. Its online payments platform completed more than $8 trillion of transactions last year—the equivalent of more than twice Germany’s gross domestic product.

"Ant Financial Services Group, founded by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, has become the world’s biggest financial-technology firm, driving innovations that let people use their phones for buying insurance as easily as groceries, enabling millions to go weeks at a time without using physical cash.

"That success is also putting a target on the company’s back. China, even more than the U.S., is now under pressure to reckon with the disruptive power of a financial-technology giant."

Compensation for bone marrow/blood stem cells: where are we now?

Here's a paper in the Johns Hopkins series of mostly student papers, Studies in Applied Economics, that brings us up to date on the state of bone marrow compensation in the U.S.

An Examination of the Issue of Bone Marrow Compensation
By Valerie Vilariño

"Although  compensation  for  bone  marrow  is  no  longer  regulated  by  the federal  government, there are many obstacles it must overcome before it becomes commonplace. Citizens who live in states that ban it may not be able to participate in either end of compensation. This is due to grey areas between the laws of the state governments and the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. For example, a patient living in a state that bans compensation may not be able to receive bone marrow from a donor who was compensated, even if the donor lives in a state where compensation is allowed, because it breaches the law of the state in which the patient lives. However, this exchange constitutes interstate commerce since the donor and the patient are not in the same state. These types of legal uncertainties often result in cases being heard before the Supreme Court to determine precedents for similar scenarios in the future.36

"Then  there  are  the  practical  difficulties.  At  the  moment,  no  compensatory  bone  marrow registries exist. According to Doug Grant of Hemeos, the main reason for that is that the NMDP opposes  the  compensation  of  bone  marrow.  Both  MoreMarrowDonors.Org  and  Hemeos, despite  having  had  different  business  plans  in  the  way  they  were  planning  on  going  about compensating donors, were forced to close because of procedures indirectly imposed on them by  Be  the  Match.  Grant  told  me  in  an  interview  that  he  closed  Hemeos  in February  2017 because as a startup, the fight against regulation was too much for Hemeos to overcome. By the time that compensation became unquestionably legal, the startup had run out of capital. For compensation to become a reality, there must be registries that are willing to compensate. Because the NMDP so strongly opposes compensation, the experts I talked to agreed that the only option for a compensatory bone marrow registry to exist is for it to be a competitive, parallel registry to that of BE the Match.

"This  presents  other  logistical  difficulties  because  currently  Be  the  Match  is  the  registry  that most,if not all,physicians use when looking for a match for their patient. For a new registry to compete with Be the Match, not only would it, like Hemeos, have to develop its own software to provide transplant centers with, but it would also need to make connections with individual hospitals so that they begin to search the registry. Growing a registry to fully compete with Be the Match’s could take years  given  that  there  is nocentralized  process  by  which  hospitals partner  with  bone  marrow  registries.  Each  hospital  would  have  to  make  an  individual partnership with the compensatory registry. Furthermore, there is currently little incentive for entrepreneurs  to  tackle  this  seemingly  daunting  startup  possibility  since  the  entire  bone marrow market accounts for only $3 million to $4 million a year.
...
"Lastly,  as  previously  mentioned,  47  percent  of  the  matches  made  by  Be  the  Match include either  a  foreign  donor  or  recipient.  Compensation  poses  a  problem  in  those  cases  because many  of  the  cooperative  registries  that  partner  with  Be  the  Match  are  national  registries  of countries where compensation is not legal. By making compensation legal in the United States, some  of  these  partnerships  could  be  strained, potentially leading  to  a  significant  loss  of international matches. All of these are barriers that would need to be somehow overcome in order for compensation not only to be realistic but also for it to accomplish its goal of helping to relieve the scarcity of bone marrow matches."
********

HT: Frank McCormick

PBS asks: should the U.S. follow Iran in allowing a market for kidneys for transplant?

PBS asks the question
Iran pays kidney donors. Should the U.S. follow?

You can read the transcript or watch the video at the link.

HT: Mohammad Akbarpour

Surrogacy law in Israel

Haaretz has the story of the recent expansion of access to surrogacy in Israel, which however excludes same sex couples.

Why the Battle for Gay Rights in Israel Passes Through Parenthood, Not Marriage

"Thousands of Israelis walked out of their workplaces and took to the streets Sunday, to protest the government’s denial of gay men’s rights to have children through surrogacy.

"The protest over the legislation highlights how in a country where marriage is governed by religious authorities, parenthood is seen as the key to equality.

"The new legislation loosened surrogacy regulations in Israel, giving single women and women unable to become pregnant for medical reasons the right to apply for state support for surrogacy. However, an additional clause that would have granted the same rights to single fathers – and, by extension, gay couples – was nixed."

Modern slavery, in supply chains and around the world

The Global Slavery Index recently issued its report for 2018.
They say: "In the context of this report, modern slavery covers a set of specific legal concepts including forced labour, debt bondage, forced marriage, slavery and slavery-like practices, and human trafficking."

While we're apparently all lucky not to live in N. Korea, the report doesn't stop there. For one thing, it suggests that a lot of supply chains may involve involuntary labor of various sorts.  The NY Times headline summarizes the aspects of the report that might be of most concern to readers of this blog:

Report Finds Surprisingly High Rate of Slavery in Developed Countries

"The 2018 edition of the index estimates that more than 40 million people around the world are trapped in modern slavery — including what Walk Free called a surprisingly high number in developed nations like the United States, France, Germany and others.

“Given these are also the countries taking the most action to respond to modern slavery, this does not mean these initiatives are in vain,” the survey said. “It does, however, underscore that even in countries with seemingly strong laws and systems, there are critical gaps in protections for groups such as irregular migrants, the homeless, workers in the shadow or gig economy, and certain minorities.”

"In the United States, more than 400,000 people, or one in 800, are living in modern slavery, the report said. The United States is also the largest importer of what the report called “at-risk” products, or those at least partly manufactured by workers engaged in forced labor.

"These products, estimated to be worth at least $354 billion, include mobile phones, computers, clothing and food like fish and cocoa, the report said. The United States imports more than 40 percent of the total."

Kidney Exchange at Methodist of San Antonio

Good matching algorithms and software, innovative histocompatibility tests, recruiting lots of compatible pairs and good surgery and administration combine to make an exemplary single center kidney exchange program:

400 Kidney Paired Donor Transplants at a Single Center; The Methodist San Antonio Experience
A. Bingaman, M. Kapturczak, I. Ashlagi, C. Murphey.

Background: Kidney paired donation (KPD) has become the standard of care for incompatible living donor pairs. Several mature national KPD programs exist yet KPD transplants only represent about 11% of total live donor transplants in the U.S., less than predicted by computer modeling. Methods: We initiated a single center KPD program in 2008. Consenting pairs were entered into our KPD database with blood types, HLA types and unacceptable antigens individually assigned based upon single antigen bead analysis. Results: Between March 2008 and October 2017 our single center KPD program has done 400 KPD transplants, representing 26% of total living donor transplants at our center. These transplants include 57 2-way exchanges, 36 3-way exchanges, 9 4-way exchanges, 6 5-way exchanges, 2 6-way exchanges and 13 non-directed donor (NDD) initiated chains ranging in length from 3-23 recipients. 218 patients were sensitized HLA incompatible with their original donors including 111 (51%) with cPRA >80% and 53 (24%) with cPRA >99%. 62 recipients (15.5%) were re-transplant patients. A total of 43 patients underwent desensitization for positive flow crossmatch or ABO incompatibility. A total of 222 (55%) blood type O donors were utilized of which 212 (95.5%) were transplanted into blood type O recipients or non-O recipients with cPRA >80%. 22 blood type A2 donors were utilized, of which 15 (68%) were transplanted into non-A recipients. 51 compatible pair donors were utilized of which 48 donors (94%) were blood type O or A2, and 3 donors (6%) were blood type A1. Compatible pairs participated in a total of 155 KPD transplants. All compatible pair recipients received kidneys from younger donors. Overall one year graft survival is 98.7%. Conclusions: We report the largest single center KPD program in the world. With limited NDDs, KPD programs must utilize blood type A2 donors and compatible pairs in order to transplant blood type O recipients effectively. To transplant the most highly sensitized patients, combination of KPD and desensitization is very effective with excellent outcomes.

CITATION INFORMATION: Bingaman A., Kapturczak M., Ashlagi I., Murphey C. 400 Kidney Paired Donor Transplants at a Single Center; The Methodist San Antonio Experience Am J Transplant. 2017;17 (suppl 3).

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

Earlier:

Utilization of Compatible Pairs in a Large Kidney Paired Donation Program

A. Bingaman, F. Wright, M. Kapturczak, L. Shen, C. Murphey

Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital, San Antonio, TX
Southwest Immunodiagnostics, San Antonio, TX

Meeting: 2013 American Transplant Congress

Background: Our center has established a very large single center kidney paired donation (KPD) program. A significant barrier to KPD transplant has been the unbalanced blood types in the KPD pool which develops over time, including many blood type O recipient candidates and many non-O donor candidates. Additionally, highly sensitized recipient candidates are in competition for rare donor HLA types. Computer modeling has shown that KPD can be significantly expanded by participation of compatible pairs, particularly to enrich the pool of O donors and utilize donors with rare HLA types. Here we report our experience utilizing compatible pairs as a part of our KPD program. Methods: All recipients with consented incompatible donors were entered into our KPD database. In addition, compatible pairs with older donors that were not HLA identical were approached for consent into the database. Compatible recipients were only offered a kidney from a younger exchange donor. Results: Since February 2009, 23 compatible pairs have been utilized in KPD transplants at our single center, including 14 2-way exchanges, 5 3-way exchanges and 4 chain exchanges (chain lengths 10-23 recipients.) Of the compatible pairs, 8 recipients were blood type O and 15 were non-O; 21 donors were blood type O, 1 was type A2 and 1 blood type A1. In marked contrast, of the incompatible pairs which benefited, 20 recipients were blood type O and 3 were non-O; 10 donors were blood type O, 11 were blood type A1 and 2 blood type B. Of the compatible KPD recipients, none were sensitized, whereas of the incompatible recipients 15 were sensitized, 9 with cPRA >80%. All compatible KPD recipients were transplanted with younger kidney donors. The median age of compatible donors was 57 years whereas the median age of incompatible donors was 29 years. Patient and allograft survival are 100% for both compatible and incompatible groups, median follow up 28 months. The compatible KPD option was viewed as favorable by the majority of pairs approached for consent. Conclusions: This is the largest reported experience of compatible pairs utilized in KPD. When employed in a large KPD program, compatible pairs with O donors significantly expand KPD options for both blood type incompatible pairs and highly sensitized recipients. Utilization of compatible pairs should be expanded nationally to increase the opportunity for incompatible pairs to be transplanted through KPD.

Design of fisheries--EURO Excellence in Practice Award to Bichler, Ferrell, Fux, and Goeree

Congratulations to the winners, and to the fishermen and the fish for this recent award for market design.

EURO Excellence in Practice Award 2018

The winners of the 2018 EURO Excellence in Practice Award are:

Martin Bichler, Technical University of Munich

Douglas Ferrell, Department of Primary Industries, Fisheries Analysis

Vladimir Fux, TUM

Jacob Goeree, Business School, University of New South Wales

A combinatorial exchange for fishery access rights

We present the design and implementation of a combinatorial exchange for trading catch shares in New South Wales (NSW). The market provided a market-based response to a substantial policy problem in fisheries worldwide: the reallocation of catch shares among fishers in a cap-and-trade system designed to prevent overfishing.
The design needed to address several key challenges to overcome a long struggle about the right way to reallocate shares.
Participants wanted to be able to submit all-or-nothing package bids. Also, prices were required to be anonymous and linear such that sellers of two identical packages would get the same payment. These features were crucial for the adoption of the market design but difficult to accommodate in a market design. The requirements led to a computationally challenging allocation and pricing problem that addressed the key concerns of the stakeholders.
The market was organized in summer 2017 by the government and successfully put the shares into the hands of those who needed them most. The design nicely illustrates how computational optimization can provide new policy tools, able to solve complex policy problems that were considered intractable only a few years ago.

The EEPA 2018 jury consisted of Ulrich Dorndorf (chair), Erik Demeulemeester, John Poppelaars, Adam Ouorou, and Karl Dörner.

The award was presented at the closing session of the EURO 2018 Conference in Valencia (Spain).

*********

Here's an earlier post on fisheries:

Monday, February 16, 2009

Sustainable fisheries

A cri de cœur against assortative matching for French college admissions

A French op-ed discusses the new college admissions system, 'Parcoursup':

Derrière l’algorithme de Parcoursup, un choix idéologique.  Par Hugues Bersini.
Gtranslate: Behind Parcoursup's algorithm, an ideological choice

The objection seems to be to assortative matching, which results when students largely agree on the desirability of universities, and universities largely agree on the desirability of students.  As a result, few students from poor neighborhoods are matched to top college programs.