Sunday, July 4, 2021

Trans as a gender identity

 New freedoms continue to be recognized.

It is not so long ago that sexual orientation and then same sex marriage were at the forefront of the cultural clash between individual rights and freedoms, and social repugnance.  Those battles aren't over, but the rights of individuals to love who they love have won important legal and cultural battles.

Lately, sexual identity is drawing increasing attention, with a growing recognition that some people's brains aren't wired the way their genitalia would suggest.  Two articles in the NY Times help (me at least) to understand some of the issues.

The first is written under a pseudonym by the mom of a transgender child, who notes that many people are trans starting as young children.  The second, by a trans man, argues that we should think of transgender a a gender identity of its own, not as a transition from one traditional gender to another. 

Where in the World Are All the Trans Children? Everywhere. By Marlo Mack

"I learned that while many transgender people do not transition until adolescence or adulthood, significant numbers of young children are aware of their gender identity from a very young age. Dr. Kristina Olson, a psychologist at Princeton University who studies gender development in children, says, “Research shows that there are a set of trans people who first identify with their gender by the toddler or preschool years and continue to do so throughout their lives.”

...

"But if transgender children are a global phenomenon, so are their struggles. Just as in the United States, parents who have spoken publicly are often harassed and threatened. (For safety reasons, I am not naming them.) Nearly all saw relationships with friends and family members disintegrate when their children came out as trans. Several families immigrated to countries that felt safer for their children. “When my daughter is older,” said one mother who left Mexico for the United States, “I’ll tell her the real reason we left.”

"These kinds of moves are likely to become more common, as courts and legislatures around the United States and in other countries chip away at transgender rights, restricting access to gender-affirming (and lifesaving) medical care for children like mine. On my social media feed, parents around the world are asking one another: Where can we go now? Where will my child be safe?

"It is not always easy to stay hopeful while raising a transgender child in a world that so rarely chooses to welcome her. I wonder what I would do if my own state passed a law making her medical care illegal. I worry about where she will be able to live and travel safely when she is older. I worry about the children who live in places where being transgender remains a crime.

"Yet I am hopeful, because I have witnessed the ferocious, protective love of parents around the world. And that is not a liberal Western fad."

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

What I Saw in My First 10 Years on Testosterone  By Thomas Page McBee

"I also wanted it known that despite the media fixation on a trite narrative about what it meant to be trans, I was not “a man trapped in a woman’s body or any cliché like that,” as I emailed my friends and family. I was a man and I was born trans, and I could hold both of those realities without an explanation that could be written on the back of a napkin.

“I will not become a different person,” I wrote in that email, defiantly and, as it turns out, correctly. “I am myself. I just want to feel more like me.”

Saturday, July 3, 2021

The art of money laundering through the art market

 What looks like privacy to some looks like secrecy to others.

The NY Times has the story:

As Money Launderers Buy Dalís, U.S. Looks at Lifting the Veil on Art Sales. Secrecy has long been part of the art market’s mystique, but now lawmakers say they fear it fosters abuses and should be addressed.  By Graham Bowley

"Billions of dollars of art changes hands every year with little or no public scrutiny. Buyers typically have no idea where the work they are purchasing is coming from. Sellers are similarly in the dark about where a work is going. And none of the purchasing requires the filing of paperwork that would allow regulators to easily track art sales or profits, a distinct difference from the way the government can review the transfer of other substantial assets, like stocks or real estate.

...

"In January, Congress extended federal anti-money laundering regulations, designed to govern the banking industry, to antiquities dealers. The legislation required the Department of the Treasury to join with other agencies to study whether the stricter regulations should be imposed on the wider art market as well. The U.S. effort follows laws recently adopted in Europe, where dealers and auction houses must now determine the identity of their clients and check the source of their wealth.

“Secrecy, anonymity and a lack of regulation create an environment ripe for laundering money and evading sanctions,” the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said in a report last July in support of increased scrutiny.

"To art world veterans, who associate anonymity with discretion, tradition and class, not duplicity, this siege on secrecy is an overreaction that will damage the market. They worry about alienating customers with probing questions when they say there is scant evidence of abuse.

...

"What is the origin of such secrecy? Experts say it likely dates to the earliest days of the art market in the 15th and 16th centuries when the Guilds of St. Luke, professional trade organizations, began to regulate the production and sale of art in Europe. Until then, art was not so much sold as commissioned by aristocratic or clerical patrons. But as a merchant class expanded, so did an art market, operating from workshops and public stalls in cities like Antwerp. To thwart competitors, it made sense to conceal the identity of one’s clients so they could not be stolen, or to keep secret what they charged one customer so they could charge another client a different price, incentives to guard information that persist today.

...

"Auction catalogs say works are from “a private collection,” often nothing more. Paintings are at times brought to market by representatives of owners whose identities are unknown, even to the galleries arranging the sale, experts and officials say. Purchasers use surrogates, too. 

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

Here's a related State Department report on how art sales have been used to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Russian oligarchs:

THE ART INDUSTRY AND U.S. POLICIES THAT UNDERMINE SANCTIONS.  STAFF REPORT, PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS, UNITED STATES SENATE

Friday, July 2, 2021

International (Stonybrook) Virtual Conference on Game Theory July 5 - 8, 2021

  The program this year looks unusually great. (If it doesn't show up well on mobile, click on the link instead...)  The event is hosted by Virtual Chair and will take place on the Gather.town platform.

International Conference on Game Theory

July 5 - 8, 2021

All times in Eastern Time (GMT -4)

Click on the talk title for more information.

Monday, July 05

09:30 - 10:00

Breakfast

10:00 - 10:30

Jon Kleinberg  (Cornell University)
Algorithmic Monoculture and Social Welfare

10:30 - 11:00

Annie Liang  (Northwestern University)
Data and Incentives

11:00 - 11:15

Break

11:15 - 11:45

Navin Kartik  (Columbia University)
Improving Information from Manipulable Data

11:45 - 13:00

Poster Session

13:00 - 14:00

Robert Wilson  (Stanford University)
Large Auctions

14:00 - 14:15

Break

14:15 - 14:45

Peter Cramton  (University of Cologne)
Lessons from the 2021 Texas electricity crisis

14:45 - 15:15

Srihari Govindan  (University of Rochester)
Toward an Axiomatic Theory of Stability

15:15 - 16:15

Reception for Robert Wilson

 

Tuesday, July 06

09:30 - 10:00

Breakfast

10:00 - 10:30

Michael Kearns  (University of Pennsylvania)
Between Group and Individual Fairness for Machine Learning

10:30 - 11:00

Rediet Abebe  (University of California, Berkeley)
TBA

11:00 - 11:15

Break

11:15 - 11:45

Jamie Morgenstern  (University of Washington)
TBA

11:45 - 12:15

Irene Lo  (Stanford University)
TBA

12:15 - 13:00

Meet the Speakers (Monday and Tuesday)

13:00 - 14:00

Jean Tirole  (Tolouse School of Economics)
Safe Spaces: Shelters or Tribes?

14:00 - 14:15

Break

14:15 - 14:45

Éva Tardos  (Cornell University)
The Virtue of Patience in Strategic Queueing Systems

14:45 - 15:15

Stephen Morris  (MIT)
Conflation of Impressions: Market Thickness versus Efficiency

 

Wednesday, July 07

09:30 - 10:00

Breakfast

10:00 - 10:30

Maria-Florina Balcan  (Carnegie Mellon University)
TBA

10:30 - 11:00

Benjamin Brooks  (University of Chicago)
A Strong Minimax Theorem for Informationally-Robust Auction Design

11:00 - 11:15

Break

11:15 - 11:45

Daniela Saban  (Stanford University)
TBA

11:45 - 13:00

Poster Session

13:00 - 13:30

Michael Jordan  (University of California, Berkeley)
On Dynamics-Informed Blending of Machine Learning and Game Theory

13:30 - 14:00

Moshe Tennenholtz  (Technion--Israel Institute of Technology)
Data Science with Game Theory Flavor

14:00 - 14:15

Break

14:15 - 14:45

Renato Paes Leme  (Google Research)
Interactive Communication in Bilateral Trade

14:45 - 15:15

Constantinos Daskalakis  (MIT)
TBA

 

Thursday, July 08

09:30 - 10:00

Breakfast

10:00 - 10:30

Marina Halac  (Yale University)
Monitoring Teams

10:30 - 11:00

Eran Shmaya  (Stony Brook University)
TBA

11:00 - 11:15

Break

11:15 - 11:45

Yiling Chen  (Harvard University)
TBA

11:45 - 12:15

Tim Roughgarden  (Columbia University)
Transaction Fee Mechanism Design

12:15 - 13:00

Meet the Speakers (Wednesday and Thursday)

13:00 - 14:00

Paul Milgrom  (Stanford University)
Reprise of Nobel lecture (Auction Research Evolving: Theorems and Market Designs)

14:00 - 14:15

Break

14:15 - 14:45

Shengwu Li  (Harvard University)
Investment Incentives in Near-Optimal Mechanisms

14:45 - 15:15

Susan Athey  (Stanford University)
TBA

15:15 - 16:15

Reception for Paul Milgrom

Thursday, July 1, 2021

Data for the people: Emily Oster in the NY Times

The NY Times writes about Emily Oster, who has pioneered a new way for an economist to be a public intellectual, by bringing to a general audience her skills at assembling and interpreting data on a wide variety of subjects, including parenting (is it ok to drink a glass of wine while pregnant?) and the Covid pandemic (how to decide when schools should reopen?)

She Fought to Reopen Schools, Becoming a Hero and a Villain. The economist Emily Oster offers loads of data-driven advice about children and Covid-19. Many parents live by her words. Others say she’s dangerous. By Dana Goldstein

"This steady stream of counterintuitive advice has made Dr. Oster a lodestar for a certain set of parents, generally college-educated, liberal and affluent. Many had first latched onto her data-driven child-rearing books. Her popularity grew during the pandemic, as she collected case counts of Covid-19 in schools and advanced her own strongly held views on the importance of returning to in-person learning.

"Some parents said, half-seriously, “Emily Oster is my C.D.C.”

"But others — teachers, epidemiologists and labor activists — criticized her, pointing out that she was not an infectious disease expert, nor did she have any deep personal or professional experience with public education. "

Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Evolutionary Models of Financial Markets in the PNAS

 Here's the relevant part (with links) of the PNAS Table of Contents for June 29, 2021; Vol. 118, No. 26 

Evolutionary Models of Financial Markets Special Feature

Introduction

Introduction to PNAS special issue on evolutionary models of financial markets

Simon A. Levin and Andrew W. Lo

Social Sciences — Economic Sciences

How market ecology explains market malfunction

Maarten P. Scholl, Anisoara Calinescu, and J. Doyne Farmer

Moonshots, investment booms, and selection bias in the transmission of cultural traits

David Hirshleifer and Joshua B. Plotkin

Social Sciences — Economic Sciences - Biological Sciences — Evolution

Evolution in pecunia

Rabah Amir, Igor V. Evstigneev, Thorsten Hens, Valeriya Potapova, and Klaus R. Schenk-Hoppé

The origin of cooperation

Nihal Koduri and Andrew W. Lo

Evolved attitudes to risk and the demand for equity

Arthur J. Robson and H. Allen Orr

Social Sciences — Economic Sciences - Physical Sciences — Statistics

High-frequency trading and networked markets

Federico Musciotto, Jyrki Piilo, and Rosario N. Mantegna

Perspectives

Social finance as cultural evolution, transmission bias, and market dynamics

Erol Akçay and David Hirshleifer

The landscape of innovation in bacteria, battleships, and beyond

Terence C. Burnham and Michael Travisano

Sunsetting as an adaptive strategy

Roberta Romano and Simon A. Levin

Tuesday, June 29, 2021

‘Harm Reduction’ Gains Federal Support.

 Another shot has been fired in the American war against drugs, this time in the battle between those who insist that drug abuse is everywhere and always a criminal problem, and those who think that even drug abusers might be entitled so some support in their personal fight against fatal overdosing.

The NY Times has the story.

Helping Drug Users Survive, Not Abstain: ‘Harm Reduction’ Gains Federal Support. By Abby Goodnough.

"Overdoses have surged during the pandemic. Now, for the first time, Congress has appropriated funds specifically for programs that distribute clean syringes and other supplies meant to protect users."

...

"Overdose deaths rose by nearly 30 percent over the 12-month period that ended in November, to more than 90,000, according to preliminary federal data released this month — suggesting 2020 blew past recent records for such deaths. The staggering increase during the pandemic has many contributing factors, including widespread job loss and eviction; diminished access to addiction treatment and medical care; and an illegal drug supply that became even more dangerous after the country essentially shut down.

...

"Now, with the nation reopening, the Biden administration is throwing support behind the contentious approach ... known as harm reduction. Instead of helping drug users achieve abstinence, the chief goal is to reduce their risk of dying or acquiring infectious diseases like H.I.V. by giving them sterile equipment, tools to check their drugs for fentanyl and other lethal substances, or even just a safe space to nap.

"Such programs have long come under attack for enabling drug use, but President Biden has made expanding harm-reduction efforts one of his drug policy priorities — the first president to do so. The American Rescue Act includes $30 million specifically for evidence-based harm reduction services, the first time Congress has appropriated funds specifically for that purpose. The funding, while modest, is a victory for the programs, both symbolically and practically, as they often run on shoestring budgets.

...

"Still, many elected officials and communities continue to resist equipping people with supplies for drug use, including the recent addition of test strips to check drugs for the presence of illicitly manufactured fentanyl, which shows up in most overdose deaths. Some also say that syringes from harm reduction programs end up littering neighborhoods or that the programs cause an increase in crime. Researchers dispute both claims.

"West Virginia just passed a law making it far more difficult for syringe service programs to operate, even though it is seeing a surge in H.I.V. cases driven by intravenous drug use. North Carolina’s legislature weighed a similar proposal this spring, and elected officials in Scott County, Ind., whose syringe exchange helped curb a major H.I.V. outbreak six years ago, voted this month to shut it down. Mike Jones, a commissioner there who voted to end the program, said at the time that he feared the syringes it distributed could be contributing to overdose deaths."

***********

Earlier post: 

Friday, May 14, 2021

Monday, June 28, 2021

Kidney exchange (including global kidney exchange), discussed at the European Society of Organ Transplantation meeting in Milan, Tuesday 29 June

 ESOT: The 20th Congress of the European Society of Organ Transplantation, meeting (by Zoom) in Milan, Italy (so the talks start at 9am pacific time, noon Eastern time in U.S., tomorrow)

Models of kidney exchange and chains

Tuesday 29 June 18:00 (CEST) 

18:00 – 18:12 Kidney exchange in UK Lisa Burnapp 

18:12 – 18:24 Kidney exchange in EU: where we are? Peter Biro

 18:24 – 18:36 Kidney exchange in US Michael Rees 

18:36 – 18:48 Ethical and legal issue in kidney exchange Frederike Ambagtsheer 

18:48– 19:00 Discussion Panellists 

19:00 Conclusions Nizam Mamode

Registration is free via https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_3sfBEFxnQleNoYezQvyjbg.


Sunday, June 27, 2021

Can same sex couples adopt and foster children in need? It's complicated...

 When religion and non-discrimination contest with each other in court, the decisions sometimes rely on the details of the case:

The WSJ has the story:

Supreme Court Exempts Catholic Foster-Care Agency From Nondiscrimination Law. Catholic Social Services is entitled to city contract despite Philadelphia ordinance requiring contractors to treat same-sex couples equally, court rules  By Jess Bravin

"The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday that a Catholic social-service agency was entitled to a Philadelphia contract even if its religious views prevented it from compliance with local policies forbidding discrimination against same-sex couples.

"The court’s decision, by Chief Justice John Roberts, was a narrow one, stopping short of fundamentally extending the accommodations for religious exercise that Catholic Social Services—and several conservative justices in concurring opinions—argued the Constitution required.

"The city of Philadelphia contracts with private agencies to screen foster parents for children in need. While a broad nondiscrimination policy is written into its contracts, Chief Justice Roberts observed that the agreements also authorize the city’s human-services department to grant exceptions.

"Catholic Social Services, which for decades has received city contracts, was entitled to such an exception, the chief justice wrote, because the city can grant them for secular reasons. The city’s interest in equal treatment for same-sex couples—and in caring for children in need—wasn’t impaired, the court found, because some 20 other agencies with foster-service contracts are available to work with married LGBT foster parents."

Saturday, June 26, 2021

Covid and COVAX, lessons being learned for the next pandemic

 From the Lancet:

A beautiful idea: how COVAX has fallen short by Ann Danaiya Usher, June 19, 2021DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01367-2

"At the pledging summit for COVAX on June 2, 2021, hosted by Japan, Gavi finally reached its US$8·3 billion ask for the procurement and delivery of vaccines for the 92 eligible low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) this year. However, even with full financing, the COVAX roll-out has moved much more slowly than that in high-income countries (HICs). Speaker after speaker at the summit lamented the gross inequity in access to vaccines. “Today, ten countries have administered 75% of all COVID-19 vaccines, but, in poor countries, health workers and people with underlying conditions cannot access them. This is not only manifestly unjust, it is also self-defeating”, UN secretary general António Guterres told the gathering. “COVAX has delivered over 72 million doses to 125 countries. But that is far less than 172 million it should have delivered by now.” Of the 2·1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses administered worldwide so far, COVAX has been responsible for less than 4%.

...

"COVAX, managed by Gavi, along with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and WHO, was designed to stand on two legs: one for HICs, which would pay for their own vaccines, and the other for 92 lower-income countries, whose doses would be financed by donor aid.

"In the so-called self-financing leg of COVAX, HICs were asked to pay upfront by mid-September, 2020, for the option to buy vaccines for their own populations. The UK, for example, paid £71 million for 27 million doses from COVAX, and Canada paid CA$220 million for 15 million doses. Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and South Korea also bought vaccine options from COVAX as self-financing countries.

"In the other leg of COVAX, vaccines for lower-income countries would be financed with donor grants through an Advance Market Commitment (AMC). The poorest of the 92 countries would receive them at no cost. Team Europe (led by Germany) and the USA have together provided US$5 billion to the COVAX AMC, Japan has given US$1 billion, and the UK, US$735 million. Most of these funds have been pledged only in the past few months.

"The grand idea of COVAX was that the combination of these two funding streams—the self-financed part and the aid-financed AMC—would give the facility the means to invest in research and development of several promising vaccine candidates. Additionally, as a pooled procurement mechanism, COVAX would have the financial muscle as a buyer to drive down prices for all participants. Once any of the COVAX portfolio vaccines had successfully undergone clinical trials and proved themselves to be both safe and effective, both self-financing and AMC countries would be allocated vaccines at the same rate, proportional to their total population size.

...

"Everyone knew that rich countries would enter into bilateral vaccine deals, Yamey said. But it was hoped that they would also buy into COVAX as insurance in case some vaccine candidates did not prove successful. Most of them did not. In the end, “three dozen countries bypassed COVAX and made huge deals directly with manufacturers. They were very lucky that the vaccines worked out. And since they cleared the shelves, there were not enough doses left for COVAX”, he said.

...

"The report of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response also pointed to the harm caused by the slow mobilisation of resources for COVAX: “Had COVAX had sufficient and readily available early funding it would have been better able to secure enough immediate supply to meet its aims”, it states.

...

"The original notion of a global vaccine hub more or less collapsed, and COVAX ended up using a traditional aid-financed approach, which has left lower-income countries wholly at the mercy of wealthy nations and profit-driven companies.

“It is still this model of seeing how much money you can bring in and then seeing what you can negotiate with industry based on that money”, said Elder. “The promise of COVAX from the beginning that it would be the most attractive buyer for industry because it represented the ‘global need’ obviously did not pan out.” For any future iterations of COVAX, Taylor has argued that since national leaders have a responsibility to protect their own populations, vaccine nationalism is inevitable and this should be integrated into the design from the start.

"Several global health experts point to the failure to recognise supply constraints as a major obstacle to global vaccination and emphasise diversifying and scaling up manufacturing from the beginning. This lack of recognition was a serious flaw in the COVAX design, said Gostin. “Supply shortages should have been anticipated and ramping up supplies should have been baked into the design of COVAX from the start.

Friday, June 25, 2021

Blood donation, risk groups, and blood tests

 Before blood tests were developed for hepatitis virus and later for HIV, it made sense to screen potential blood donors by whether they were members of broad risk categories.  As tests have improved (and I think we still don't have those for prion based diseases like mad cow disease), it makes more sense to rely on testing, although risky behavior that might have recently resulted in infection, not yet detectable by blood tests, is still a screening factor.

All this is by way of saying that the current U.S. limitation on donation by homosexual men is out of date. Martha Gershun points me to this recent op-ed in the Baltimore Sun:

As a sexually active gay man, I can’t donate blood or tissue in America. That’s ridiculous | By GREG BRIGHTBILL

"My blood type is O negative, I am healthy, I can run a half-marathon, I do not smoke or use drugs, I only have two to three drinks a week, and I am in a committed relationship. Yet, due to homophobic stereotypes and outdated policies, gay men like myself  -- termed “MSM” or “men who have sex with men” -- cannot freely donate blood and soft tissue in America.

"According to the most recent Food and Drug Administration guidance, updated last year, MSMs must undertake a three-month deferral from male-to-male sexual activity before blood donation. Shockingly, that’s an improvement on the original full ban on blood donation implemented in 1985 (for any male who had a sexual encounter with another male after 1977) and the 2015 version of the policy, which required a 12-month deferral.

*********

In the UK, the guidelines have been changed, this month, to reflect the increased availability of testing. Here's the latest from the UK's NHS Blood and Transplant:

Landmark change to blood donation eligibility rules on today’s World Blood Donor Day  

"New eligibility rules that will allow more men who have sex with men to donate blood, platelets and plasma come into effect this week, marking an historic move to make blood donation more inclusive while keeping blood just as safe."

"From today (Monday) – World Blood Donor Day – the questions asked of everyone when they come to donate blood in England, Scotland and Wales will change. Eligibility will be based on individual circumstances surrounding health, travel and sexual behaviours evidenced to be at a higher risk of sexual infection.

"Donors will no longer be asked if they are a man who has had sex with another man, removing the element of assessment that is based on the previous population-based risks.

"Instead, any individual who attends to give blood - regardless of gender - will be asked if they have had sex and, if so, about recent sexual behaviours. Anyone who has had the same sexual partner for the last three months will be eligible to donate.

...

We screen all donations for evidence of significant infections, which goes hand-in-hand with donor selection to maintain the safety of blood sent to hospitals. All donors will now be asked about sexual behaviours which might have increased their risk of infection, particularly recently acquired infections. This means some donors might not be eligible on the day but may be in the future."

...

"Under the changes people can donate if they have had the same sexual partner for the last three months, or if they have a new sexual partner with whom they have not had anal sex, and there is no known recent exposure to an STI or recent use of PrEP or PEP. This will mean more men who have sex with men will be eligible to donate.

"Anyone who has had anal sex with a new partner or with multiple partners in the last three months will be not be able to give blood right now but may be eligible in the future. Donors who have been recently treated for gonorrhoea will be deferred. Anyone who has ever received treatment for syphilis will not be able to give blood."


Thursday, June 24, 2021

Health Applications Society Online Seminar Series (Inaugural seminar Friday June 25, on Kidney Exchange)

A new seminar series is being organized by the Health Applications Society of INFORMS.  I'll be giving the inaugural seminar tomorrow, June 25.

Here's the general announcement:

Health Applications Society Online Seminar Series

"Welcome to the HAS Online Seminar Series! This seminar series welcomes a broad range of healthcare modeling research topics such as healthcare operations, medical decision making, health policy, and health analytics. 

Please join our Google Group or subscribe to our Mailing List to receive the latest announcement on the upcoming seminars!

When: 1-2 pm ET (10-11 am PT) on 4th Friday of each month

Where: Zoom Webinar (Register Now!)   

Speaker: Dr. Alvin E. Roth, Stanford University

Seminar Title: Kidney Exchange: An Operations Perspective

Date and Time: June 25 (Friday), 2021, 1-2 pm ET (10-11 am PT)

Abstract: Many patients in need of a kidney transplant have a willing but incompatible (or poorly matched) living donor. Kidney exchange programs arrange exchanges among such patient-donor pairs, in cycles and chains of exchange, so each patient receives a compatible kidney. Kidney exchange has become a standard form of transplantation in the United States and a few other countries, in large part because of continued attention to the operational details that arose as obstacles were overcome and new obstacles became relevant. We review some of the key operational issues in the design of successful kidney exchange programs. Kidney exchange has yet to reach its full potential, and the paper further describes some open questions that we hope will continue to attract attention from researchers interested in the operational aspects of dynamic exchange.

Bio: Al Roth is the Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford, and the George Gund Professor Emeritus of Economics and Business Administration at Harvard. He and Lloyd Shapley shared the 2012 Nobel memorial prize in Economics "for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design.”  He received a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Stanford University in 1974.

Seminar Organizers and Advisory Board: This seminar series is organized by Sanjay Mehrotra (Northwestern University)Sait Tunc (Virginia Tech)Qiushi Chen (Pennsylvania State University).

The advisory board includes Ebru Bish (University of Alabama)Stephen Chick (INSEAD), and Mark Van Oyen (University of Michigan).

Special thanks to INFORMS Healthcare Application Society and all board members for their enormous support!"

Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Payments to college athletes, no longer so repugnant

 The longstanding debate over whether college athletes must remain unpaid to preserve their 'amateur' status is starting to reach some conclusions.  Expect more to follow. 

The NY Times has the story:

Supreme Court Backs Payments to Student-Athletes in N.C.A.A. Case. The N.C.A.A. argued that the payments were a threat to amateurism and that barring them did not violate the antitrust laws.  By Adam Liptak and Alan Blinder

"The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that the N.C.A.A. cannot bar relatively modest payments to student-athletes in a decision that questioned the association’s monopoly power at a time when the business model of college sports is under increasing pressure.

"The decision concerned only payments and other benefits related to education, but its logic suggested that the court may be open to a frontal challenge to the N.C.A.A.’s ban on paying athletes for their participation in sports that bring billions of dollars in revenue to American colleges and universities. In a concurring opinion, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh seemed to invite such a challenge.

“Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote. “And under ordinary principles of antitrust law, it is not evident why college sports should be any different. The N.C.A.A. is not above the law.”

"In a statement on Monday, the N.C.A.A. said the ruling “reaffirms the N.C.A.A.’s authority to adopt reasonable rules and repeatedly notes that the N.C.A.A. remains free to articulate what are and are not truly educational benefits.”

"Next week, student-athletes in at least six states are poised to be allowed to make money through endorsements — not because of action by the N.C.A.A., but because of state officials who grew tired of the industry’s decades-long efforts to limit the rights of players.

...

"Less than two weeks before some of the new laws are scheduled to take effect in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas and allow athletes to make endorsements and make money from their social media presences, the N.C.A.A. has not agreed to extend similar rights to players nationwide. And in a setback last week for the association, senior members of Congress said that they did not expect to strike a deal for a federal standard before July 1."

*********

Several months ago, SCOTUSblog gave a nice summary of the issues (HT: Kim Krawiec):

Amid March Madness, antitrust dispute over college athlete compensation comes to the court   By Amy Howe

"What differentiates college sports from professional sports, the NCAA stresses, is that college sports are played by amateurs – who, by definition, are not paid to play. Having amateurs in college sports, the NCAA adds, promotes competition by giving consumers a choice between college sports and professional sports; that choice is only possible, the NCAA explains, because of the agreement among the NCAA and its members on eligibility and compensation for college athletes.

...

"As far as the athletes are concerned, the court’s inquiry is a straightforward one that boils down to whether the NCAA’s restrictions, imposed in the name of amateurism, create enough benefits for competition to offset the harm that they create. Whether those restrictions are necessary to preserve amateurism, the athletes reiterate, is irrelevant.

...

"A brief by historians derides the concept of amateurism in elite college sports as a “myth that is neither necessary to the activity nor fair to the students who participate.” To the contrary, the scholars note, “top-tier college sports” have flourished even as “amateurism” in the athletes playing those sports has decreased. What’s more, the historians continue, the NCAA’s efforts to rely on amateurism as the basis to shield its eligibility rules from antitrust scrutiny is “profoundly unfair,” as those rules often led to coaches and schools making millions from poor students."


Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Economists support Andreu Mas-Colell

 In El Pais (plus Google translate):

33 premios Nobel de Economía y otros 20 destacados economistas escriben en defensa de Andreu Mas-Colell. Los expertos internacionales muestran con un artículo conjunto su solidaridad con el profesor y exconsejero catalán investigado por el Tribunal de Cuentas

[33 Nobel Laureates in Economics and 20 other leading economists write in defense of Andreu Mas-Colell.  With a joint article, international experts show their solidarity with the professor and former Catalan councilor investigated by the Court of Auditors]

The letter ends with:

"We hope the situation clears up promptly. We also hope that, in the absence of specific charges against him, the Court of Auditors will avoid unwanted and unfair consequences for Professor Mas-Colell."

"The letter is signed by Philippe Aghion, George Akerlof *, Manuel Arellano, Orazio Attanasio, Robert Aumann *, Abhijit Banerjee *, Richard Blundell, Partha Dasgupta, Angus Deaton *, Eddie Dekel, Mathias Dewatripont, Peter Diamond *, Esther Duflo *, Eugene Fama *, Ernst Fehr, Drew Fudenberg, Jordi Galí, Pinelopi Goldberg, Jean-Michel Grandmont, Rachel Griffith, Lars Hansen *, Oliver Hart *, James Heckman *, Elhanan Helpman, Bengt Holmstrom *, Dale Jorgenson, Daniel Kahneman *, Mervyn King, Michael Kremer *, Finn Kydland *, Eric Maskin *, Daniel McFadden *, Robert Merton *, Paul Milgrom *, Stephen Morris, Roger Myerson *, Edmund Phelps *, Christopher Pissarides *, Paul Romer *, Alvin Roth *, Myron Scholes *, Amartya Sen *, Robert Shiller *, Christopher Sims *, Robert Solow *, Hugo Sonnenschein, Michael Spence *, Joseph Stiglitz *, Guido Tabellini, Richard Thaler *, Jean Tirole *, Robert Wilson * and Fabrizio Zilibotti.

"Names with an asterisk are Nobel laureates in economics."

***********

Some background here:

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Monday, June 21, 2021

Matching patients with effective therapists improves mental health coutcomes

 A recent paper in JAMA Psychiatry reveals that matching patients to therapists who are effective at treating their particular issues improves mental health outcomes. (This may allow you to update your priors on either matching or therapy...)

Effect of Matching Therapists to Patients vs Assignment as Usual on Adult Psychotherapy Outcomes: A Randomized Clinical Trial  by Michael J. Constantino, PhD1; James F. Boswell, PhD2; Alice E. Coyne, MS1; et alThomas P. Swales, PhD3; David R. Kraus, PhD, JAMA Psychiatry. Published online June 9, 2021. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2021.1221

"Question  Can assigning patients to therapists with empirically determined strengths in treating the patients’ specific mental health problem(s) (ie, measurement-based matching) improve the outcomes of naturalistic psychotherapy compared with case assignment as usual?

"Findings  In this 2-arm, double-blind randomized clinical trial including 48 therapists and 218 outpatients, measurement-based matching promoted significantly greater reductions in patients’ general symptomatic and functional impairment, global psychological distress, and domain-specific impairment on patients’ most elevated presenting problem over 16 weeks post intake.

"Meaning  In this study, mental health care was enhanced by prospectively assigning patients to empirically good-fitting therapists, which requires minimal disruptions within a mental health care system."

Sunday, June 20, 2021

The Economics of Covid: The 31st Jerusalem Advanced School in Economic Theory (June 28-30)

This year's event doesn't involve travel. (Next year in Jerusalem!)

The 31st Jerusalem Advanced School in Economic Theory: The Economics of COVID-19 (Online event)

conference
Mon, 28/06/2021 to Wed, 30/06/2021

 


General Director: Eric Maskin (Harvard University)

Co-directorElchanan Ben-Porath (The Hebrew University)

 

List of lecturers and topics:

Glenn Ellison, MIT: Epidemiological models
Ben Golub, Northwestern University: Supply Chains
Michael Kremer, University of Chicago: Vaccines
Eric Maskin, Harvard University: Mechanism Design for Pandemics
Emily Oster, Brown University: Schools

Parag Pathak, MIT: Priority Schemes 

Saturday, June 19, 2021

Fur for fashion banned in Israel

 Here's the story from Ynet:

Israel becomes first country to ban sale of fur in fashion trade.  

"Israel announced a ban Wednesday on the sale of fur in the fashion trade, winning applause from the International Anti-Fur Coalition as the "first entire nation" to impose such a ban

"Environmental Protection Ministry said commerce in animal fur, imports and exports, will be banned except for the needs of research, study or certain religious traditions.

"Fur is used for hats called "shtreimels" worn by some ultra-Orthodox Jews.

"On this historic day, Israel has set an ethical precedent and hopefully other nations shall join them and ban the sale of barbaric and cruel blood fashion fur," the Anti-Fur coalition wrote on its Facebook page.

...

"The ministerial decree is to take effect in six months."

********

And from the Jerusalem Post:

Israel bans sale of fur to fashion industry, first country to do so  by Aaron Reich

"“The fur industry causes the deaths of hundreds of millions of animals worldwide, and inflicts indescribable cruelty and suffering,” Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel said in a statement after signing the amendment, which goes into effect in six months. “Using the skin and fur of wildlife for the fashion industry is immoral and is certainly unnecessary. Animal fur coats cannot cover the brutal murder industry that makes them. Signing these regulations will make the Israeli fashion market more environmentally friendly and far kinder to animals.”

Friday, June 18, 2021

An Organ Donation Clarification Act is introduced again

 Here's a new bill introduced into Congress by Matt Cartwright:

To amend the National Organ Transplant Act to clarify the definition of valuable consideration, to clarify that pilot programs that honor and promote organ donation do not violate that Act, and for other purposes. 

The background material it refers to (cost savings, Israeli law, etc.) will be familiar to readers of this blog. (See my past posts about Congressman Cartwright's previous efforts.)  

Here's a press release from co-sponsor Joe Wilson:

CONGRESSMEN WILSON, CARTWRIGHT INTRODUCE BIPARTISAN LEGISLATION TO BOOST ORGAN DONATION  Jun 8, 2021 Press Release

"On May 28, Congressmen Joe Wilson (R-SC-02) and Matt Cartwright (D-PA-08) re-introduced the Organ Donation Clarification Act, a bill with Democratic and Republican support to reduce barriers to organ donation and allow for a pilot program to test the effectiveness of non-cash incentives to increase the supply of organs for transplantation.

...

"The Organ Donation Clarification Act would:

Clarify that certain reimbursements are not valuable consideration but are reimbursements for expenses a donor incurs; and

Allow government-run pilot programs to test the effect of providing non-cash benefits to promote organ donation.

This bipartisan legislation is endorsed by the American Medical Association, Americans for Tax Reform, American Transplant Foundation, Foundation for Kidney Transplant Research, National Kidney Donation Organization and Wait List Zero.

Additional co-sponsors in the U.S. House are Reps. Steve Cohen (D-TN-09), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA-01), Mike Kelly (R-PA-16), David McKinley (R-WV-01), Del. Michael San Nicolas (D-Guam-At Large), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL-09), Adam Schiff (D-CA-28), Jackie Speier (D-CA-14), William Timmons (R-SC-04) and Don Young (R-AK-At Large)"


Thursday, June 17, 2021

Amartya Sen celebrated in the Harvard Gazette

 Amartya Sen’s nine-decade journey from colonial India to Nobel Prize and beyond

"Many economists focus on explaining and predicting what is happening in the world. But Sen, considered the key figure at the convergence of economics and philosophy, turned his attention instead to what the reality should be and why we fall short.

“I think he’s the greatest living figure in normative economics, which asks not ‘What do we see?’ but ‘What should we aspire to?’ and ‘How do we even work out what we should aspire to?’” said Eric S. Maskin ’72, Ph.D. ’76, Adams University Professor and professor of economics and mathematics.

"Over his 65-year career, Sen’s research and ideas have touched many areas of the field. He’s credited as one of the founding fathers of modern social-choice theory with his landmark 1970 book, “Collective Choice and Social Welfare.” The book took up the late Harvard economist Kenneth Arrow’s ideas from the early 1950s about how to combine different individuals’ well-being into a measure of social well-being, intensifying interest in and expanding upon Arrow’s work.

...

GAZETTE: In 1998, you were awarded the economics Nobel for your many theoretical, empirical, and ethical contributions to the field. Yet it doesn’t seem to have been the career capstone for you that it often is for other laureates. You remain as busy as ever writing, working, traveling, teaching. Why?

SEN: People have given up hope that I might retire. But I like working, I must say. I’ve been very lucky. I’ve never done, when I think about it, work that I was not interested in. That is a very good reason to go on.

"I’m 87. Something I enjoy most is teaching. It may not be a natural age for teaching, I guess, but I absolutely love it. And since my students also seem not unhappy with my teaching, I think it’s a very good idea to continue doing it."