Monday, February 20, 2023

Will Italy criminalize foreign surrogacy?

 It's hard to ban something that people want and need and is legally available in other jurisdictions, but it looks like Italy might try it regarding surrogacy.  Here's a story from Britain's Sunday Times:

Italian families seeking surrogates abroad could face jail or €1 million fines by Tom Kington

"Italians travelling abroad to seek surrogate mothers to start families could face jail time and a million euro fine thanks to a new bill introduced by senators close to Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister.

"The proposed law, which must be approved by the Italian parliament, describes surrogacy as “an execrable example of the commercialisation of the female body and the treatment of babies as merchandise”.

...

"An Italian law passed in 2004 banned surrogate pregnancies in Italy, forcing couples to travel to countries such as the United States and Canada to find surrogate mothers."

Sunday, February 19, 2023

Computational and Experimental Economics Summer School June 11-16, 2023, Barcelona

 Rosemarie Nagel sends me the following announcement:

We invite graduate students and young faculty to the
2nd Computational and Experimental Economics Summer School
June 11-16, 2023, BESLAB, UPF, Barcelona, Spain

The goal of the summer school is to develop a foundation for using computational models
and simulations to complement and/or explain results from human subject experiments.
In particular, throughout the curriculum, students will learn how to implement a variety of agent-based models
that have successfully captured regularities observed in the experimental and field data.
They will participate in experiments and develop an original project in groups of 3-4 participants.

In addition, the summer school will include a two-day workshop on computational and experimental economics (June 14-15)
with presentations by leading researchers who are interested in experimental and computational economics.

The deadline for applications is March 31, 2023.

You can find how to participate here:

Organizers
Herbert Dawid (Bielefeld University)
John Ledyard (Caltech)
Rosemarie Nagel (ICREA-UPF, and BSE)

Yaroslav Rosokha  (Purdue University)

Guest lecturers

Mikhail Anufriev (University of Technology Sydney)
Cars Hommes (University of Amsterdam and Bank of Canada)
Annie Liang (Northwestern. University)
Valentyn Panchenko (University of New South Wales)

 


Saturday, February 18, 2023

Compensation for participating in clinical trials

 Here's an opinion piece from Medpage Today:

It's Time to Pay Clinical Trial Participants More — Accelerating trial enrollment can catalyze access to much-needed medications  by Gunnar Esiason 

He writes:

"Most people I know with cystic fibrosis have participated in at least one, if not several clinical trials. 

...

"Participating in a trial can be like working for a company that hasn't invested in its employees in a long time. In this case, the employees are clinical trial participants. The pay is low despite the time required to participate in research and the growing number of trials that need participants.

"From 2019-2022, the number of registered clinical trials grew by 25%opens in a new tab or window globally -- yet participant pay remains arbitrary and inconsistentopens in a new tab or window between studies. It's almost like mismatched supply and demand curves, where participants are in high demand but unwilling to participate.

"Increasing trial participant pay might be a path toward alleviating the participant supply crunch in trials hungry for patients. One key benefit of increasing pay for patients could be substantial: namely, speeding up clinical trials through a more competitive enrollment process.

...

"More than 80% of clinical trials fail to enroll on time, leading to costs of anywhere from $600,000 to $8 million per dayopens in a new tab or window and making trials take up to twice as longopens in a new tab or window.

"And yet it has been shownopens in a new tab or window that moderately increasing pay can motivate participation without being an "unjust inducement." In other words, patients are encouraged to participate -- but not coerced to do so.

"If increasing participant pay can accelerate trial enrollment, then a safe and effective drug can reach the market faster and therefore reduce the amount of time products remain in the pre-revenue stage. The return on investment for study sponsors who increase participant pay should be clear from a business perspective.

"From a patient perspective, even a marginal improvement in time to accessing new drugs is something worth celebrating. For patients, we pay the cost of delays with our health."

*********

Some earlier related posts:

Thursday, October 29, 2020

Paying participants in challenge trials of Covid-19 vaccines, by Ambuehl, Ockenfels, and Roth

"we note that increasing hourly pay by a risk-compensation percentage as proposed in the target article provides compensation proportional to risk only if the risk increases proportionally with the number of hours worked. (Some risky tasks take little time; imagine challenge trials to test bulletproof vests.) "

Friday, February 17, 2023

A tale of two Organ Procurement Organizations, in JAMA Surgery

 Here's a report of two Organ Procurement Organizations with very different rates of recovery of organs:

Variability in Organ Procurement Organization Performance by Individual Hospital in the United States, by Wali Johnson, MD1; Kathryn Kraft, MD2; Pranit Chotai, MD3; Raymond Lynch, MD4; Robert S. Dittus, MD5; David Goldberg, MD6; Fei Ye, PhD7; Brianna Doby, BA8; Douglas E. Schaubel, PhD9; Malay B. Shah, MD2; Seth J. Karp, MD1, JAMA Surg. Published online February 8, 2023. doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2022.7853

"Design, Setting, and Participants  A retrospective cross-sectional analysis was performed of organ donation across 13 different hospitals in 2 donor service areas covered by 2 organ procurement organizations (OPOs) in 2017 and 2018 to compare donor potential to actual donors. More than 2000 complete medical records for decedents were reviewed as a sample of nearly 9000 deaths. Data were analyzed from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2018.

"Exposure  Deaths of causes consistent with donation according to medical record review, ventilated patient referrals, center acceptance practices, and actual deceased donors.

"Main Outcomes and Measures  Potential donors by medical record review vs actual donors and OPO performance at specific hospitals.

"Results  Compared with 242 actual donors, 931 potential donors were identified at these hospitals. This suggests a deceased donor potential of 3.85 times (95% CI, 4.23-5.32) the actual number of donors recovered. There was a surprisingly wide variability in conversion of potential donor patients into actual donors among the hospitals studied, from 0% to 51.0%. One OPO recovered 18.8% of the potential donors, whereas the second recovered 48.2%. The performance of the OPOs was moderately related to referrals of ventilated patients and not related to center acceptance practices.

"Conclusions and Relevance  In this cross-sectional study of hospitals served by 2 OPOs, wide variation was found in the performance of the OPOs, especially at individual hospitals. Addressing this opportunity could greatly increase the organ supply, affirming the importance of recent efforts from the federal government to increase OPO accountability and transparency.

**********

And here's an accompanying editorial:

It Is Time for the Light to Shine on Organ Procurement Organizations by Robert M. Cannon, MD, MS1; Jayme E. Locke, MD, MPH1 JAMA Surg. Published online February 8, 2023. doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2022.7857

"Many explanations have been put forth as to why some OPOs carry out their mandate more effectively than others. One argument is that mechanisms of death in some parts of the country are more conducive to organ donations than in others. We have refuted this phenomenon as a significant factor in OPO performance variability in our previous work.3 Others have even tried to place the blame for poorly performing OPOs at the feet of “risk-averse” transplant centers, a factor that the data presented in this current study also refute. The cold truth is that we have no good understanding of why some OPOs are better than others, or even what an acceptable level of OPO performance should be, because the environment in which OPOs operate is so completely obscure."

Thursday, February 16, 2023

Arms for children but not women in Missouri

 The Washington Post has the story:

Missouri Republicans block proposed ban on kids carrying guns in public By Timothy Bella

"The Republican-controlled Missouri House of Representatives rejected a proposal Wednesday that would have banned children from being able to openly carry firearms on public land without adult supervision.

"The proposal, which was part of a long debate in the chamber on how to fight crime in St. Louis, was soundly defeated by a vote of 104-39, with just one Republican voting in support of the ban.

...

"Since 2017, Missouri residents have not been required to have a permit for concealed carry, after lawmakers in the Missouri House voted to override a veto by then-Gov. Jay Nixon (D) of a broad gun-rights bill. The law does not require gun owners to take safety training or have a criminal-background check to carry concealed firearms in most public places. The move was celebrated by Republicans, but law enforcement officials warned that the law was “going to make officers a lot more apprehensive,” St. Louis Public Radio reported at the time.

"The proposal’s defeat this week comes almost a month after Missouri Republicans in the state House made news for a voting to tighten the dress code for women legislators, while leaving the men’s dress code alone. Missouri House Republicans sought to require women to wear a blazer when in the chamber. The state House eventually approved a modified version of the proposal, which allows for cardigans as well as jackets but still requires women’s arms to be concealed."

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Domestic abusers have the right to bear arms--5th Circuit Court of Appeals

 In the U.S., the right to bear arms is a protected transaction. That can lead to some controversial decisions. 

Here's the story from Bloomberg:

Gun Ruling Giving Domestic Abusers Rights Prompts Garland Rebuke By Erik Larson

"The decades-old US law barring domestic abusers from possessing firearms contradicts the nation’s “historical tradition” of access to guns even for people who may not be “model citizens,” an appeals court said in a ruling that prompted a Justice Department rebuke.

"The statute is unconstitutional because it gives too much power to Congress to determine who qualifies as “law-abiding, responsible citizens” when it comes to gun ownership, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals said Thursday.

...

"The ruling vacated the conviction of a Texas man, Zackey Rahimi, who pleaded guilty to violating the law by keeping a pistol at home despite being subject to a civil domestic-violence restraining order for assaulting his former girlfriend. It’s the latest fallout from a US Supreme Court ruling in June that paved the way for courts to reconsider a wide variety of gun restrictions.

...

“Rahimi, while hardly a model citizen, is nonetheless part of the political community entitled to the Second Amendment’s guarantees, all other things equal,” said the appellate panel, comprised of two judges appointed by former President Donald Trump and one by Ronald Reagan.

"Rahimi’s home was searched after he was involved in five shootings in a two-month span, including firing at a law enforcement vehicle in December 2020, firing at a driver after getting in a car accident and shooting multiple rounds in the air in January 2021 “after his friend’s credit card was declined at a Whataburger restaurant,” the appeals court said."

********

Here's the Supreme Court decision, NRA v. Bruen on which the 5th Circuit relied:

NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSOCIATION, INC., ET AL. v. BRUEN, SUPERINTENDENT OF NEW YORK STATE POLICE, ET AL.

No. 20–843. Argued November 3, 2021—Decided June 23, 2022 

Syllabus:

"New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in public for self-defense."

Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Canada experiments with decriminalization of opioids and other drugs in British Columbia

 From the CBC:

What you need to know about the decriminalization of possessing illicit drugs in B.C.  B.C. granted exemption by federal government in November 2022; pilot will run until 2026  by Akshay Kulkarni ·

"it is no longer a criminal offence to possess small amounts of certain illicit drugs in B.C. for people aged 18 or above.

"It's part of a three-year pilot by the federal government, which granted B.C. an exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) on May 31, 2022. 

...

"Under the exemption, up to 2.5 grams of the following four drug types can be legally possessed:

"Cocaine (crack and powder). Methamphetamine. MDMA. Opioids (including heroin, fentanyl and morphine).

"Fentanyl and its analogues were detected in nearly 86 per cent of drug toxicity deaths from 2019 until 2022, according to the latest report from the B.C. Coroners Service."



Monday, February 13, 2023

Support for an independent judiciary in Israel

 Democratic institution are under threat in many parts of the world, involving elections, insurrections, and the courts.  Israel is no exception these days.  Yesterday's Jerusalem Post featured several stories about expressions of concern from friends of Israel, including an open letter from economists:

Biden calls for Israeli judicial reform consensus in first comment. US Secretary of State Blinken made a similar comment during his visit to Israel a few weeks ago. By TOVAH LAZAROFF,  FEBRUARY 12, 2023 

Seven Israeli Nobel laureates warn against judicial overhaul. In their letter, the Nobel Prize winners said that scientific excellence can only thrive in democratic nations with full freedom. By TOVAH LAZAROFF Published: FEBRUARY 12, 2023 


56 US economists sign letter opposing Israeli judicial reform By JERUSALEM POST STAFF FEBRUARY 12, 2023

Here's the open letter in full, organized by Professor Lucian Bebchuk at Harvard:

Statement By Leading U.S. Economists Regarding Proposed Israeli Reforms

February 8, 2023​ 

"The governing coalition in Israel is considering an array of legislative acts that would weaken the independence of the judiciary and its power to constrain governmental actions. Numerous Israeli economists, in an open letter that some of us joined, expressed concerns that such a reform would adversely affect the Israeli economy by weakening the rule of law and thereby moving Israel in the direction of Hungary and Poland. Although we significantly vary in our views on public policy and on the challenges facing Israeli society, we all share these concerns. A strong and independent judiciary is a critical part of a system of checks and balances. Undermining it would be detrimental not only to democracy but also to economic prosperity and growth.

"The 56 signatories to this statement are all economists who are current or former professors at leading U.S. universities and who also are:

(A) Recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (11);

(B) Winners of the John Bates Clark, Fischer Black, and/or BBVA Foundation prizes (10); 

(C) Current or former Presidents of the American Economic Association, American Finance Association, and/or the American Law and Economics Association (16);

(D) Individuals who formerly served as U.S. Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, the World Bank Chief Economist, or the International Monetary Fund Chief Economist (5); and/or 

(E) Elected members of the National Academy of Sciences and/or the American Academy of  Arts and Sciences (50).

Signatories

Each signatory joined solely in their individual capacity, and the universities/organizations with which they are associated are noted for identification purposes. The superscripts next to each individual’s name indicate as stated below the list.

Daron Acemoglu (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) B, E

Alan Auerbach (University of California, Berkeley) E

David Autor (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) E

Lucian Bebchuk (Harvard University) C, E

Marianne Bertrand (University of Chicago) E

Jagdish Bhagwati (Columbia University) E

Nicholas Bloom (Stanford University) E

Samuel Bowles (Santa Fe Institute) E

Timothy Bresnahan (Stanford University) B, E

Jeremy Bulow (Stanford University) E

John Campbell (Harvard University) C, E

Janet Currie (Princeton University) C, E 

David Cutler (Harvard University) E

Stefano DellaVigna (University of California, Berkeley) E

Peter Diamond (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) A, C, E

Barry Eichengreen (University of California, Berkeley) E

Drew Fudenberg (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) E

Mark Gertler (New York University) B, E

Claudia Goldin (Harvard University) B, C, E

Roger Gordon (University of California, San Diego) E

Gene Grossman (Princeton University) E

Oliver Hart (Harvard University) A, C, E

R. Glenn Hubbard (Columbia University) D

Matthew Jackson (Stanford University) B, E

Paul Joskow (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) E

Kenneth Judd (Stanford University) E

Daniel Kahneman (Princeton University) A, E

Lewis Kornhauser (New York University) C

Laurence Kotlikoff (Boston University) E

Anne Krueger (Johns Hopkins University) C, D, E

David Laibson (Harvard University) E

W. Bentley MacLeod (Columbia University) C

Ulrike Malmendier (University of California, Berkeley) B, C, E

Charles Manski (Northwestern University) E

Eric Maskin (Harvard University) A, E

Marc Melitz (Harvard University) E

Paul Milgrom (Stanford University) A, B, E

Joel Mokyr (Northwestern University) E

Maurice Obstfeld (University of California, Berkeley) D, E

Edmund Phelps (Columbia University) A, C, E

Andrew Postlewaite (University of Pennsylvania) E

Matthew Rabin (Harvard University) B, E

Kenneth Rogoff (Harvard University) D, E

Paul Romer (New York University) A, D, E

Alvin Roth (Stanford University) A, C, E

Daniel Rubinfeld (University of California, Berkeley) C, E

José Scheinkman (Columbia University) E

Ilya Segal (Stanford University) E

Robert Solow (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) A, B, E

A. Michael Spence (Stanford University) A, B, E

Richard Thaler (University of Chicago) A, C, E

Michael Whinston (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) E

Michelle White (University of California, San Diego) C

Michael Woodford (Columbia University) E

Richard Zeckhauser (Harvard University) E

Luigi Zingales (University of Chicago) C

 "Any inquiries or communications may be sent to the Statement’s coordinator Professor Lucian Bebchuk at info@Statement-By-Leading-US-Economists.net."



Sunday, February 12, 2023

Super (bowl) markets

 There's also a football game, but here are some other, related markets (gambling, advertising, deal making...).

Gambling:

WSJ: Watching the Super Bowl? Bettor Beware. It’s easier than ever for the average fan to bet on sports, even mid-game. But when it comes to winning, the odds are stacked. by Danny Funt

"Thanks to the profusion of online betting, sportsbooks are encouraging customers to bet during games—a category that is “growing exponentially,” Mr. Scott said. Chris Grove, partner emeritus at Eilers & Krejcik, said in the near future, in-game betting should account for the “overwhelming majority” of U.S. sportsbook revenue.

"Roughly half of bets on NFL games this season were placed after the opening kickoff. Customers can wager on lines that move with every play, as well as on short-term “prop” bets like, “Will this possession end in a touchdown?” 

...

"An even bigger source of growth for sportsbooks has been parlays, in which bettors string together multiple bets for the chance at a larger payout, but lose if any of the components fails to transpire. Bettors can now place same-game parlays, bundling wagers on, say, the winning team, the total points scored and a quarterback’s passing yards. (Naturally, sportsbooks offer in-game same-game parlays, too.)

"FanDuel, which controls about half of the national online betting market, according to Eilers & Krejcik, leads the industry due in part to its success capitalizing on parlays. Last October in Illinois, for example, seven out of every 10 bets placed at FanDuel was a parlay, according to data published by the state’s gaming board. FanDuel made about $29.60 for every $100 bet on parlays, compared with $4.80 for every $100 in non-parlay bets."

------------

Record 50 Million Americans to Wager $16B on Super Bowl LVII Press Release 

"A record 50.4 million American adults (20%) are expected to bet on Super Bowl LVII, a 61 percent increase from the record set in 2022, according to a new American Gaming Association (AGA) survey. Bettors plan to wager an estimated $16 billion on this year’s championship game, more than double last year’s estimates.

"With the expansion of legal sports betting, traditional Super Bowl wagers are expected to pass casual wagers for the first time ever:

"30 million American adults plan to place a traditional sports wager online, at a retail sportsbook or with a bookie, up 66 percent from 2022.

"28 million plan to bet casually with friends or as part of a pool or squares contest, up 50 percent from 2022."

********

Advertising:

The 2023 Super Bowl Ads Will Feature Booze, Betting and Jesus. Alcohol is an open field after Anheuser-Busch InBev gave up category exclusivity, while cryptocurrency is set to be a no-show. By Megan Graham

"The Super Bowl still regularly draws an audience of around 100 million people, making it TV’s biggest event of the year and advertising’s biggest night.

"Fox this week said it has sold out of advertising for its Super Bowl broadcast, with some 30-second slots selling for more than $7 million"

----------------

The Backstory to the Jesus Ad Coming to the Super Bowl. The political underpinnings of this campaign are hiding beneath the surface. BY MOLLY OLMSTEAD

"The campaign is being run by something called The Signatry, a Kansas-based Christian foundation that exists, essentially, to connect donors (and their financial advisors) with causes in order to “inspire and facilitate revolutionary, biblical generosity.” According to Ministry Watch, an evangelical watchdog organization that scrutinizes the finances of Christian charities, in 2018, the foundation reported more than $1 billion in contributions. "

*******

Dealmaking by DEALBOOK NEWSLETTER:

"For most of America, the Super Bowl starts on Sunday evening. But for the deal makers who use the event as a backdrop for doing business, the real game starts days before kickoff.

"It’s not uncommon to attend exclusive dinners and parties during the week, and then jet out of town before the opening kickoff. “Once the game starts, it’s just a game,” said George Foster, a professor at Stanford Business School who directs the school’s sports management initiative. “It’s much more effective to get extended time fairly focused on the business relationship on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.”

...

Sex work (same link as Dealmaking):

"In December, Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, like many government officials preparing to host the Super Bowl before him, announced a statewide campaign to raise awareness of human trafficking, including sex trafficking, ahead of the big game. Though the claim that increased sex trafficking and sex work occurs during major sporting events like the Super Bowl has been debunked over and over and over and over and over again, anti-human trafficking campaigns often target these events.

"Campaigns by cities have been criticized by advocates for sex workers, who say such efforts often rely on law enforcement “raids.” More patrolling can lead to more arrests of sex workers who are not being trafficked, they say, as well as the possibility that victims of trafficking will be arrested.

"It’s also unclear whether campaigns to raise awareness about sex trafficking are effective at addressing it. “If we want to protect people who are being trafficked, we need to protect sex workers because they are the most vulnerable for that happening to them next,” Kristen DiAngelo, executive director of the Sex Workers Outreach Project in Sacramento, told The Washington Post ahead of last year’s Super Bowl."

Saturday, February 11, 2023

Friday, February 10, 2023

Human evolution in the last 12,000 years, in PNAS

My loose impression is that, not so long ago, scholars of human evolution discounted recent changes in the human genome, pointing out that maybe the frequency of lactose intolerance had been altered by the domestication of cattle, goats, and sheep, but suggesting that recent changes (i.e. since the invention of agriculture) were rare. This may have been an anti-racism perspective, or it may be that new data have changed this view, but indeed it seems to have changed.

Gene changes in recent milennia offer a window on how human patterns of interaction, regarding food acquisition and preparation, and communal living, may even cause changes in human biology.  

Here's a special feature on the subject, at the PNAS:

Special Feature: The Past 12,000 Years of Behavior, Adaptation, and Evolution Shaped Who We Are Today

"The authors of this Special Feature focus on challenges pertaining to dietary and nutritional quality and adequacy, resource inequality, interpersonal conflict and warfare, climate change, population trends, demographic transitions, migration, mobility, infectious disease and the rise of novel pathogens, and the transformative circumstances of human biology over the last 12,000 years.