Showing posts with label WGWaW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WGWaW. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Public lecture today at the Casa Central de la Universidad de Chile:“Quién obtiene qué y por qué: La nueva economía del diseño de mercados”

 Alvin Roth, Premio Nobel de Economía, dictará charla magistral en Casa Central de la Universidad de Chile [Alvin Roth, Nobel Prize winner in Economics, will give a keynote talk at the Central House of the University of Chile]

“Who gets what and why: The new economics of market design” is the name of the talk that Alvin Roth, 2012 Nobel Prize winner in Economics, will give on Wednesday, December 20, at 12:00 p.m., in the Hall of Honor of the Central House of the University of Chile.

The activity is organized by the Millennium Institute for Research on Market Imperfections and Public Policies (MIPP), the Center for Mathematical Modeling (CMM) of the University of Chile and the Ring Project “Information and Computing in Market Design” and in it Roth will speak about his renowned book in which he explains about the frequent “matching” markets, in which money is not a determining factor.

The talk will be in English and will have simultaneous translation into Spanish. [La charla será en inglés y contará con traducción simultánea al español.]




T
he talk will be in the 
Salón de Honor de Casa Central, which sounds like it will be an impressive venue.



Saturday, January 14, 2023

The power of kidneys, altruism, and books. (And recommendation of a doctor in the UK)

 Here's a story, about kidneys and about books, in inews.co.uk:

‘It’s a gift with no conditions attached’: Why I donated my kidney to a person I’ll never meet. 250 people die each year in the UK because there are not enough kidneys available. So when GP Richard Armitage discovered altruistic donation was possible, he gave away an organ. By Tom Ough

"Despite being a GP, Richard Armitage had spent most of his career unaware that altruistic donations were possible. In this respect, Armitage, 34, was like many of his colleagues in the medical profession. That changed in 2017. Armitage, visiting the Nobel Laureate Museum Stockholm, bought a book by Alvin Roth, an economist who won a Nobel Prize in 2012. The book was Who Gets What — and Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design, and in it Roth wrote how we allocate things within markets that aren’t dictated by money.

"Examples include the allocation of children to schools, doctors to hospitals, and kidneys to people with end-stage renal disease. Roth discussed what is known as non-directed altruistic kidney donations – in short, kidneys donated to strangers. Sitting on the plane home, Armitage read the book with fascination. When he returned to Nottingham he checked the NHS website to see whether non-directed altruistic kidney donation was possible in the UK. It was.

...
"In 2018 altruistic donors began being routinely added to the UK Living Kidney Sharing Scheme (UKLKSS), which oversees this sharing of organs by living donors. Apparently as a result of the move, in 2019 there was a 60 per cent rise in altruistic donations – from 124 to 183. Twenty-eight per cent of kidney transplants are now from living donors.
...
"It seemed a good application of the kind of moral philosophy that Armitage had discovered the same year, 2017, when he read Famine, Affluence and Morality. It is an influential essay in which Peter Singer, an Australian philosopher, argued that the West should be donating far more resources to humanitarian causes.
...
"All of Armitage’s intellectual discovery, including his reading of Roth’s writing on kidney donation, happened in one year, 2017 – also the year that Armitage finished his GP training. It marked the end of “a 10-year head-down slog” that began with the first day of medical school. “After I passed my last exam, it felt like I finally lifted my head up and asked: ‘But why am I doing this?’”

"And so Armitage’s first conversation with his regional kidney transplant centre was followed by an appointment with a Living Donor Nurse, who explained what donation would entail: the testing, the preparation, the surgery. Armitage was invited to speak to his loved ones and consider whether he was ready; it turned out he wasn’t.

"There were several hold-ups. At first, Armitage felt the beginning of his GP career was the wrong time to take weeks off work. Then Covid stalled the NHS’s kidney-sharing scheme. Armitage still wanted to donate his kidney, and successfully underwent a battery of investigations: a renal tract ultrasound scan, an electrocardiogram, chest X-ray, various fasted blood tests, and an X-ray of his kidney. As per the requirements of the donation scheme, Armitage met a clinical psychologist to discuss his state of mind, put the psychologist in touch with a loved one in order to independently assess his state of mind, and met a representative of the Human Tissue Authority to ensure that he was not donating his kidney under duress or for financial gain.
...
"Armitage spent several weeks in Ukraine as part of his work for the charity UK-Med, which sent British medics to deliver emergency healthcare. “That obviously meant I couldn’t continue with the donation process,” he says with some understatement. But when he got home, he told the donor team he was ready. “Can we crack on?”, he asked.

"The operation was on 23 November. Everything was in place; Armitage was part of a chain on which three people with end-stage renal disease were due a kidney.
...
"And just before he was discharged – three days after surgery, having convinced the hospital staff he was ready to take care of himself – he was informed that all the recipients in the chain now had working kidneys. “That was a very meaningful moment that made it all worthwhile,” says Armitage."

Sunday, October 9, 2022

Public Lecture at Iowa State (video): "Who Gets What and Why? Economists as Engineers."

 Iowa State University in Ames Iowa has made available a video of a public lecture I gave there on September 22, called "Who Gets What and Why?  Economists as Engineers."

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Economists as Engineers: Public lecture at Iowa State University tomorrow

 
I'll be travelling today to Ames Iowa, to give a public lecture tomorrow evening at Iowa State University (and to attend a market design conference there on Friday and Saturday)



"This event will be recorded and available for two weeks on the Lectures website at 
https://www.lectures.iastate.edu/recordings/available-recordings "

Thursday, April 14, 2022

#122 Game Theory and Market Design. "Unsiloed" podcast about Who Gets What and Why

I'm interviewed by Greg La Blanc, on market design generally, using my book Who Gets What and Why as a takeoff point.

  

Saturday, October 9, 2021

Peter Lorentzen interviews me about market design (podcast)

 Peter Lorentzen interviews me about market design, and my book Who Gets What and Why. (We have an interesting conversation on market design and my career, not closely related to the book...)

"In our interview, we range far beyond the examples from the book to discuss the implications of his work for the design of tech’s market-making “platform” businesses like Airbnb, Amazon, Lyft, or Uber, the challenges he faces when countries or people view some kinds of transactions as “repugnant” or morally unacceptable, and the reasons why San Francisco’s school district (unlike Boston’s or New York’s) chose not to implement the un-gameable school choice plan his team devised for them.

"Host Peter Lorentzen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of San Francisco, where he leads a new digital economy-focused Master's program in Applied Economics."

;


Wednesday, May 5, 2021

VEM FÅR VAD – OCH VARFÖR? Who Gets What--and Why in Swedish

My 2015 book, Who Gets What and Why? has been translated into Swedish, and published by the Ohlin Institute, "Founded In The Spirit Of Bertil Ohlin."


VEM FÅR VAD – OCH VARFÖR?

"The Swedish translation also contains a preface written by Tommy Andersson, professor of economics and world-leading researcher in market design who recently published the book  Algorithmmaker .

The book will be presented in a conversation on May 6 at 12–13 between Professor Tommy Andersson and Andreas Bergström, board member of the Liberal Economics Club and vice president of the think tank Fores. Of course, there will be room for questions and posts from the audience.

The seminar is a collaboration between the Ohlin Institute, which has published the book, and the Liberal Economics Club (LEK). 
Connect via the link below! No pre-registration required. 

The book can be purchased at Bokus or Adlibris .

About the Webinar:
Zoom meeting on 6 May at 12–13 (click on the link to join the meeting).

Meeting ID: 842 8902 0304 Passcode: 620368"

Saturday, July 14, 2018

Jason Furman buys books when they're on sale

Here's a recent book review of my (2015) book that caught my eye, posted by Ismail Ali Manik, which begins with this tweet:
 Random Book recommendation — Who Gets What and Why: The New Economics of Matchmaking and Market Design

You might want to read the book yourself, and in any event there is an interesting selection of quotes, and then links to a bunch of videos, at the link above.

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Bar Ifrach on market design at Airbnb

Here's a talk today at the Harvard Kennedy School that caught my eye:

Bar Ifrach (Director of Data Science, Airbnb): 'Search, Pricing and Marketplace Dynamics at Airbnb'

Date: 

Tuesday, March 20, 2018, 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Location: 

Darman Room, Taubman Building, Harvard Kennedy School
Join us for a Behavioral Insights Student Group lunch with Bar Ifrach.
Bar Ifrach is a Director of Data Science at Airbnb, leading a group of over 60 data scientists who cover Airbnb's core business unit -- Homes -- across analytics, inference, and algorithms. In addition, Bar is a member of the Homes business' leadership team that designs strategy and oversees execution across Airbnb's main product. Bar begun his academic studies at Tel Aviv University, where he completed a BA in economics in 2007. Following that, Bar completed a PhD in operations research and economics from Columbia Business School in 2012, researching learning and pricing in online marketplaces and game theory. After a postdoc at Stanford University, Bar joined Airbnb as a data scientist in the marketplace team in 2013, where he focused on optimizing matching through personalized search and marketplace design. In 2014 Bar founded Airbnb's pricing team that currently provides prices suggestions to millions of hosts. In 2015 and 2016 Bar managed Airbnb's Marketplace data science team, fueling Airbnb's rapid growth through multiple efforts, including scaling Instant Booking to the majority of the business.
Topic of talk: Search, Pricing and Marketplace Dynamics at Airbnb
In his 2016 book Who Get What -- and Why, Nobel laureate Alvin Roth defined three general principles for successful marketplace: thickness, congestion-free, and safe and simple. In this talk, we will illustrate these principles using unique examples from Airbnb's two-sided marketplace and tie them back to Airbnb's success. In addition, we will discuss challenges and solutions in measuring the efficacy of marketplace design changes in light of these principles.

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Radio interview on The Quarterly Report

I was interviewed Wednesday by Craig Hafer and Mike Faust on their radio show The Quarterly Report, starting with questions about my book Who Gets What and Why and moving on to market design generally, and then to Shotokan karate.   You can hear the conversation here:


You can also download the show as an mp3 audio file here:
https://weeushows.podbean.com/e/dr-alvin-roth-on-feedback/

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Ed Glaeser reviews Who Gets What and Why in the Journal of Economic Literature

Ed has written a generous review in the Journal of Economic Literature, of my book and of the field of market design. His review gave me an inkling of what it was like to read the book rather than to have written it*.

Glaeser, Edward L.. 2017. "A Review Essay on Alvin Roth's Who Gets What—And Why." Journal of Economic Literature, 55(4):1602-14.

Abstract: Alvin Roth’s Who Gets What—And Why provides a richly accessible introduction to his pioneering work on market design. Much of economics ignores the institutions that allocate goods, blithely assuming that the mythical Walrasian auctioneer will handle everything perfectly. But markets do fail and Roth details those failures, like the market for law clerks that unravels because clerks and judges commit to each other too quickly. Roth combines theory and pragmatic experience to show how the economist can engineer successful markets. He has even enabled welfare-improving trades in kidney exchanges, where law and social repugnance forbids cash payments.


*To put it another way, I'm reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson's line "“Tis the good reader that makes the good book...," or maybe Samuel Johnson “A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.”

Monday, November 20, 2017

Who Gets What and Why in Vietnamese: Sách Ai được gì và tại sao

Who Gets What and Why has come out in Vietnamese:
Nobel Kinh tế Giáo sư Alvin Roth – Sách Ai được gì và tại sao (Who gets what and why)


https://tiki.vn/ai-duoc-gi-va-tai-sao-p843661.html

The book comes with a foreword I wrote for the Vietnamese edition, after corresponding about it with Quoc-Anh Do.  The foreword touches on translation, so it's interesting to note that Google translate at the above link doesn't yet do so well. Here is the original (instead of the automatic back translation into English of the human translation into Vietnamese by Dang Tùng.)

Foreword to the Vietnamese Edition

The translation of a book about markets from English to Vietnamese is an opportunity to remember that markets, like languages, are ancient human artifacts. Markets and languages are both tools that human beings construct together to help us coordinate with one another, and that we constantly update to meet modern needs.

Just as there are different languages, there are different kinds of markets, and different ways to organize them. Commodity markets are markets in which prices determine who gets what, and market participants can deal with one another anonymously. But many markets involve relationships, and in those markets you care who you are dealing with, and who gets what isn’t decided by prices alone.  Matching markets are markets in which you can’t just choose what you want, but also must be chosen.  Prices don’t do all the work in matching markets, and sometimes we don’t let prices play any role at all. Matching in one form or another determines who goes to which schools and universities, who gets which jobs, and who marries whom, and sometimes who gets certain kinds of medical care, like organ transplants.

Most markets and marketplaces operate in the substantial space between Adam Smith’s invisible hand and Chairman Mao’s five-year plans. Markets differ from central planning because no one but the participants themselves determines who gets what. And marketplaces differ from anything-goes laissez faire because participants enter the marketplace knowing that it has rules.

Market design is about finding rules to make markets work well. Often this is a process of trial and error. For example, in many countries, the process of school assignment and university admissions is riskier and more stressful for students than it needs to be. This book describes how my colleagues and I have helped make school choice safer and simpler for many American students, and made it likely that they will get schools that they prefer. Perhaps our experience can help Vietnamese economists and policy makers get some ideas about how to improve the famously stressful college admissions process in Vietnam.  

The book also describes how the system of matching doctors to their first jobs was redesigned in the United States and elsewhere, and some of the problems that had to be overcome in those markets, and similar ones.

I hope this book will help readers look at who gets what and how in Vietnam, and find ways to make some of those markets work better.
Alvin E. Roth
Stanford, California

12 January 2017

Saturday, July 15, 2017

Who Gets What and Why in French: Les marchés où l'argent ne fait pas la loi

The French translation of my book Who Gets What and Why has recently become available...


Les marchés où l'argent ne fait pas la loi
Des conceptions innovantes pour des appariements efficaces
Alvin Roth
Traducteur : Jean-François Caulier
2017 - 288 pages
("Markets where money does not make the law
Innovative designs for efficient matching")

"Prix Nobel d’économie, Alvin Roth dévoile les règles souvent surprenantes régissant un vaste nombre d’activités dans lesquelles l’argent ne joue pas ou peu de rôle. C’est le territoire des marchés d’appariement, où « vendeurs » et « acheteurs » doivent se choisir l’un l’autre. Dans cet ouvrage, il révèle les marchés d’appariement cachés autour de nous et nous apprend à reconnaître un bon appariement, pour faire ainsi des choix plus avisés et subtils."

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Health inequality at the Trento festival of economics, June 1-4

The city of Trento hosts a festival of economics each year. I'll be participating. Here's an English announcement of this year's theme:
Trento Economics Festival 2017: “the Unequal Health”

And here: Festival dell'Economia: 1-4 giugno

Here's the web page and program in Italian and in English (click on the Union Jack)

Here's a page describing the three events that I'll take part in on June 1 and 2. In the first I'll speak about market design and kidney exchange, in the second about my book, which recently came out in Italian, and the third event will be a panel discussion of repugnant transactions:

Mercato e disuguaglianze nella salute

introduce Tito Boeri In che misura facilitare l'incontro tra domanda e offerta di organi può salvare vite umane e...

0118:00
Visions

Market design, kidney exchange, and health inequality

introduced by Tito Boeri
To what extent can facilitating the bringing together of supply and demand for organs save human lives and reduce health inequality? In particular, is it possible to organise the exchange of kidneys efficiently, taking into account ethical and regulatory restrictions? To what extent is this exchange between rich and poor countries manageable on a global scale?
Teatro Sociale
0215:00

Matchmaking. La scienza economica del dare a ciascuno il suo

a cura di Einaudi ne discutono Dino Gerardi, Matteo Motterlini coordina Tonia Mastrobuoni



0218:30

Mercati per il corpo umano: sfruttamento o opportunità?

coordina Mario Macis In Italia così come in molti altri paesi, il fabbisogno di organi per trapianti è superiore...




0218:30
Intersections

Markets for the human body: exploitation or opportunity?

speaker and coordinator Mario Macis
In Italy, as in many other countries, the demand for transplant organs exceeds supply, and the gap is increasing over time. Is it possible to consider the idea that providing monetary payment for donors or other forms of exchange, as takes place in other countries, may contribute towards filling the gap between supply and demand? Is there not a risk of introducing unacceptable forms of exploitation and unfairness?
Palazzo della Provincia - Sala Depero

Sunday, May 7, 2017

Interview about Who Gets What and Why, in Portugese

The Portugese translation of Who Gets What and Why is called Como Funcionam Os Mercados (How markets work)

Here's an interview about it:
O novo mundo dos mercados
 Google translate: "The new world of markets"


Friday, April 21, 2017

School choice in Indianapolis: podcast of my talk at the Economic Club of Indianapolis

Here's a link to the broadcast of my talk on radio WYFI in Indianapolis, on markets, marketplaces, Who Gets What, and school choice with unified enrollment which is coming to Indianapolis next year.

Monday, March 13, 2017

Matchmaking. La scienza economica del dare a ciascuno il suo: Who Gets What and Why in Italian


Matchmaking. La scienza economica del dare a ciascuno il suo  
(Matchmaking. The economics of giving to each his own).

I guess that's a pretty good way to translate Who Gets What and Why.

Nico Lacetera writes: "I like the subtitle  "a ciascuno il suo", which refers to a latin way of saying (suum cuique  ~ to each, their own) -- in turn, this is the title of a famous novel by a major Italian contemporary writer, Leonardo Sciascia."

Friday, March 10, 2017

Who Gets What and Why in Polish

Matchmaking. Kto co dostaje i dlaczego

Ekonomia kojarzenia stron transakcji i projektowania rynku 


From the publisher MT Biznes
Matchmaking. Who gets what and why  Alvin E. Roth


Saturday, March 4, 2017

Kdo dostává co – a proč : Who Gets What and Why in Czech

Kdo dostává co – a proč   (Who Gets What and Why--Czech translation)

Who Gets What and Why: Czech

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Who Gets What and Why in Spanish for Latin America

Here's the Spanish translation of my book Who Gets What and Why, for Latin America, published by Oceana.


Lo que sea de cada quien. La economía de las relaciones y el diseño de mercado

I gather from Manu Vespa that "Lo Que Sea De Cada Quien" is an idiom common in some parts of Latin America which means something like "To Each His Own." (More literally it seems to be "Whatever could be for each person..."

Google translate renders the title as "Whatever it is for each one. The economy of relationships and market design"
************

The Spanish translation for Spain was a much more literal "Who gets what and why":
Quién obtiene qué y por qué
LA NUEVA ECONOMÍA DEL DISEÑO DE MERCADOS