Showing posts with label chile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chile. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Market Design in El Mercurio--Chile's oldest newspaper

Last Tuesday, in Chile I was interviewed by Eduardo Olivares, the editor for Economics and Business of El Mercurio,  which published the interview yesterday. We talked for an hour about market design generally, about how markets work when they're working well or working badly, and we spoke about school choice (where Chile is a leader) and transplantation (where it is not). The interview is behind a paywall, but below are some extracts (retranslated back into English via Google Translate).

On markets generally:

—Many people ask that “markets be free,” as has recently happened in Argentina. Should they be free?

“That's a complicated question. Markets should be free to function well, but they need conditions that allow them to function well. Having a free market does not necessarily mean a market without rules. A wheel can spin freely because it has a well-greased axle and bearings. A wheel by itself cannot turn very well, and the same goes for the market.”

—Who puts the oil in the wheel gears?

“That's the job of market design. Part of what makes markets work well are good market rules. The government has a role in regulating markets, concerning property rights and things like that. But on another level, entrepreneurs do things. Here in Santiago I [can]... call an Uber using the same app and rules I use in California. Uber is a marketplace for passengers and drivers. The rules can be made by both private organizations and the government.”

On prices:

—Do prices matter?

"A lot. “Prices are important to help allocate scarce resources, but also to make them less scarce.”

...

—When do they not matter?

“Let me start with when they matter a lot: in commodity markets. If you want to buy commodities, price is really the only thing that's happening. But when 'El Mercurio' wants to hire journalists, it doesn't limit itself to offering a salary: it wants it to be a good job, with special reporters. Price is important, but in other markets other things are also important. When you get a new job, the first question your friends ask you is not what the salary is, but who you work for.”

On school choice:

“Most markets are not commodity markets... In some markets we don't like prices to work at all. One of the places where Chile is a leader in market design is school choice: how people are assigned to schools and Chile has done a lot of work on this, although mainly for public schools.”

—What do you know about this system in Chile?

“Not long ago, before there was centralized and widespread school choice in Chile, there were the usual problems with decentralized school choice; That is, parents had to get up early to get in line, and they had a difficult process to register their children.”

—The new system has been criticized. Some claim it caused more people to choose the private system over the public school system. Isn't it similar to what is happening in New York, for example?

“There is something to that. In New York and Boston we also have a system that we call charter schools: free access schools, but organized by private entities, even if they are municipal schools. And they also have different standards. School choice is important, but it does not solve the problems of poverty or income inequality. Now, one of the reasons we have school choice in the United States and perhaps also in Chile is because we think that, otherwise, there is a danger that the poor will be condemned to send their children to poor schools. .

—Has there been any successful case in which parents can honestly rank the order of preference for the school they want their children to go to?

“In Chile, procedures are used that [make it] what game  theorists call a dominant strategy to express true preferences. The [remaining] problem is not in creating systems that make it safe to express preferences, but in distributing the information so that people can form preferences sensibly. In the United States, the hardest families to reach are those who don't speak English at home, so it's sometimes difficult to communicate with them. And different families have different feelings about what kind of schools their children should attend.”

“The benefits of school choice come from the fact that some schools may be high quality for some children but not for others, so we would like children to attend the schools that are best quality for them.”

On kidneys:

—You are famous for the proposal that allowed the “kidney exchange.” Years after the first experience, what do you see now in this type of market?

“Kidney exchange is working quite well in the US, but it works especially well for patients who are not too difficult to match. Even in the US, a fairly large country, we have patients who are so difficult to match that we have trouble finding a kidney for them.”

—And in other countries?

“Smaller countries, with 20 million inhabitants, like Chile, would benefit if we could make national borders not so important. When we look at transplants per million inhabitants, Chile is in the middle of the world. But since it is a small country, when the total number of transplants performed is analyzed, Chile has very few. Kidneys are obtained from both deceased and living donors. In Chile, as in much of the world, the majority of transplants come from deceased donors. Kidney exchange would allow more transplants to come from living donors ... “Twenty million is not enough, so it would be very good to see in South America an exchange of kidneys that can cross between countries, which is not so easy to do.”

Equality of exchange and the role of perceptions

“One of the things that worries people when talking about transplants is that [they think it might be] a medical process that exploits the poor. Of course, the thing about kidney exchange is that each pair of people gives one kidney and receives one kidney. It is very egalitarian. I think kidney exchange is a good place to combat this notion that transplantation is like trafficking,” he notes.

—Notions, perceptions are very important. Many people think of “exchange” as the exchange of securities in the stock market.

“That's right, but not every exchange involves money. One of the discussions about money in the world that is taking place in the European Union at the moment is about payment to blood plasma donors. In the EU, only Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary pay blood plasma donors. And those are the only EU countries that have as much blood plasma as they need. The others have to import everything, and they do it from the United States. The United States is the Saudi Arabia of blood plasma (…) The World Health Organization says that plasma must be obtained in each country, and from unpaid donors. You have to be self-sufficient... an economist finds that a little funny. Blood is a matter of life and death. “When there is a pandemic, we do not tell countries that they must be self-sufficient [in vaccines].”

—When we talk about these exchanges of blood plasma and kidneys, school choice systems, we are talking about the same idea: coincident or paired markets. But the concept of the market has been so questioned, especially by some political groups, for so long...

"It's true. Now,  kidney exchange is special because money doesn't change hands. Money changes hands to get medical care, you have to pay doctors, nurses and hospitals. But we are not talking about buying kidneys from donors, but rather that, at the patient level, each pair receives a kidney and donates a kidney. It is radically egalitarian. Many people who think about markets may not think of it as a market, but I think that's a mistake. Many markets are not just about money… we would worry much less about markets if income and wealth inequality did not exist. “What worries us about markets is that some people are poor and some people are rich, and markets seem like a way to give the rich an advantage.”

“There is no doubt that being rich is better than being poor. The real question is what do we do to alleviate poverty. Making it invisible is not the same as alleviating it. One of the reasons I think many countries don't allow blood and plasma donors to be paid is because they don't like the way that looks. It reminds them that some people would like to get some money and would donate blood for it.”







Apparently, according to the caption, I'm "affable and smiling" (although not in this picture:)

I was in Chile to participate in what turned out to be a wonderful workshop on market design at the University of Chile, organized by Itai Ashlagi, José Correa, and Juan Escobar.
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Update (Dec. 27): Here's an account of my closing public talk from the U. Chile's Center for Mathematical Modeling, one of the hosts of the market design workshop.

And here's a picture at the close, including some of those mentioned above: At my far left in the picture is José Correa,  who in addition to his other roles is Vice Rector for Information Technologies. Next to him is Alejandra Mizala, prorrector (provost) of the university.  Next to her (immediately to my left) is Rector of the University of Chile, Rosa Devés, and immediately to my right is market designer and director of the MIPP Millennium Institute, Juan Escobar. Next to him is Héctor Ramírez, director of the Center for Mathematical Modeling. And next to him (at my far right) is professor Rafael Epstein who (along with Correa, Escobar, and his daughter Natalie Epstein) has been involved with school choice in Chile, among other things.



Saturday, December 23, 2023

Market design: some press accounts in Chile

 The recent market design workshop in Santiago was pretty thrilling, and I was asked to give some interviews and a public talk, which have now generated some press about market design.

Here's a post-talk story:

"Los mercados son artefactos humanos, son herramientas que construimos nosotros mismos para que nos ayuden" ["Markets are human artifacts, they are tools that we build ourselves to help us"]

Google translate does a good job, and the piece includes a video of my talk (starting at around minute 20:45 after a long wait between the start of live streaming and the actual start of the talk...). You can hear the talk in Spanish (only), the acute listener will notice that it's given in a woman's voice...)

******

Another article also has some pictures of the audience, and as this was the last act of the market design workshop, readers of this blog may recognize some people in one of the photos.

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Some earlier stories were published after I was interviewed during the workshop also in Spanish, also accessible by G translate):

“An international collaboration in South America for kidney transplantation would be useful”


Alvin Roth and lack of equity in the Chilean economic system: “Attention should focus on alleviating and abolishing poverty”

***********

After the workshop we explored Chile's Atacama with some colleagues including Itai Ashlagi and Ravi Jagadeesan:



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.



Sunday, December 17, 2023

Market Design Workshop 18 - 20 December 2023 Santiago, Chile

 Market Design Workshop  18 - 20 December 2023  Santiago, Chile

Here is the list of participants, and the program

I'll be speaking on Monday and then again on Wednesday.

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Unrest and then Covid delayed this conference:

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Market design workshop in Santiago, SUSPENDED

Politics can certainly get in the way of economics, even academic economics, as it turns out.  The organizers of a conference on matching and market design that I had planned to attend prudently decided  several weeks ago to postpone it, in light of the street demonstrations taking place in Chile.

 

 

 

Thursday, August 3, 2023

Market design conferences: Marseille, 11 – 15 December, and Santiago 18-20 December, 2023

 Here's the conference announcement from Marseille: 

From matchings to markets. A tale of Mathematics, Economics and Computer Science. Des matchings aux marchés. Une histoire de mathématiques. 11 – 15 December 2023, at the CIRM center in Marseille, France.

"This conference aims at gathering researchers from the fields of mathematics, computer science and economics (broadly defined) sharing common interests in the study of matching problems and the design of their markets. The presentations can cover a wide variety of topics and methods: specific matching markets, general models, theory, empirical analysis. . . etc"

Scientific Committee 
Comité scientifique 

Nick Arnosti (University of Minnesota)
Michal Feldman (Tel Aviv University)
Alfred Galichon (Science Po & New York University)
Michael Jordan (University of Stanford)
Claire Mathieu (CNRS – Collège France)

Organizing Committee
Comité d’organisation

Nick Arnosti (University of Minnesota)
Julien Combe (CREST & École Polytechnique)
Claire Mathieu (CNRS – Paris)
Vianney Perchet (ENSAE & Criteo AI lab)

*******
And here's the announcement of the conference in Santiago:

Keynote Speakers
Omar Besbes
Columbia University
Nicole Immorlica
Microsoft Research New England
Alvin Roth
Stanford University
Participants



Itai Ashlagi
Stanford University

Martin Castillo
New York University

Francisco Castro
University of California

José Correa
Universidad de Chile

Sofía Correa
Universidad de Chile

Andrés Cristi
Universidad de Chile

Juan Escobar
Universidad de Chile

Maximilien Ficht
Universidad de Chile

Yannai Gonczarowski
Harvard University

Nima Haghpanah
Pennsylvania State University

Jason Hartline
Northwestern University

Tibor Heumann
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Rahmi Ilkilic
Universidad de Chile

Revi Jagadeesan
Stanford University

Max Klimm
Technische Universität Berlin

Tomás Larroucau
Arizona State University

Mariana Laverde
Boston College

Ilan Lobel
New York University

Alfonso Montes
Universidad de Chile

Marcelo Olivares
Universidad de Chile

Renato Paes Leme
Google Research New York

Juan Sebastián Pereyra
Universidad de Montevideo

Adriana Piazza
Universidad de Chile

Dana Pizarro
Universidad de O'Higgins

Marco Scarsini
Universidad Luiss Guido Carli

Vasiliki Skreta
University of Texas at Austin

Laura Vargas-Koch
ETH Zurich

Víctor Verdugo
Universidad de O'Higgins

Matt Weinberg
Princeton University

Gabriel Weintraub
Stanford University

Asaf Zeevi
Columbia University

Thursday, June 23, 2022

School Choice in Chile

 Here's a recent report on the implementation of centralized school choice in Chile.

School Choice in Chile by José Correa, Natalie Epstein,  Rafael Epstein, Juan Escobar, Ignacio Rios, Nicol ́as Aramayo, Basti ́an Bahamondes, Carlos Bonet, Martin Castillo, Andres Cristi, Boris Epstein, and Felipe Subiabre, OPERATIONS RESEARCH Vol. 70, No. 2, March–April 2022, pp. 1066–1087

Abstract. "Centralized school admission mechanisms are an attractive way of improving social welfare and fairness in large educational systems. In this paper, we report the design and implementation of the newly established school choice system in Chile, where over 274,000 students applied to more than 6,400 schools. The Chilean system presents unprecedented design challenges that make it unique. First, it is a simultaneous nationwide system, making it one of the largest school choice problems worldwide. Second, the system is used for all school grade levels, from prekindergarten to 12th grade. One of our primary goals is to favor the assignment of siblings to the same school. By adapting the standard notions of stability, we show that a stable assignment may not exist. Hence, we propose a heuristic approach that elicits preferences and breaks ties between students in the same priority group at the family level. In terms of implementation, we adapt the deferred acceptance algorithm as in other systems around the world."


"From a practical standpoint, a key lesson is that maintaining continuous communication and collaboration with policymakers is essential, as many practical issues arise and must be incorporated into the design. In addition, decomposing the implementation into a given number of steps allowed us to gain experience, solve unexpected problems, and continuously improve the system. "

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

School choice in Latin America, in BBC News Mundo

 A news story with an unusually detailed account of school choice algorithms discusses some of the issues in Latin America, in Spanish, in BBC News Mundo. (Google translate does an adequate job...).  One of the issues discussed is that geographic priorities for schools give wealthier families an advantage, and perpetuate geographic segregation.

Qué es el Mecanismo de Boston y por qué expertos denuncian que hay segregación en las asignaciones de escuelas en América Latina  Analía Llorente  BBC News Mundo

[G translate: What is the Boston Mechanism and why experts denounce that there is segregation in school assignments in Latin America]

Some snippets:

"The Boston mechanism allows for a lot of parenting strategy and that means that it generates a lot of inequalities " [says] Paula Jaramillo, Associate Professor in Economics at the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia

...

"The criticism is against the Boston Mechanism because it continues to be applied, but it is also against the deferred acceptance method because it is generating segregation at the neighborhood level," says Caterina Calsamiglia, a leader in the investigation of these methods.

"The specialist refers to the fact that a student obtains more points for his proximity to the preferred school, therefore he has a greater chance of being admitted to it.

"This creates one of the main strategies is the moving neighborhood, decision can only carry out families with middle income to high, creating inequality."

...

"In many places in Latin America the selection method is not even regulated, and where it is, they are not very transparent with parents in communicating the methods.

"We know a lot about what is done by cities in the United States, in Europe, in Asia, we don't know so much about Latin America," says Paula Jaramillo.

...

"In conclusion, the experts believe that there is no magic method that can be applied uniformly in the countries of the region to avoid segregation and inequality in school selection.

"They agree that the deferred acceptance method is the "fairest" but not perfect. There are many factors to take into account from the quality of the schools to their location."

Saturday, May 2, 2020

Test design and gender gaps in performance--evidence from a national exam in Chile, by Coffman and Klinowski

Here's a recent paper from PNAS:

The impact of penalties for wrong answers on the gender gap in test scores
Katherine B. Coffman and   David Klinowski
PNAS April 21, 2020 117 (16) 8794-8803;

Abstract:
Multiple-choice examinations play a critical role in university admissions across the world. A key question is whether imposing penalties for wrong answers on these examinations deters guessing from women more than men, disadvantaging female test-takers. We consider data from a large-scale, high-stakes policy change that removed penalties for wrong answers on the national college entry examination in Chile. The policy change reduced a large gender gap in questions skipped. It also narrowed gender gaps in performance, primarily among high-performing test-takers, and in the fields of math, social science, and chemistry.

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Market design workshop in Santiago, SUSPENDED

Politics can certainly get in the way of economics, even academic economics, as it turns out.  The organizers of a conference on matching and market design that I had planned to attend prudently decided  several weeks ago to postpone it, in light of the street demonstrations taking place in Chile.

Market Design Workshop, 17 - 20 December, Santiago, Chile: SUSPENDED
Organizers: Itai Ashlagi, José Correa, Juan Escobar

"This workshop is a venue to discuss recent developments and methods in the area of market design, both from a theoretical and applied perspective. Central to the workshop is the multidisciplinary nature of the area so that an important goal is to bring together top researchers from three related scientific communities: Economists, Computer Scientists and researchers from Operations Management."
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Some background news:
How a $0.04 metro fare price hike sparked massive unrest in Chile
Thousands of people in Chile have taken to the streets to protest against the government.

and here's a more recent update:
Chile protests: UN accuses security forces of human rights abuses

Saturday, July 27, 2019

Compensation of kidney donors in Chile: an estimate of benefits

A look into a possible future, from the December 2019 issue of the Latin American Economic Review:

An analysis of economic incentives to encourage organ donation: evidence from Chile
Parada-Contzen, M. & Vásquez-Lavín, F. Lat Am Econ Rev (2019) 28: 6. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40503-019-0068-2

Abstract
We perform a cost–benefit analysis on the introduction of monetary incentives for living kidney donations by estimating the compensation that would make an individual indifferent between donating and not donating a kidney while alive using Chilean data. We find that monetary incentives of US$12,000 save US$38,000 to health care system per donor and up to US$169,871 when we consider the gains in quality of life of receiving an organ. As one allows the incentives to vary depending on the individual position on the wage distribution, the compensation ranges from US$4214 to US$83,953. Importantly, introducing payments to living donors payable by a third party helps patients who currently may not have access to necessary medical treatment. Therefore, exclusions in access for organs due to the monetary constraints can be prevented.

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

School choice is expanding in Chile

School choice is expanding in Chile:

Sistema de Admisión Escolar comienza a operar en Tarapacá, Coquimbo, O’Higgins y Los Lagos
Google translate: School Admission System starts operating in Tarapacá, Coquimbo, O'Higgins and Los Lagos

"This Thursday, August 30, the applications for the new Admission System for Schools in the Tarapacá, Coquimbo, O'Higgins and Los Lagos regions begin.

"The new admission mechanism was designed by the Ministry of Education in conjunction with Industrial Engineering academics - Rafael Epstein, José Correa and Juan Escobar - as well as a team made up of master students, professionals, doctoral students abroad and post -docs

"Applied science, not tombola  (AT of GT 'tombola' = lottery)

"Applied successfully in the region of Magallanes since 2016, the new School Admission System is designed with scientific rigor and the assignment of students to schools is the result of the celebrated Deferred Assignment Algorithm 

Monday, September 18, 2017

School choice in Chile (deferred acceptance algorithm)

There are new school choice systems being used this year in Chile, based on the deferred acceptance algorithm.

"La ciencia detrás del nuevo sistema--
Algoritmo promete terminar con filas y discriminación en la admisión escolar")

(Google Translate: The science behind the new system--
Algorithm promises to end rows and discrimination on school admission)


Here's a sentence that gives an indication of the old system the new school choice system replaces (courtesy of Google Translate):
"What is changing is the night and the long lines because it is a centralized postulation system that guarantees that all those who register in the agreed term do not have to queue and can apply from home."

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

School choice in Chile

La Tercera reviews the adoption of a deferred acceptance school choice system in parts of Chile:
Resultados y desafíos del nuevo sistema de admisión escolar

Google translate:
Results and challenges of the new school admission system

"The implementation of this new system counted on the participation of all the relevant actors. Schools actively informed parents about the various aspects of their educational programs and their vacancies. After accessing this information (either in person or via the web platform designed by Mineduc), the parents declared a list of preferences of the schools in which they wanted to enroll their children . The system is designed so that they express their preferences about different establishments in an honest and transparent way.

Many colleges have more applicants than quotas. To decide which students will be admitted to a facility, applicants are listed. This list respects the priorities indicated in the Law of Inclusion and guarantees equal opportunities by solving ties in a random manner.

Allocation mechanisms similar to those implemented in Magallanes are used in several countries around the world, highlighting the cases of the USA. (Boston and New York, among others), Holland and Finland. In each case, the DA algorithm must solve local demands that make each implementation unique and interesting. In Chile, for example, the law establishes priority criteria for applicants, so the allocation algorithm must give preponderance to siblings and children of officials, as well as those students considered to be priority because of their socioeconomic situation.

Our review of the 2016 process is positive. 3,580 students participated in two rounds of application: 3,147 exclusively in the main round, 222 in the second round and 211 in both. Of these applicants, in the main round, 1,959 (58.3%) were assigned to their first option, while in the second round this number reached 357 (82%). In the full process 3,107 students were assigned to one of their preferences, while 258 were withdrawn from the process. International experience shows that these numbers are positive. In New York, for example, in the process of admission to secondary education in 2006, about 40% of students were assigned to their favorite school.

One of the challenges for the next implementations is the simplification of the different stages of the process. Likewise, it is important to inform parents and guardians to motivate them to use the new admission system and, in this way, increase the chances of their children staying in a school that satisfies them. Our challenge is to scale this system to make the school assignment of all children in Chile."