Next Up: The Parthenon Marbles in the British Museum

Though kidneys, vice, and Law and Economics are not exactly behind me, the next public commitment is to produce a paper on the Parthenon Marbles in the British Museum. I aim to have the final draft done by September 15, 2015. The topic received some attention in my Law and Economics book, and I want to expand upon it. So, the first draft I am scheduling for July 15, 2015, and the second draft for August 31, 2015. That's all, two drafts and a "final" version. I am becoming more economical with drafts, and might even move to an all-volunteer system eventually -- I hear that such systems are more efficient than relying upon a draft.

That Third Vice Paper

Perhaps my draft schedule ended up not being a precise reflection of reality, but the third vice paper was completed and presented. The title is "Robust Alcohol Policy in Russia: Some Aspirational Measures;" rush to download it at ssrn.com by clicking here.

Here's the abstract:

Alcohol consumption is associated with severe externalities as well as negative effects suffered by drinkers themselves. The usual economics prescription for promoting social well-being in the face of externalities is to apply regulations, including taxes, to force decision makers to confront the full social costs of their choices. Self-harms suffered by rational and informed adult alcohol drinkers, alternatively, offer little rationale (by the lights of traditional economics) for coercive policies aimed at stemming alcohol consumption.

The inherent unknowability of the extent of rationality in drinking decisions suggests that the “first best” policy of leaving rational drinking unfettered, while attempting to adjust potentially irrational choices, is not available in practice. The contention of this paper is that a second-best approach should be robust, in the sense that the policy regime will work fairly well when drinkers are fully rational, and also will do a creditable job of serving social well-being when alcohol-related choices are marked by substantial rationality shortfalls. In the case of the Russian Federation, some policies that mark rather severe departures from the current alcohol system, but are consistent with robustness, include: voluntary self-exclusion from either alcohol purchases or consumption; mandatory exclusion for those who produce external alcohol-related harms; and, a buyer licensing scheme that relies on a “double default” system to reduce both alcohol prevalence and the harms that stem from the drinking that does take place. This paper explicates these “aspirational” alcohol control policies.

Third Vice Paper!

OK, if  things go according to plan, I will be presenting a vice policy paper in May, 2015, so I have to start writing one. Here are my first two self-imposed deadlines:

(1) Short Description of Paper: Wednesday, January 14, 2015
(2) Draft One: Wednesday, February 18, 2015.

Off we go.....

Kidney Update

The (second) kidney paper was written and presented, has been revised, and needs to be revised some more. My goal is to finish the revisions by the end of January and to post the resulting paper on SSRN. Then we will think about potential publishing outlets. Incidentally, the first kidney paper is now published. So, that is the kidney plan for the nonce: revised version, not too embarrassing, due on January 31.

I should report that I have yet to tackle the book I mentioned in the previous post, Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm, by Rene Almeling. I don't think that I will be able to get to it in the next few months, alas.

Kidney Failure

Oh no, my deadlines have come and gone. Work on the kidney transplant paper has been minimal. I did make progress on my larger project, however, so I won't claim that all has been unproductive. It does mean that I am well behind on the kidney paper, though. I'd like to have a very rough draft in  a few days.

One goal I did reach was to finish reading The Kidney Sellers, by Sigrid Fry-Revere, on the Iranian system(s) of compensated donations. I learned a heap from this fine book. My next reading goal is to take on Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm, by Rene Almeling, but I will need a few weeks for this one, I think.

The Next Challenge

From Vice to Kidneys. The Five Drafts commitment device, which more-or-less has succeeded for two vice papers, is now being repositioned for a paper offering a behavioral economics take on compensated live kidney donations. One complication/improvement is that this paper involves a mystery co-author, who will be revealed at a later date!

We seem to be having fewer and fewer drafts.....hmmm. Anyway, I am calling for three drafts for this paper, at least for the version that is scheduled to be presented at a conference. Here's the schedule:

Draft One: Saturday, August 2, 2014
Draft Two: Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Draft Three: Wednesday, September 3, 2014.

The main confounding factor is the looming deadline for my larger project. Oh, but I do want to make a kidney reading commitment. I hope, within one week, to complete reading the very interesting book, The Kidney Sellers, by Sigrid Fry-Revere, concerning the Iranian system(s) of compensated donations; it's been a treat so far.

Here's the current abstract:

Healthy adults are allowed, and even encouraged, to donate a kidney to patients in dire need of a functional kidney. The encouragement can take various forms, but under US law (and under the laws of most other jurisdictions), a kidney donor cannot receive any “valuable consideration.” The standard contention that informed, rational, voluntary exchange between adults is mutually (and, absent negative externalities) socially beneficial does not carry the day with respect to current public policy towards compensated kidney donations.

Arguments in support of the ban, then, tend to focus on the extent to which a compensated kidney transfer is informed and voluntary and rational, and on the possibility of negative externalities. Those externalities might be of an abstract nature, such as a view that organ sales are repugnant (Roth, 2007). The wide support that uncompensated kidney donation receives, however, suggests that considerations of coercion, poor information, departures from rationality, and negative externalities are perceived as being more potent in the realm of organ transactions when valuable consideration is added into the mix.

Departures from rationality in individual decision making are the central focus of behavioral economics, and hence behavioral economics has direct applicability to the debate on compensated organ donations. In Beard and Leitzel (2013), we briefly discussed some behavioral influences – risk misperceptions, loss aversion, the endowment effect, and present bias – on the decision to donate a kidney. The goal here is to broaden and deepen that analysis, and to go beyond donors to look at behavioral influences on four other sets of actors: patients and potential patients, family members of patients, organ procurement agents, and physicians and other medical personnel. How does the addition of valuable compensation to organ donors influence the rationality of the decisionmaking of all actors involved in transplants? How can a compensated system be designed to address the concerns that are heightened with respect to kidney sales as opposed to uncompensated donations?

Update on the Four Drafts Paper

Back in early April we posted Draft 3.5a of the handbook chapter on vice regulation. Just wanted to indicate what happened from that point. First, a version nearly identical to Draft 3.5a was sent to the editor of the volume at about the same time that the draft was posted here. A mildly updated version was sent a few weeks later, and that is where things now stand. The editor's initial reaction was rather favorable, so if all goes well, the revisions for the published version will be minimal -- I'll let the devoted Five Drafts reader know about any new developments. But now, I need to set some draft deadlines for another paper....