More from the Author

• Article | Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization | June 2013

  Opting-in: Participation Bias in Economic Experiments

  Robert Slonim, Carmen Wang, Ellen Garbarino and Danielle Merrett

  Assuming individuals rationally decide whether to participate or not to participate in lab experiments, we hypothesize several non-representative biases in the characteristics of lab participants. We test the hypotheses by first collecting survey and experimental data from a typical recruitment population and then inviting them to participate in a lab experiment. The results indicate that lab participants are not representative of the target population on almost all the hypothesized characteristics, including having lower income, working fewer hours, volunteering more often, and exhibiting behaviors correlated with interest in experiments and economics. The results reinforce the commonly understood limits of laboratory research to make quantitative inferences. We also discuss several methods for addressing non-representative biases to advance laboratory methods for improving quantitative inferences and consequently increasing confidence in qualitative conclusions.

  Citation:

  Slonim, Robert, Carmen Wang, Ellen Garbarino, and Danielle Merrett. "Opting-in: Participation Bias in Economic Experiments." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 90 (June 2013): 43–70.

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• Working Paper | 2012

  The Need for (long) Chains in Kidney Exchange

  Itai Ashlagi, David Gamarnik, Michael A. Rees and Alvin E. Roth

  It has been previously shown that for sufficiently large pools of patient-donor pairs, (almost) efficient kidney exchange can be achieved by using at most 3-way cycles, i.e., by using cycles among no more than 3 patient-donor pairs. However, as kidney exchange has grown in practice, cycles among n>3 pairs have proved useful, and long chains initiated by non-directed, altruistic donors have proven to be very effective. We explore why this is the case, both empirically and theoretically. We provide an analytical model of exchange when there are many highly sensitized patients and show that large cycles of exchange or long chains can significantly increase efficiency when the opportunities for exchange are sparse. As very large cycles of exchange cannot be used in practice, long non-simultaneous chains initiated by non-directed donors significantly increase efficiency in patient pools of the size and composition that presently exist. Most importantly, long chains benefit highly sensitized patients without harming low-sensitized patients.

  Citation:

  Ashlagi, Itai, David Gamarnik, Michael A. Rees, and Alvin E. Roth. "The Need for (long) Chains in Kidney Exchange." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 18202, July 2012.

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• Editorial | American Journal of Transplantation | December 2011

  NEAD Chains in Transplantation

  Itai Ashlagi, Duncan S. Gilchrist, Alvin E. Roth and Michael A. Rees

  Citation:

  Ashlagi, Itai, Duncan S. Gilchrist, Alvin E. Roth, and Michael A. Rees. "NEAD Chains in Transplantation." American Journal of Transplantation 11 (December 2011): 2780–2781. (Letter to the Editor.)

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