Sure, markets work well in general. But for some transactions — like school admissions and organ transplants — money alone can’t solve the problem. That’s when you need a market-design wizard like Al Roth. Plus: We hear from a listener who, inspired by this episode, made a remarkable decision.
Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner.
Before we get to today's episode, I have a couple announcements.
The first is a slight change of plans.
Last week we told you that this week's episode would be about the super agent and deal maker Ari Emanuel.
But that episode just isn't ready yet.
It's still in the oven, so you'll be hearing that next week.
Here's the other announcement.
We recently told you about a special series we're working on, a series about failure.
We all know failure can be hard to talk about, but there's also a lot to be learned from it.
So we asked you to send in your personal stories.
We got a lot of replies, but the vast majority were from men.
We know that about half of our listeners are women, but for some reason, those weren't the listeners who got back to us.
It could be that women simply don't fail as much, but we want to hear those stories too.
So if you are female and have any kind of failure story to tell, personal, professional, academic, creative, whatever, we want to hear it.
Just send an email to radioreakonomics.com with the subject line failure.
Thanks.
Now, about today's show.
Last month, the federal government announced plans to modernize the us organ donation system.
They want to speed up the process by which organ transplant patients are matched with donated organs.
They also want to reduce racial inequities in the system.