Moral Economics

Nobel Prize winner Alvin Roth argues that our most important and difficult decisions - about our most controversial issues - require a different calculation of what matters most. Our intuitive and automatic thinking is influenced - in ways we don't always recognize - by strongly-held notions of repugnance. A transaction is repugnant if some people want to engage in it, and others think they shouldn't be allowed to. You Can't Do That explores how ideas about repugnance have changed drastically over time, and examines the causes and consequences of forbidding transactions in our most intimate relationships (such as sex, reproduction, or donating blood) and our commercial relationships (finance, labor, or data use). Leading economist Alvin Roth turns his attention to a controversial set of markets to answer difficult questions about allowing, regulating or forbidding certain transactions. Should narcotics be legalised? Should we allow compensation for kidney donors, or let thousands of people die each year while waiting for an altruistic kidney? Should we allow physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients who desire death with dignity? Roth's goal is not to tell us what to think, but to give us a new framework for how to think - balancing the rights of people to pursue their individual and mutual goals with the need to protect society's most vulnerable members from harms that might arise from markets, including black markets, growing without boundaries. This is about trade-offs, not moral absolutes. Combining Roth's expertise in market design with his skill in making complicated ideas accessible, You Can't Do That examines how to make those trade-offs in the most humane, beneficial, and efficient ways.

Nobel Prize winner Alvin Roth argues that our most important and difficult decisions - about our most controversial issues - require a different calculation of what matters most. Our intuitive and automatic thinking is influenced - in ways we don't always recognize - by strongly-held notions of repugnance. A transaction is repugnant if some people want to engage in it, and others think they shouldn't be allowed to. You Can't Do That explores how ideas about repugnance have changed drastically over time, and examines the causes and consequences of forbidding transactions in our most intimate relationships (such as sex, reproduction, or donating blood) and our commercial relationships (finance, labor, or data use). Leading economist Alvin Roth turns his attention to a controversial set of markets to answer difficult questions about allowing, regulating or forbidding certain transactions. Should narcotics be legalised? Should we allow compensation for kidney donors, or let thousands of people die each year while waiting for an altruistic kidney? Should we allow physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients who desire death with dignity? Roth's goal is not to tell us what to think, but to give us a new framework for how to think - balancing the rights of people to pursue their individual and mutual goals with the need to protect society's most vulnerable members from harms that might arise from markets, including black markets, growing without boundaries. This is about trade-offs, not moral absolutes. Combining Roth's expertise in market design with his skill in making complicated ideas accessible, You Can't Do That examines how to make those trade-offs in the most humane, beneficial, and efficient ways.

A Nobel Prize-⁠winning economist shows us why we have to deal in trade-offs when we can't agree on what's right and what's wrong. Some of the most intractable controversies in our divided society are, at bottom, about what actions and transactions should be banned. Should women and couples be able to purchase contraception, access in vitro fertilization, and end pregnancy by obtaining an abortion? Should people be able to buy marijuana? What about fentanyl? Can someone be paid to donate blood plasma, or a kidney? Disagreements are fierce because arguments on both sides are often made in uncompromising moral or religious terms. But in Moral Economics , Nobel Prize-winning economist Alvin E. Roth asserts that we can make progress on these and other difficult topics if we view them as markets-tools to help decide who gets what-and understand how those markets can be fine-tuned to be more functional. Markets don't have to allow everything or ban everything. Prudent market design can find a balance between preserving people's rights to pursue their own interests and protecting the most vulnerable from harms. Combining Roth's unparalleled expertise as market design pioneer with his incisive, witty accounts of complicated issues, Moral Economics offers a powerful and innovative new framework for resolving today's hardest controversies.

A Nobel Prize-⁠winning economist shows us why we have to deal in trade-offs when we can't agree on what's right and what's wrong. Some of the most intractable controversies in our divided society are, at bottom, about what actions and transactions should be banned. Should women and couples be able to purchase contraception, access in vitro fertilization, and end pregnancy by obtaining an abortion? Should people be able to buy marijuana? What about fentanyl? Can someone be paid to donate blood plasma, or a kidney? Disagreements are fierce because arguments on both sides are often made in uncompromising moral or religious terms. But in Moral Economics , Nobel Prize-winning economist Alvin E. Roth asserts that we can make progress on these and other difficult topics if we view them as markets-tools to help decide who gets what-and understand how those markets can be fine-tuned to be more functional. Markets don't have to allow everything or ban everything. Prudent market design can find a balance between preserving people's rights to pursue their own interests and protecting the most vulnerable from harms. Combining Roth's unparalleled expertise as market design pioneer with his incisive, witty accounts of complicated issues, Moral Economics offers a powerful and innovative new framework for resolving today's hardest controversies.