Episode Details

When markets meet morality, hard choices follow — Nobel laureate Alvin E. Roth maps the trade-offs between efficiency and ethics. (Condensed from ~1h58 to ~18m.) Dax Shepard and Monica Padman guide a fast-paced tour of matching markets, kidney and plasma exchanges, surrogacy, paid donations, and “repugnant” transactions, with Roth explaining why design, regulation, and honest trade-offs matter. Listeners will learn how matching algorithms solved residency and kidney-pair problems, why bans can push markets underground, and how policy experiments and data can improve outcomes while respecting moral concerns. Topics include market design, organ exchange, reproductive markets, drug and vaccine policy, and the ethics of technology and regulation. Hosts: Dax Shepard, Monica Padman; Guest: Alvin E. Roth. Listen now to get the key ideas in minutes.