Behavioral economics once held strong hopes for presumed-consent defaults, but organ recovery still typically involves the next of kin. Research finds little difference between opt-in and opt-out countries because an affirmative family decision remains central, while explicit registration provides clearer evidence of the deceased person's wishes.

US organ donation requires an affirmative gift under current law
Opt-out countries still consult next of kin
Family consent can neutralize the expected default effect
Explicit registration communicates the donor's actual wishes
Observed donation outcomes show little opt-in versus opt-out difference

“There are many places where it works. Well, this is a case where it doesn't.”
Judd Kessler · 52:49

“there just isn't a delta between the countries that use opt in and the countries that use opt out.”
Judd Kessler · 53:30

#organ donation#defaults#nudges#behavioral economics

Hot Take· 1

Hot Take32:59

Below-Market Tickets Invite Brokers to Capture the Difference

When tickets are initially sold below market value and can be resold, brokers have an incentive to capture the price difference. First-come systems intensify the problem because automated bots can outrun human buyers, while resale platforms profit from fees on the secondary transaction.

Below-market prices create resale surplus
Brokers enter specifically to capture that surplus
Bots dominate first-come online races
Resale bans can produce empty seats when plans change
Secondary platforms profit from facilitating the markup

“you will get middleman. You will get speculators or brokers who come in exclusively to try to extract surplus”
Judd Kessler · 33:11

“Ticketmaster, where I was reselling them, I was buying them and then I had friends who canceled how to resell them, was getting thirty percent…”
Judd Kessler · 35:39

#tickets#resale#bots#brokers#platforms

Explainer· 5

Explainer04:37

Why Unequal Benefits Can Collapse Shared Effort

Kessler's early experiment found that unequal rewards did not necessarily hurt cooperation when both people had to match contributions. Cooperation collapsed when one participant could reduce effort, free-ride on the other, and still receive a share of the public good.

Matched contributions sustained cooperation despite unequal benefits
Free-riding opportunities destabilized unequal arrangements
Household routines such as healthy meals illustrate the mechanism
The problem intensifies when one partner values the shared outcome more

“But when we're split unequally and one of us can free ride off each other, the contribution collapses.”
Judd Kessler · 05:22

“Those are the situations where, you know, my wife and I have conflicts”
Judd Kessler · 05:31

#cooperation#public goods#households#free riding

Explainer29:44

Why Sellers Sometimes Price Below What the Market Will Bear

Restaurants, product makers, and performers may deliberately leave excess demand rather than maximize immediate revenue. Visible scarcity can generate attention and future demand, while lower prices may protect reputation, accessibility, or allocation to passionate customers.

Lines can signal quality to people unfamiliar with a business
Scarcity can amplify buzz around fad products
Artists may value fan access and reputation alongside revenue
The highest payer is not necessarily the person who values attendance most

“In those cases, I think one of the reasons is to bolster future demand.”
Judd Kessler · 30:13

“there's no guarantee that the person who can pay the most actually values going to the concert the most.”
Judd Kessler · 32:17

#pricing#scarcity#marketing#demand

Explainer45:28

Why Kidney Patients Dominate the Transplant Waiting List

Kidney failure differs from other organ failure because dialysis can sustain patients for years, creating a very long waiting list. The sequential offer process must balance waiting time, medical compatibility, location, and rapidly expiring information, contributing to donated kidneys going unused.

About 90 percent of listed transplant candidates are waiting for kidneys
Dialysis extends survival but is painful, time intensive, and expensive
Medicare bears much of the financial cost
Kidney offers depend on distance, match quality, and waiting time
Limited testing and transport time can prevent full use of donated organs

“this is why the waiting list for kidneys is so long, because folks can kind of wait for an extended period of time.”
Judd Kessler · 46:34

“it's basically one percent of the federal budget is spent on end stage renal disease”
Judd Kessler · 47:05

#kidneys#transplants#dialysis#healthcare

Explainer49:01

Israel Rewards Registered Donors With Future Transplant Priority

Israel gives transplant priority to people who registered as donors sufficiently far in advance, rewarding contributions that make organs less scarce. Kessler's research found that modeled priority incentives increased willingness to donate and estimated roughly 100,000 additional registrations around Israel's implementation.

Registered donors contribute to a public pool of scarce organs
Future priority creates a reciprocal incentive to register
Israel uses a three-year delay before priority activates
The delay blocks patients from registering only after becoming ill
Comparable incentive systems exist in several other countries

“When folks agreed a register, they are making this scarce resource the organ They're making it be less scarce.”
Judd Kessler · 49:55

“our estimates suggests about one hundred thousand more people.”
Judd Kessler · 51:06

#organ donation#incentives#israel#reciprocity

Explainer57:55

Price Controls Can Create Scarcity for the Lucky Few

Affordable-housing mandates and rent controls lower costs for selected residents but can create heavily oversubscribed hidden markets. Winners may become locked into units that do not match their preferred neighborhoods, while new arrivals continue facing the broader supply shortage.

New developments may reserve a share of units as affordable
New York lotteries drew roughly six million applications for 10,000 units
Winning odds were about one in 600 per entry
Winners can face golden handcuffs when affordable units are poorly located
Price caps do not by themselves solve insufficient housing supply

“It's it's affordability for the lucky few, but not for other folks who are moving to the city for the first time and want to…”
Judd Kessler · 59:45

“If you want to bring costs down, you have to increase supply.”
Barry Ritholtz · 1:00:38

#housing#rent control#lotteries#price controls#supply

Story· 2

Story01:12

How an Undergraduate Experiment Created an Economist

Kessler entered college expecting a nonacademic career but discovered research while writing a thesis under Alvin Roth. Designing an experiment and becoming the first person to inspect its results gave him a sense of exploration that coursework alone had not provided.

Kessler originally expected to become a consultant
His thesis tested public-good contributions between pairs
Research questions sustained his interest when coursework did not
Seeing new data made academic research feel like frontier exploration

“I'm never going to be an astronaut, but I'm on the frontier here exploring the answer to this question that interests me.”
Judd Kessler · 03:35

“I'm looking at the data and discovering the answer.”
Judd Kessler · 03:42

#economics#research#career#experiments

Story42:06

How the Draft Lottery Changed Who Bore the Cost of Vietnam

Before the lottery, deferments and local influence enabled wealthier and better-connected men to avoid military service disproportionately. Randomly ordering birth dates made exposure more equitable, and historians argue that bringing influential families into the draft helped strengthen opposition to the war.

The earlier draft contained exploitable deferments and loopholes
Connections and socioeconomic status affected access to avoidance routes
The lottery randomly ordered 366 possible birth dates
Broader exposure increased political pressure against the war

“The loopholes were kind of played by a few”
Judd Kessler · 43:51

“this helped facilitate the anti war movement and that eventually got the US out of Southeast Asia.”
Judd Kessler · 44:53

#vietnam#lottery#equity#politics

Takeaway· 1

Takeaway1:09:37

Before Pursuing a PhD, Test Whether You Actually Enjoy Research

Kessler advises recent graduates to gain direct research experience before committing to academia, especially as tenure-track opportunities tighten. Predoctoral roles, research-assistant positions, and master's programs can reveal whether the work fits before someone undertakes a long doctoral path.

Academic hiring is becoming more difficult
Research work differs from classroom study
Predoctoral programs provide supervised project experience
Master's programs can test comfort with advanced coursework
A PhD makes sense primarily for jobs that genuinely require one

“that is to get some experience doing research to see if you like it.”
Judd Kessler · 1:09:57

“you should only do it if you really want to have a job that only someone with a PhD can have”
Judd Kessler · 1:11:30

#academia#phd#careers#research

Frameworks in this episode

Hidden Market Strategy

Settle for Silver Strategy

The Three E's Market Design Scorecard

Whole-Task Ownership

Insights & moments

⚡Myth Buster· 1

Why Opt-Out Defaults Do Not Automatically Produce More Donors

◆Hot Take· 1