TY  - JOUR
AU  - Roth,Alvin E.
TI  - Repugnance as a Constraint on Markets
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12702
PY  - 2006
Y2  - November 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12702
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12702.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Alvin E. Roth
Harvard University
Department of Economics
Littauer 308
Cambridge, MA 02138-3001
Tel: 617/496-6009 (econ)
Fax: 617/495-6537
E-Mail: aroth@hbs.edu
AB  - This essay examines how repugnance sometimes constrains what transactions and markets we see. When my colleagues and I have helped design markets and allocation procedures, we have often found that distaste for certain kinds of transactions is a real constraint, every bit as real as the constraints imposed by technology or by the requirements of incentives and efficiency.  I'll first consider a range of examples, from slavery and indentured servitude (which once were not as repugnant as they now are) to lending money for interest (which used to be widely repugnant and is now not), and from bans on eating horse meat in California to bans on dwarf tossing in France.  An example of special interest will be the widespread laws against the buying and selling of organs for transplantation. The historical record suggests that while repugnance can change over time, change can be quite slow.
ER  -