Aug 25, 2026 · 16 min
Al Roth tests morality against market consequences
Why Doing the “Right Thing” Can Make Everything Worse (#316)
The episode asks whether policies meant to protect people can worsen outcomes when they ignore persistent demand, incentives, and evidence.
- 1Market design can ease kidney shortages by improving matches without requiring people to change their basic behavior.
- 2Bans may drive demand underground, reducing transparency and creating harms that policymakers did not intend.
- 3Careful experiments can test incentives and consequences when moral disagreement makes ideal policies impossible.
Don't miss
Roth recounts how a drafting error temporarily legalized indoor prostitution in Rhode Island and what the resulting evidence suggested.
The brief
Al Roth explains how market design can improve kidney exchanges and other systems involving scarce resources without trying to remake human behavior.
The conversation turns to bans on heroin and alcohol, arguing that suppressing demand can push markets underground and strengthen criminal organizations.
A drafting error temporarily legalized indoor prostitution in Rhode Island, creating evidence of lower violence, sexual assault, and sexually transmitted diseases alongside unresolved moral questions.
Roth supports carefully limited experiments with kidney-donor incentives, while acknowledging that policy choices involve trade-offs when ideal outcomes are unavailable.
The episode’s broader lesson is that markets and bans both require social support, and consequences—not intentions alone—should guide policy.
Featuring
Moral Economics
Rhode Island
United States CongressBooks & mentions
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