Welcome to the Cato podcast. I'm Ryan Bourne, Cato's R. Evan Schaff Chair for the Public Understanding of Economics.

Today we're discussing one of the hardest questions for a free society.

When should people be allowed to make voluntary exchanges that others find morally disturbing?

In his new book, Moral Economics,

from prostitution to organ sales, what controversial transactions reveal about how markets work,

Alvin Roth explores what economists call repugnant markets, transactions that willing participants may want to make, but that third parties often seek to

restrict or ban. These include things like organ donation, surrogacy, adoption, prostitution,

gambling, medical aid in dying, price gouging, and much more. In each case, economic exchange

runs into moral objections, whether rooted in outright disgust, paternalistic concerns

about coercion, or fears that allowing the transaction will somehow corrupt social life.

Professor Roth is a Nobel Prize winning economist and one of the world's leading experts on

market design, and we're very grateful that he's our guests at Cato today. So, Professor Roth,

welcome to the podcast. Glad to be here. Let's start with some table setting. What is a repugnant

market? Well, I talk about a repugnant transaction as being one that some people would like to engage

in and other people think they

shouldn't be allowed to without measurable negative externalities to the people who are objecting.

So the objections are often on a moral or religious grounds.

And these are not just markets in which money exchange is involved necessarily?

Certainly they're not just markets where money is exchanged.

But often money adds repugnance to some transaction that isn't so repugnant without money.

So, for example, the exchange of money is what turns sex into prostitution.

Yeah, no, I think the first point you made is a really important one.

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