Efficient Kidney Exchange: Coincidence of Wants in Markets with Compatibility-Based Preferences

Tayfun Sönmez, Alvin Roth and Utku Unver

American Economic Review, 2007, vol. 97, issue 3, 828-851

Abstract: Patients needing kidney transplants may have donors who cannot donate to them because of blood or tissue incompatibility. Incompatible patient-donor pairs can exchange donor kidneys with other pairs only when there is a "double coincidence of wants." Developing infrastructure to perform three-way as well as two-way exchanges will have a substantial effect on the number of transplants that can be arranged. Larger than three-way exchanges have less impact on efficiency. In a general model of type-compatible exchanges, the size of the largest exchanges required to achieve efficiency equals the number of types. (JEL C78, I12)

Date: 2007
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.97.3.828
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