Removing financial barriers to organ and bone marrow donation: The effect of leave and tax legislation in the U.S

Nicola Lacetera, Mario Macis and Sarah S. Stith

Journal of Health Economics, 2014, vol. 33, issue C, 43-56

Abstract: Many U.S. states have passed legislation providing leave to organ and bone marrow donors and/or tax benefits for live and deceased organ and bone marrow donations and to employers of donors. We exploit cross-state variation in the timing of such legislation to analyze its impact on organ donations by living and deceased persons, on measures of the quality of the transplants, and on the number of bone marrow donations. We find that these provisions do not have a significant impact on the quantity of organs donated. The leave laws, however, do have a positive impact on bone marrow donations, and the effect increases with the size of the population of beneficiaries and with the generosity of the legislative provisions. Our results suggest that this legislation works for moderately invasive procedures such as bone marrow donation, but these incentives may be too low for organ donation, which is riskier and more burdensome.

Keywords: Organ donation; Bone marrow donation; Leave and tax legislation; Policy evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Removing Financial Barriers to Organ and Bone Marrow Donation: The Effect of Leave and Tax Legislation in the U.S (2012)
Working Paper: Removing Financial Barriers to Organ and Bone Marrow Donation: The Effect of Leave and Tax Legislation in the U.S (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:33:y:2014:i:c:p:43-56

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2013.10.006

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