Incentivizing Organ Donation Under Different Priority Rules: The Role of Information

Mengling Li () and Yohanes Riyanto
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Mengling Li: MOE Key Laboratory of Econometrics, Department of Economics, School of Economics, Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics, Fujian Key Laboratory of Statistics, Xiamen University, Fujian 361005, China

Management Science, 2025, vol. 71, issue 2, 1418-1437

Abstract: This paper examines the incentive to register for deceased organ donation under alternative organ allocation priority rules, which may prioritize registered donors and/or patients with higher valuations for organ transplantation. Specifically, the donor priority rule grants higher priority on the organ waiting list to those who have previously registered as donors. The dual-incentive priority rules allocate organs based on donor status, followed by individual valuations within the same donor status, or vice versa. Both theoretical and experimental results suggest that the efficacy of the donor priority rule and the dual-incentive priority rules critically depends on the information environment. When organ transplantation valuations are unobservable prior to making donation decisions, the hybrid dual-incentive rules generate higher donation rates. In contrast, if valuations are observable, the dual-incentive priority rules create unbalanced incentives between high- and low-value agents, potentially undermining the efficacy of the hybrid dual-incentive rules in increasing overall donation rates.

Keywords: organ donation; priority rule; dual incentive; information; laboratory experiment; behavioral economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:71:y:2025:i:2:p:1418-1437

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