Blood Allocation with Replacement Donors: A Theory of Multi-unit Exchange with Compatibility-based Preferences

Xiang Han (), Onur Kesten () and Utku Unver
Additional contact information
Xiang Han: Shanghai University of Finance and Economics
Onur Kesten: University of Sydney

No 1038, Boston College Working Papers in Economics from Boston College Department of Economics

Abstract: In 56 developing and developed countries, blood component donations by volunteer non-remunerated donors can only meet less than 50% of the demand. In these countries, blood banks rely on replacement donor programs that provide blood to patients in return for donations made by their relatives or friends. These programs appear to be disorganized, non-transparent, and inefficient. We introduce the design of replacement donor programs and blood allocation schemes as a new application of market design. We introduce optimal blood allocation mechanisms that accommodate fairness, efficiency, and other allocation objectives, together with endogenous exchange rates between received and donated blood units beyond the classical one-for-one exchange. Additionally, the mechanisms provide correct incentives for the patients to bring forward as many replacement donors as possible. This framework and the mechanism class also apply to general applications of multi-unit exchange of indivisible goods with compatibility-based preferences beyond blood allocation with different information problems.

Keywords: Blood transfusion; market design; multi-unit exchange; dichotomous preferences; endogenous pricing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 D47 D78 D82 I19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-06-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-des and nep-ore
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/wp1038.pdf main text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:boc:bocoec:1038

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Boston College Working Papers in Economics from Boston College Department of Economics Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill MA 02467 USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christopher F Baum ().