Outsourcing Embryos: An Examination of the Maternal Surrogacy Market

Deepan Islam
Additional contact information
Deepan Islam: The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise

No 99, Studies in Applied Economics from The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise

Abstract: The word “market” brings to mind a grocery shop or perhaps the financial markets. However, with the advancements in reproductive technologies in the last thirty years, there is now an established market for sperm, eggs, fertilization techniques and even wombs. Surrogacy is a topic that most Americans are unfamiliar with; only a small percentage of American couples are infertile. However, surrogacy has made its popular culture debut with Kim Kardashian announcing her use of a maternal surrogate for her third child. I seek to provide an analysis for commercial surrogacy contracts and the gestational surrogacy market. Despite the lack of official statistics on the gestational surrogacy market, it is estimated to grow to a $4 billion global market by 2020, which makes it an interesting market to examine.

Keywords: embryos; in vitro fertilization; maternal surrogacy; commercial surrogacy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2018-01
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2020/01/Ou ... l_Deepan-Islam-1.pdf Full 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:ris:jhisae:0099

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Studies in Applied Economics from The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Steve H. Hanke ().