Supplying Kidneys

Not enough info to answer. Not in favor of a kidney market that sells to highest bidder. Other ideas maybe. Question is not actionable.

That would mean valuing people's lives by their incomes. We already do that but moving further in that direction seems wrong.

It is important that the market is "well regulated" in order to avoid abuse and exploitation of the vulnerables.

This certainly may have unintended consequences but it is hard to fault attempting to create more supply.

Under strong governance that mitigates exploitation, this market may save lives on mutually consenting terms.

Dangerous ground, but a well-regulated experiment could be beneficial. Payments to fill out donor cards might increase supply, for example

A market with or without subsidies for low income patients?

Hard to know because we don't have much of an understanding of why people make organ gifts.

I'd like to see it but I'm not sure the public is ready. Also would insurance cover this? Would people be able to top up (presumably)?

Would improve allocative efficiency but means- and health-conditioned vouchers would presumably have to be used to address ethical concerns.

There is no reason to block this voluntary exchange. There may be unique challenges in applying laws against fraud, but nothing too hard.

Perhaps experiments in different regimes better idea.

We need to rationalize our organ allocation mechanism, but a market is not the only way, and is not obviously the best way.

How to deal with donors who don't understand risks, increased incentives to steal & import, perceived inequities...? Not simple.

Experiments seem valuable here, using health outcomes as our metric. Matching donors and recipients based in part on payment may be helpful.

The biggest impact would be to increase kidney supply, so few obvious losers from this policy

It would surely save lives of those with kidney disease. It would probably have unintended consequences as well.

How should we incorporate the fact that nearly all non-economists hate this idea? Do we declare them wrong and proceed?

As an economist, I strongly agree that there would be tremendous gains. But I'm uncertain of the appropriate bounds on market transactions.
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