Removing Financial Barriers to Organ and Bone Marrow Donation: The Effect of Leave and Tax Legislation in the U.S

39 Pages Posted: 6 Oct 2012

See all articles by Nicola Lacetera

Nicola Lacetera

University of Toronto - Strategic Management; University of Toronto at Mississauga - Department of Management; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Mario Macis

Johns Hopkins University - Carey Business School; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Sarah Stith

University of Michigan, Stephen M. Ross School of Business

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Abstract

In an attempt to alleviate the shortfall in organs and bone marrow available for transplants, many U.S. states 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 and passage of such legislation to analyze its impact on organ donations by living and deceased persons, on measures of the quality of the organs transplanted, and on the number of bone marrow donations. We find that these provisions did not have a significant impact on the quantity of organs donated. The leave legislation, however, did have a positive impact on bone marrow donations. We also find some evidence of a positive impact on the quality of organ transplants, measured by post-transplant survival rates. Our results suggest that these types of legislation work for moderately invasive procedures such as bone marrow donation, but may be too low for organ donation, which is riskier and more burdensome to the donor.

The appendices for this paper are available at the following URL: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2337645

Keywords: incentives, altruism, organ donation, bone marrow donation

JEL Classification: D64, H41, I12, J18, K32

Suggested Citation

Lacetera, Nicola and Macis, Mario and Stith, Sarah, Removing Financial Barriers to Organ and Bone Marrow Donation: The Effect of Leave and Tax Legislation in the U.S. IZA Discussion Paper No. 6814, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2157956 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2157956

Nicola Lacetera (Contact Author)

University of Toronto - Strategic Management ( email )

Canada

University of Toronto at Mississauga - Department of Management

Canada

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Mario Macis

Johns Hopkins University - Carey Business School ( email )

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Baltimore, MD 21202
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IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( email )

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Germany

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

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Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Sarah Stith

University of Michigan, Stephen M. Ross School of Business ( email )

701 Tappan Street
Ann Arbor, MI MI 48109
United States

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