title: Incentivizing Organ Donor Registrations with Organ Allocation Priority.
abstract: How donor organs are allocated for transplant can affect their scarcity. In 2008, Israel's Parliament passed an Organ Transplantation Law granting priority on organ donor waiting lists to individuals who had previously registered as organ donors. Beginning in November 2010, public awareness campaigns advertised the priority policy to the public. Since April 2012, priority has been added to the routine medical criteria in organ allocation decisions. We evaluate the introduction of priority for registered organ donors using Israeli data on organ donor registration from 1992 to 2013. We find that registrations increased when information about the priority law was made widely available. We find an even larger increase in registration rates in the 2 months leading up to a program deadline, after which priority would only be granted with a 3-year delay. We also find that the registration rate responds positively to public awareness campaigns, to the ease of registration (i.e. allowing for registering online and by phone) and to an election drive that included placing registration opportunities in central voting locations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, DePaul University and Coherent Economics, Highland Park, IL, USA.
authors.forename: Avraham
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stoler
authors.affiliation: The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Judd B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Kessler
authors.affiliation: Israeli National Transplant Center, Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Tamar
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ashkenazi
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Alvin E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Roth
authors.affiliation: Tel Aviv University Faculty of Medicine and the Heart Transplantation Unit, Sheba Medical Center, Ramat Gan, Israel.
authors.forename: Jacob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lavee
mesh_terms: D015276:Health Care Rationing; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel; D009042:Motivation; D014019:Tissue Donors / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000523:psychology*; D009927:Tissue and Organ Procurement / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D014850:Waiting Lists
keywords: incentive for organ donation; organ allocation; organ donation; organ transplantation; transplant law