Incentivizing Organ Donation Under Different Priority Rules: The Role of Information.

This article investigates how different organ allocation priority rules influence incentives for registering as deceased organ donors, focusing on the role of information about patients' valuations for transplantation. It compares four priority rules—Value Priority (based solely on patients' transplant value), Donor Priority (favoring registered donors), and two hybrid dual-incentive rules combining donor status and value in different orders—under two information environments: one where individuals know their transplant valuation before deciding to donate (observed value) and one where they do not (unobserved value). Theoretical analysis and laboratory experiments with human subjects reveal that when valuations are unobserved, the Donor + Value Priority Rule yields the highest donation rates, whereas when valuations are observed, the Donor Priority Rule outperforms the dual-incentive rules due to incentive imbalances between high- and low-value individuals. These findings underscore the critical impact of information disclosure on the effectiveness of priority-based organ allocation policies and suggest that policy design must carefully consider the interaction between allocation criteria and information environments to enhance organ donation rates.