Working Paper: NBER ID: w25581
Authors: Julio J. Elias; Nicola Lacetera; Mario Macis
Abstract: Legislation and public policies are often the result of competition and compromise between different views and interests. In several cases, strongly held moral beliefs voiced by societal groups lead lawmakers to prohibit certain transactions or to prevent them from occurring through markets. However, there is limited evidence about the specific nature of the general population’s opposition to using prices in such contentious transactions. We conducted a randomized survey with 2,666 American residents to study preferences for legalizing payments to kidney donors. We found strong polarization, with many participants supporting or opposing payments regardless of potential transplant gains. However, about 18 percent of respondents would switch to favoring payments for sufficiently large increases in transplants. Preferences for compensation have strong moral foundations; participants especially reject direct payments by patients, which they find would violate principles of fairness. We corroborate the interpretation of our findings with a choice experiment of a costly decision to donate money to a foundation that supports donor compensation.
Keywords: kidney donation; payments to donors; moral foundations; public preferences
JEL Codes: D01; D47; D63; I11
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| identity of payer (H55) | moral judgments (A13) |
| increases in transplants (I15) | support for compensating donors (D64) |
| moral considerations (A13) | support for paid-donor systems (F35) |
| moral judgments (A13) | support for paid-donor systems (F35) |
| support for paid-donor systems (F35) | increases in transplants (I15) |