Patients needing kidney transplants may have willing donors who cannot donate to them because of blood or tissue incompatibility. Incompatible patient-donor pairs can exchange donor kidneys with other such pairs. The situation facing such pairs resem- bles models of the double coincidence of wants, and relatively few exchanges have been consummated by decentralized means. As the population of available patient-donor pairs grows, the frequency with which exchanges can be arranged will depend in part on how exchanges are organized. We study the potential frequency of exchanges as a function of the number of patient-donor pairs, and the size of the largest feasible exchange. Developing infrastructure to identify and perform 3-way as well as 2-way exchanges will have a substantial effect on the number of transplants, and will help the most vulnerable patients. Larger than 3-way exchanges have much smaller impact. Larger populations of patient-donor pairs increase the percentage of patients of all kinds who can find exchanges.
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Length: 27 pages Date of creation: 23 May 2005 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:621
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Find related papers by JEL classification: C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, and Operations D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
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Alvin E. Roth & Tayfun Sonmez & M. Utku Unver, 2004.
"Pairwise Kidney Exchange,"
Levine's Bibliography
122247000000000350, UCLA Department of Economics.
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Other versions:
Alvin E. Roth & Tayfun Sonmez & M. Utku Unver, 2004.
"Pairwise Kidney Exchange,"
NBER Working Papers
10698, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Alvin E. Roth & Tayfun Sonmez & M. Utku Unver, 2003.
"Kidney Exchange,"
NBER Working Papers
10002, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
Atila Abdulkadiroğlu & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth & Tayfun Sonmez, 2005.
"The Boston Public School Match,"
American Economic Review,
American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 368-371, May.
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