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Efficient Kidney Exchange: Coincidence of Wants in a Structured Market

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  • Alvn E. Roth

    (Harvard University)

  • Tayfun Sonmez

    (Koc Universitu & Harvard University)

  • M. Utku Unver

    (Koc University)

Abstract

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 resembles 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.

Suggested Citation

  • Alvn E. Roth & Tayfun Sonmez & M. Utku Unver, 2005. "Efficient Kidney Exchange: Coincidence of Wants in a Structured Market," Microeconomics 0506001, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Jun 2005.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpmi:0506001
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2004. "Market Culture: How Norms Governing Exploding Offers Affect Market Performance," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000018, UCLA Department of Economics.
    2. Roth, Alvin E. & Sonmez, Tayfun & Utku Unver, M., 2005. "Pairwise kidney exchange," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 125(2), pages 151-188, December.
    3. Atila Abdulkadiroğlu & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth, 2005. "The New York City High School Match," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 364-367, May.
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    5. Paul R. Milgrom, 1985. "Auction Theory," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 779, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    6. Alvin E. Roth & Tayfun Sönmez & M. Utku Ünver, 2004. "Kidney Exchange," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 457-488.
    7. Alvin E Roth & Richard A Posner & Christine Jolls & Christopher Avery, 2007. "The New Market for Federal Judicial Law Clerks," Levine's Bibliography 843644000000000288, UCLA Department of Economics.
    8. Zenios, Stefanos & Woodle, E. Steve & Ross, Lainie Friedman, 2001. "Primum Non Nocere: Avoiding Harm to Vulnerable Wait List Candidates in an Indirect Kidney Exchange," Research Papers 1684, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    9. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2005. "The Gastroenterology Fellowship Market: Should There Be a Match?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 372-375, May.
    10. Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2003. "Unraveling Reduces Mobility in a Labor Market: Gastroenterology with and without a Centralized Match," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1342-1352, December.
    11. C. Nicholas McKinney & Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2003. "The collapse of a medical clearinghouse (and why such failures are rare)," NBER Working Papers 9467, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Roth, Alvin E & Xing, Xiaolin, 1997. "Turnaround Time and Bottlenecks in Market Clearing: Decentralized Matching in the Market for Clinical Psychologists," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 284-329, April.
    13. Shapley, Lloyd & Scarf, Herbert, 1974. "On cores and indivisibility," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 23-37, March.
    14. Thomas Quint & Jun Wako, 2004. "On Houseswapping, the Strict Core, Segmentation, and Linear Programming," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm373, Yale School of Management.
    15. Saidman, Susan L. & Roth, Alvin E. & Sonmez, Tayfun & Unver, M. Utku & Delmonico, Francis L., 2014. "Increasing the Opportunity of Live Kidney Donation by Matching for Two and Three Way Exchanges," MPRA Paper 58247, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Alvin E. Roth & Tayfun Sönmez, 2005. "A Kidney Exchange Clearinghouse in New England," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 376-380, May.
    17. Atila Abdulkadiroğlu & Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth & Tayfun Sönmez, 2005. "The Boston Public School Match," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 368-371, May.
    18. C. Nicholas McKinney & Muriel Niederle & Alvin E. Roth, 2005. "The Collapse of a Medical Labor Clearinghouse (and Why Such Failures Are Rare)," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 878-889, June.
    19. Roth, Alvin E. & Postlewaite, Andrew, 1977. "Weak versus strong domination in a market with indivisible goods," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 131-137, August.
    20. Milgrom,Paul, 2004. "Putting Auction Theory to Work," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521551847.
    21. Robert Wilson, 2002. "Architecture of Power Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1299-1340, July.
    22. Atila Abdulkadiroglu & Tayfun Sönmez, 2003. "School Choice: A Mechanism Design Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 729-747, June.
    23. Alvin E. Roth, 2002. "The Economist as Engineer: Game Theory, Experimentation, and Computation as Tools for Design Economics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1341-1378, July.
    24. Milgrom,Paul, 2004. "Putting Auction Theory to Work," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521536721.
    25. Roth, Alvin E, 1984. "The Evolution of the Labor Market for Medical Interns and Residents: A Case Study in Game Theory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(6), pages 991-1016, December.
    26. Posner, Richard A. & Avery, Christopher & Jolls, Christine & Roth, Alvin, 2001. "The Market for Federal Judicial Law Clerks," Scholarly Articles 2623748, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    27. Elliott Peranson & Alvin E. Roth, 1999. "The Redesign of the Matching Market for American Physicians: Some Engineering Aspects of Economic Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 748-780, September.
    28. Thomas Quint & Jun Wako, 2004. "On Houseswapping, the Strict Core, Segmentation, and Linear Programming," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(4), pages 861-877, November.
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    Cited by:

    1. Nejat Anbarci & Mustafa Caglayan, 2005. "Cadaveric Vs. Live-Donor Kidney Transplants: The Interaction Of Institutions And Inequality," Working Papers 2005_25, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    2. Alvin E. Roth, 2007. "Repugnance as a Constraint on Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 37-58, Summer.
    3. Mendoza, Roger Lee, 2010. "Kidney black markets and legal transplants: Are they opposite sides of the same coin?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(3), pages 255-265, March.
    4. Paulina Restrepo-Echavarria & Antonella Tutino & Anton Cheremukhin, 2013. "A Theory of Targeted Search," 2013 Meeting Papers 664, Society for Economic Dynamics.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • D3 - Microeconomics - - Distribution
    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design

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