2007/01/01 by Alvin E. Roth, Tayfun Sönmez, M. Utku Ünver · 2 citations
Decision Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Medicine · #Auction Theory and Applications #Economic and Environmental Valuation #Game Theory and Voting Systems #Organ Donation and Transplantation
paper · doi:10.1257/aer.97.3.828
openalex publication_date 2007/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Patients needing kidney transplants may have donors who cannot donate to them because of blood or tissue incompatibility. Incompatible patient-donor pairs can exchange donor kidneys with other pairs only when there is a “double coincidence of wants.” Developing infrastructure to perform three-way as well as two-way exchanges will have a substantial effect on the number of transplants that can be arranged. Larger than three-way exchanges have less impact on efficiency. In a general model of type-compatible exchanges, the size of the largest exchanges required to achieve efficiency equals the number of types.