Donorcycles: Motorcycle Helmet Laws and the Supply of Organ Donors

Abstract

Abstract:Traffic safety mandates are typically designed to reduce the harmful externalities of risky behaviors. We consider whether motorcycle helmet laws also reduce a beneficial externality by decreasing organ donation rates. Our central estimates show that statelevel counts of organ donors killed in motor vehicle accidents increase by 10 percent following helmet law repeals. In contrast, organ donations due to circumstances other than motor vehicle accidents do not respond to variation in helmet mandates. The estimates imply that every death of a helmetless motorcyclist prevents or delays as many as 0.33 deaths among individuals on organ transplant waiting lists.* We thank Steve Coate, Mike Conlin, Steven Haider, Gary Solon, and seminar participants at Michigan State University for helpful comments and suggestions. Richard Goff performed preliminary background research for the project. Daniel Sapp kindly answered all our questions about the organ procurement process, and Timothy Pickrell generously provided us with NOPUS data on helmet usage. Of course, any mistakes that remain are ours.2

The impact of presumed consent laws and institutions on deceased organ donation

“…The impact of presumed consent laws and institutions 31 7 The estimation results are reported in Table 3.…”

“…First, with notable exceptions most of the countries have either a national registry of volunteers or refusals. In presumed consent The mean of consent legislation variable for presumed country sample is not equal to 1 because Sweden switched from informed to presumed consent legislation in 1996 7 In the first stage, the country-specific effects are estimated via FE excluding time-invariant and almost time-invariant variables. In the second stage, the country-specific effects are decomposed into an unexplained and an explained part by the regression on the timeinvariant or almost time-invariant variables.…”

“…9 The control of supply measures for donation policy purposes creates a paradox in organ collection because the promotion of deceased donation through continuous education and awareness programs contradicts policies that aim to reduce the prevalence of motor vehicle accidents and hand-gun crimes by raising awareness [2]. Recently, Dickert-Conlin et al [7] found that organ donations due to motor vehicle accidents increase by 10 percent following helmet law repeals and that a nationwide elimination of helmet laws in the US would increase the annual supply of organ donors by less than 1 percent. 10 In the preliminary analysis, a binary variable representing religious belief that takes the value of 1 for countries in which the majority of the population is catholic and 0 otherwise has been considered as a potential factor that might affect deceased donation rates.…”

Financial incentives for kidney donation: A comparative case study using synthetic controls

“…The likelihood of becoming a deceased donor (in the medical sense) is greater for individuals who have been exposed to situations in which irreversible brain injury resulting in brain death is more likely. Consequently, given medical compatibility, victims of motor vehicle accidents and cerebrovascular diseases are suitable cadaveric donor candidates (Dickert-Conlin et al, 2011). There is no evident relation between these two variables and living donations, except through their impact on cadaveric donations.…”

The Effect of Cadaveric Kidney Donations on Living Kidney Donations: An Instrumental Variables Approach

“…Dee (2009) finds a 27% reduction in fatalities among motorcyclists when states require helmet use. Dickert-Conlin, Elder, and Moore (2011) build on this result by linking helmet laws to organ donations. The authors find that a national repeal of helmet laws would lead to a 1% increase in the supply of cadaveric organ donations.…”