Legal Origins, Religion and Health Outcomes: A Cross-Country Comparison of Organ Donation Laws

Abstract

This paper investigates what drives countries to legislate presumed consent-making citizens organ donors by default unless they opt out-instead of explicit consent. A wide range of economic, social, political, institutional, and demographic variables is used. Results reveal the following: (i) civil law predicts presumed consent, which uncovers a mechanism by which an institution that long pre-dates transplantation medicine has an impact on current health outcomes; (ii) Protestantism predicts explicit consent; and (iii) higher pro-social behavior decreases the likelihood of presumed consent. The plausible mechanisms and implications are discussed.

After Shleifer, who needs Mises?

“…Organ transplant legislation is an example. According to Riambau et al (2021), civil law countries are more likely to have presumed consent rules about organ transplantation, meaning citizens must opt-out. Common law countries are more likely to require implicit consent from citizens.…”

“…These studies investigated the varieties of capitalism rather than simply comparing alternative economic systems. More recent work has focused on the application of NCE theories to topics such as COVID‐19, HIV, and other health‐related public policy issues as well as assesses its validity to more microeconomic analysis (Anderson, 2018; Riambau et al, 2021).…”