Does presumed consent save lives

One policy tool that could be deployed to increase organ donation rates is legislative defaults. Currently, there are two legislative regimes: “informed consent”, in which an explicit declaration makes the person a potential organ donor; and “presumed consent”, in which an explicit declaration is required for not being a potential donor. In this study, we examine how an institutional setting, namely presumed consent, impacts cadaveric donations and kidney transplantations, using a panel dataset from 27 European countries in the period 2000-2010. We find that presumed consent countries have 28 to 32% higher cadaveric donation and 27 to 31% higher kidney transplant rates in comparison to informed consent countries after accounting for potential confounding factors. To check whether social acceptance of organ donation in presumed consent countries is driving the results, we also study differences in willingness to donate one’s organs. We do not find any statistically significant difference in willingness to donate one’s organs in presumed and informed consent countries. Moreover, we study differences in registering preferences for organ donation by looking at organ donation card holding behavior. The findings suggest that presumed consent could increase cadaveric donation rates because people fail to register their preferences and many people do not have any preference for organ donation.