Chapter 1: "The Effect of Economic Conditions on Organ Donation"More than 100,000 individuals in the United States are currently on the organ transplant waiting list, yet surprisingly little is known about the factors that affect organ donation rates. In order to increase our knowledge about the supply of transplantable organs, this paper assesses the effects of economic conditions on deceased organ donations. Using data from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, I estimate that a 1 percentage-point increase in the unemployment rate is associated with a 3.5 percent decrease in the supply of organ donors killed in motor vehicle accidents. Despite evidence of strong cyclical patterns in deaths involving cerebrovascular disease, suicides, and homicides, no correlation was found between the unemployment rate and organ donation rates for these causes of death. Understanding cyclical fluctuations in donations will help policy makers and transplant specialists design policies aimed at increasing the supply of organs by enhancing their knowledge of expected donors.Chapter 2: "Not on My Back Roads: Are there Spillover Effects in Motorcycle Helmet Legislation?"Previous research on the effectiveness of motorcycle helmet laws has found a roughly 30 percent increase in fatalities following the repeal of a universal helmet law. This study examines how motorcycle helmet laws in neighboring states affect fatality rates. Enactment of a universal helmet law creates incentives for motorcyclists in the state to avoid the helmet mandate by riding in other states with the more lenient laws. If accidents involving residents of other states lead to increased expenditure, governments may be justified in eliminating crossover incentives by imposing helmet laws within their borders. I find that including controls for the helmet laws of neighboring states has no effect on fatality rates, nor does it change the estimated effectiveness of a statewide motorcycle helmet mandate. In addition, I find that neither a state's own helmet law, nor those of its neighbors affect the fraction of motorcyclist fatalities involving non-residents. Lastly, I find own-state helmet laws are associated with significant reductions in non-resident fatality counts, although the helmet laws of adjacent states remain insignificant. While cross-state spillover effects could be used to support strategic interaction among state governments, my examination of fatality patterns shows no evidence of a shift in motorcycle riding location based on the helmet laws of neighboring states. Chapter 3: "Donorcycles: Motorcycle Helmet Laws and the Supply of Organ Donors"(with Stacy Dickert-Conlin and Todd Elder)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 the supply of viable organ donors. Our central estimates show that organ donations resulting from fatal motor vehicle accidents increase by 10 percent when states repeal helmet laws. Two features of this association suggest that it is causal: first, nearly all of it is concentrated among men, who account for over 90 percent of all motorcyclist deaths, and second, helmet mandates are unrelated to the supply of donors who die in circumstances other than motor vehicle accidents. 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.
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