A recent Chicago Booth survey asked economists about living-donor kidney transplantation. The pattern is revealing: support is strongest around kidney exchange, remains broad for structured public donor benefits, and becomes more divided when the proposal shifts to hospital payment.
I use the survey to think through why those shifts occur. The named responses show economists distinguishing among matching markets, delayed tax benefits, centralized allocation, hospital payment, moral objections, and public acceptability. The interesting question is not simply whether money is involved, but what kind of institutional structure surrounds it.