Do default save lives ? article review
The article to the link is
http://www.dangoldstein.com/papers/DefaultsScience.pdf There are questions to be answered : BACKGROUND 1. What percentage of Americans approve of organ donations? 2. What percentage has made a decision about donating their organs? 3. What percentage has formally granted permission by signing a donor card? 4. What is the source for the information for these data? 5. Why is the gap between the percentage of people who approve of organ donations and the percentage of people who formally grant permission important? 6. Do all countries show the same pattern – high approval, low action rates? 7. In the second paragraph, authors write: “Even when controlling for variables such as transplant infrastructure, economic and educational status, andreligion, large differences in donation rates persist.” Why is it important to control for the indicated variables when comparing
donation rates across countries? 8. What is the source of information for the data relevant for questions 7 and 8? 9. What is a public policy no-action default? 10. What are the two default policies used by European countries for organ donations? Briefly explain each one of them. 11. How do people decide whether to donate their organs,
according to the classical economics view? 12. If people made the donation decisions according to the classical economics view, should the default option matter? 13. If people made the donation decisions according to the classical economics view, what are some of the possible solutions to the shortage of organs? 14. What must be true
about people’s preferences for the default option to matter? 15. What are the three ways in which defaults my influence decisions? 16. Explain the concept of loss aversion? 17. What is a “natural experiment” and why is it important in measuring policy effects? (Note: you may need to search for this term elsewhere. The internet is
a good source) 18. In what fields have studies of the default effect have been carried using natural experiments? 19. What were the results of the studies of the default effect in other fields? RESULTS 20. How many participants did the study have? 21. Why is the number of participants relevant? 22. How many questions were asked? 23. How were the questions different? 24. [unique_solution]How many questions did each participant answer? 25. If your answer at 25 is smaller than 3, how were participants assigned questions? 26. The choice could be made at a click of the mouse. What could have been the alternative and why was the easiness of making the choice important? 27. What percentage of people choose to become donors under the opt-in condition? 28. What percentage of people choose to become donors under the opt-out condition? 29. What percentage of people choose to become donors under the neutral condition? 30. What are those whiskers on top of the columns in the graph? 31. Did the form of the question matter? 32. What does the figure on effective consent rates, by country suggest about the role preferences played in decisions concerning organ donation? 33. Why do you think the authors supplemented the results obtained in laboratory experiments with data on actual consent rates? 34. Are the data on actual consent rates consistent with the results of the laboratory experiments? 35. Are discrepancies found in actual consent rates smaller or larger than those found in the laboratory experiments? 36. What could explain the different results when using actual consent rates and laboratory experiments? 37. So, do defaults influence consent? 38. What statistical technique do authors use to
test whether defaults influence actual donations? 39. Does the default option have a statistically significant effect on actual donations? 40. What is the effect of the default option on actual donations? 41. What do these results suggest about the classical economics suggestion that individuals have well formed, stable preferences that satisfy the
preference axioms discussed in class?