Solving Shortage in a Priceless Market: Insights from Blood Donation

[Clark]

http://chess.bsd.uchicago.edu/events/hew/documents/gingerjin.pdf

Solving Shortage in a Priceless Market:
Insights from Blood Donation
Tianshu Sun, Susan Feng Lu, Ginger Zhe Jin
November 2014

Abstract
Blood shortage is common in many countries but it cannot be solved by price adjustment
given the WHO recommendation for 100% unpaid voluntary donation. In this paper, we evaluate
two non-price methods that blood banks often use to address shortage. The first method is
informing existing donors of the current shortage via mobile message and encouraging them to
donate voluntarily. The second method is asking the patient’s family or friends to donate in a
family replacement program. Using 472,342 individual donation records from a large Chinese
blood bank, we show that both methods are effective in addressing blood shortage in the short run
but the two methods target different audiences and therefore have different implications for total
blood supply.