Crowding-out effects of opt-out defaults: Evidence from organ donation policies.

ABSTRACT: Many of today's pressing societal challenges, such as organ shortages, low vaccination rates, and climate change, require significant changes in individual behavior. One promising intervention to encourage such behavioral change is the opt-out default, which presumes consent for a desirable action rather than requiring active opt-in. While past research focused on the impact of opt-out defaults on the targeted behavior, potential crowding out of related behaviors has been largely overlooked. Here, we investigate whether adopting opt-out policies for deceased organ donation reduces living donations, a related prosocial behavior serving the same public good. Analyzing epidemiological panel data from countries that adopted an opt-out default between 2000 and 2023, we find that the policy swit

SUBMITTER: Gunturkun P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12560092 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature