Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/2123/6655

Title: Commitment Mechanisms and Blood Donation
Authors: Craig, Ashley
Discipline of Economics
Issue Date: Oct-2009
Abstract: The Australian Red Cross Blood Service (ARCBS) recently introduced a policy of compulsory appointments for blood donations. This thesis examines the effect of these appointments on donor satisfaction and donation behaviour. Overall, aggregate tests indicate that the policy transition initially had a negative effect. However, conditional on having donated once after the transition, donors are more likely to return. In order to isolate individual mechanisms that contribute to these results, a survey of blood donors is used to test two specific theories from behavioural economics. On the positive side, appointments are found to increase the likelihood that a donor will return, possibly by circumventing a problem of time-inconsistent preferences. However, the results also support a theory from the marketing literature that appointments change donors' expectations, causing wait time to be more negatively perceived. Furthermore, this is found to cause a significant change in donors' intended actions.
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2123/6655
Department/Unit/Centre: Discipline of Economics
Appears in Collections:Honours Theses - School of Economics
Honours Theses

Files in This Item:

File Description SizeFormat
Ash Craig Thesis.pdf530.5 kBAdobe PDFView/Open

Items in Sydney eScholarship Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.