Standards for Should We Allow a Market for Transplant Organs?

Standard: 3

Name: Allocation

Individuals and organizations routinely use different decision-making systems to determine what should be produced, how it should be produced, and who will consume it. Most high school students already understand the major advantages and disadvantages of selling concert tickets using a first-come/firstserved system, rather than a lottery to select from among those who applied for tickets. Unfortunately, many students have experienced the use of force to allocate resources on the school playground. Students also know that families typically use authoritarian systems to decide how resources are used ? Mom and Dad decide. The American economy uses a market system to make many allocation decisions, and it is important for students to understand why the market system is used so extensively. Students also should be able to compare the characteristics of a market system with alternatives used more extensively in some other countries. With this understanding, students can assess the benefits and costs of alternative allocation systems when discussing difficult questions such as how incomes should be divided among people or who should receive a kidney transplant and who should not.

• 4-12: Students will understand that: Different methods can be used to allocate goods and services. People acting individually or collectively must choose which methods to use to allocate different kinds of goods and services.
• 4-12: Students will be able to use this knowledge to: Evaluate different methods of allocating goods and services, by comparing the benefits to the costs of each method.

Standard: 4

Name: Incentives

• 4-12: Students will understand that: People usually respond predictably to positive and negative incentives.
• 4-12: Students will be able to use this knowledge to: Identify incentives that affect people's behavior and explain how incentives affect their own behavior.

Standard: 8

Name: Role of Prices

Understanding the role of prices as signals and incentives helps people anticipate market opportunities and make better choices as producers and consumers. It also helps citizens understand the consequences and weigh the costs and benefits of price controls, such as minimum-wage laws and rent ceilings, that set legal minimum or maximum prices and result in sustained surpluses or shortages.

• 4-12: Students will understand that: Prices send signals and provide incentives to buyers and sellers. When supply or demand changes, market prices adjust, affecting incentives.
• 4-12: Students will be able to use this knowledge to: Predict how changes in factors such as consumers' tastes or producers' technology affect prices.