Assignment:
Most people would regard the buying and selling of human body organs as distasteful and reprehensible. However, no matter how any of us may feel morally about the issue, economics can help us understand how a "market" would work in the buying and selling of, for example, kidneys. What would you expect to happen if this market were regulated by the government? Would your conclusions change if this were an unregulated, free market? I am NOT asking you to give me your moral case for or against; reasonable people can disagree. Economics gives us a way to look at a difficult issue like this in more scientific (objective) terms, or, in what some economists call the "value-free" approach to social analysis. Using the tools we've learned over the course of this semester, please analyze this important public policy issue and provide your conclusion(s) in a few sentences.