How An Economist Helped Patients Find The Right Kidney Donors

Donation after Circulatory Death (DCD) is a practice that allows patients who are dying but not brain-dead to donate organs after life support is withdrawn and circulation stops. In 2000, the U.S. organ supply was 219; by 2025, it had expanded to nearly 17,000.

Haima Health helps fill in a huge void in Nigeria’s healthcare system by providing a large blood donor database across 14 states in the country that links donors to patients in need. Since launching, Haima Health has established the largest database in the country with over 2,000 registered voluntary blood donors.

Norway achieved nearly 90% electric vehicle adoption through a 25-year strategy of generous tax incentives (including a 25% VAT exemption), government-subsidized charging infrastructure, and legal guarantees for charging access, resulting in EVs becoming cheaper than gas cars and transforming even remote Arctic regions into EV-dominant markets.

Rwanda's Community-Based Health Insurance program (Mutuelle de Santé) has expanded affordable healthcare access to over 93% of the population by charging income-tiered premiums (as low as $2.23 per person annually). By dramatically reducing out-of-pocket medical costs for low-income families, more families have effectively used the healthcare available.

Bristol Redistro is an experiment in wealth redistribution that taps the social-justice consciences of people who pool what they see as their excess money to make grants to small community groups that are "challenging unfair power structures." An initial round made £1,000 grants to such groups as Mandem, an online artistic platform for young men of color, and No More Exclusions, which seeks to reform school discipline. Funding decisions get made by a collective, not Redistro's leaders, with the aim of driving social change and challenging inequality by sharing the wealth with grassroots community groups.

Due to pressure from shareholders and asset managers to invest sustainably, there has been a rapid growth in environmental, social, and government investing. Assets in sustainable mutual funds globally reached $1 trillion in the second quarter of 2020 and fund managers rolled out 107 new sustainable funds in Europe. Despite this increase in interest, shareholders continue to grapple with balancing sustainable considerations with investment decisions.

Mumbuca is a digital currency used in Maricà’s basic income program. Residents, with few eligibility requirements, can qualify for a monthly stipend to purchase goods and services using a smart phone or a card. The currency runs on the digital platform E-dinheiro and can only be spent in the city limits. Individuals cannot swap Mumbucas for national currency, but businesses can after a 48-hour waiting period and a 1% fee. Local currencies, which are popular in Brazil, help residents increase personal savings and, with increased stipends during the Covid-19 pandemic, allowed informal workers to stay home.

When a hospital in Italy ran the risk of running out of a medical valve that was necessary to help treat patients suffering from COVID-19, an engineering company stepped in to fill the gap by 3D printing the valve. Choosing "patients over patents," the company was able to mass produce 100 valves – at a fraction of the cost of a regular valve – which have already helped at least 10 patients.

San Francisco is using technology to calculate the cost of parking throughout the city, depending on the demand in specific neighborhoods at any given time. While critics were wary of the effect flexible pricing would have on lower-income residents, the pilot program resulted in lower parking costs on average and demonstrated that flexible pricing could promote equity. In other cities around the world, flexible pricing systems implemented through the use of technology have been effective in raising revenue from higher-income people and neighborhoods to reduce prices and reinvest in equitable solutions.

The town of Danville, Virginia survived the downfall of the mill industry by using creative financing and investing in solid economic infrastructure that will remain sustainable into the future. The town has invested in broadband and used funds from a tobacco settlement to re-install city money into local institutions.