Opting out or opting in? How more people become organ donors

Given the long waiting list for an organ transplantation, measures to increase the number of organ donors are subject of a political and social discourse in Germany. Whether or not in principle it can be assumed that a deceased person has given consent to organ removal can have a significant impact on the total number of organ donors in a country. In this article I show that organ donation rates are higher in countries in which a consent to organ removal does not have to be explicitly expressed.