Our next Economics Colloquium is April 18 and will feature Mark Montgomery and Irene “Tinker” Powell, Professors of Economics at Grinnell College. We had originally scheduled this one for May 30, but we just can’t wait.
Baby Markets: Thinking the Unthinkable in International Adoption
Mark Montgomery and Irene Powell
Grinnell College
Adoption laws, national and international, outlaw payments to families for relinquishing their children. This does not stop “baby selling,” but rather moves it into the hands of criminals. History suggests that restricting mutually beneficial exchanges can make worse the problems it is supposed to solve. Is it time to think the unthinkable in international adoption?
The talk examines how current adoption laws create incentives for fraud and other forms of abuse, identifies “moral hazards” abuse created by the legal structure of adoption, and explores how relaxing restrictions on compensating birth mothers would change incentives and behavior of birth parents, adoptive parents and adoption facilitators.