Every minute, at least one woman dies from pregnancy and childbirth complications; a further 20 suffer injury, infection or disease. Despite medical advances, and years of policy declarations, this tragic situation remains particularly severe in developing countries, violating a fundamental...

The paper provides an analytical structure to endogenize the optimal gestational surrogacy contract in terms of a simple moral hazard framework. The study shows that altruistic surrogacy is optimal only if the surrogate has lower outside option and is sufficiently altruistic. Otherwise...