American Economic Journal: Applied Economics · 2022 · Carolina Lopez、Anja Sautmann、Simone G. Schaner
中文摘要
在马里的一项实验中,我们检验了患者是否会向医疗服务提供者施压以开具不必要的治疗。我们变动了患者关于抗疟药片折扣的信息,并测量对药片及更昂贵的抗疟注射剂的需求。我们发现了患者驱动需求的证据:向患者告知折扣,而非让提供者自行决定是否分享这一信息,使折扣的使用提高了35%,并使疟疾总体治疗增加了10%。这些边际患者很少真正患有疟疾,从而使疾病与治疗的匹配恶化。提供者并未利用信息优势来推销注射剂——在两种信息条件下,注射剂的使用均有所下降。(JEL D83, I11, I12, O15)
Abstract
In an experiment in Mali, we tested whether patients pressure providers to prescribe unnecessary medical treatment. We varied patients’ information about a discount for antimalarial tablets and measure demand for both tablets and costlier antimalarial injections. We find evidence of patient-driven demand: informing patients about the discount, instead of letting providers decide to share this information, increased discount use by 35 percent and overall malaria treatment by 10 percent. These marginal patients rarely had malaria, worsening the illness-treatment match. Providers did not use the information advantage to sell injections—their use fell in both information conditions. (JEL D83, I11, I12, O15)