IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jindec/v66y2018i4p866-903.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Off‐Label Use of Pharmaceuticals: A Detection Controlled Estimation Approach

Author

Listed:
  • W. David Bradford
  • John L. Turner
  • Jonathan W. Williams

Abstract

We identify the rate of off‐label use of prescription drugs in the United States during 1993‐2008 using Detection Controlled Estimation. We find that the rate rises from 29.9% to 38.3% during this period. Off‐label prescribing increases when there are fewer FDA‐approved alternatives and a patient’s insurance has less restrictive formularies and lower copayments. The temporal increase in off‐label use coincides with a surge in settlements of Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuits for off‐label marketing. Those drugs targeted by the DOJ have 4.6% higher rates of off‐label use initially, but the rate decreases 10.2% after the company becomes aware of the suit. The welfare effects of such regulatory intervention are unclear because we find off‐label prescribing patterns by physicians that are consistent with enhancement of patient welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • W. David Bradford & John L. Turner & Jonathan W. Williams, 2018. "Off‐Label Use of Pharmaceuticals: A Detection Controlled Estimation Approach," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(4), pages 866-903, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jindec:v:66:y:2018:i:4:p:866-903
    DOI: 10.1111/joie.12189
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.12189
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/joie.12189?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Blankart, Katharina & Lichtenberg, Frank R., 2022. "The effects of off-label drug use on disability and medical expenditure," Ruhr Economic Papers 969, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    2. Jeon, Sung-Hee & Pohl, R. Vincent, 2019. "Medical innovation, education, and labor market outcomes of cancer patients," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    3. Tuncel, Tuba, 2022. "Should We Prevent Off-Label Drug Prescriptions? Empirical Evidence from France," TSE Working Papers 22-1383, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    4. M. Paula Fitzgerald & Farnoush Reshadi & Matthew Sarkees, 2022. "Patient susceptibility to over‐trust: The case of off‐label prescribing," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 849-875, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jindec:v:66:y:2018:i:4:p:866-903. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-1821 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.