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Co-Payments for Prescription Drugs and the Demand for Doctor Visits - Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Author

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  • Rainer Winkelmann

    (Socioeconomic Institute, University of Zurich)

Abstract

The German health care reform of 1997 provides a natural experiment for evaluating the price sensitivity of demand for physicians� services. As part of the reform, copayments for prescription drugs were increased by up to 200 percent. However, certain groups of people were exempted from the increase, providing a natural control group against which the changed demand for physicians� services of the treated, those subject to increased co-payments, can be assessed. The differences-in-differences estimates indicate that increased co-payments reduced the number of doctor visits by about 10 percent on average.

Suggested Citation

  • Rainer Winkelmann, 2003. "Co-Payments for Prescription Drugs and the Demand for Doctor Visits - Evidence from a Natural Experiment," SOI - Working Papers 0307, Socioeconomic Institute - University of Zurich.
    • Handle: RePEc:soz:wpaper:0307
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nina Pavcnik, 2002. "Do Pharmaceutical Prices Respond to Potential Patient Out-of-Pocket Expenses?," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 33(3), pages 469-487, Autumn.
    2. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    3. Gourieroux, Christian & Monfort, Alain & Trognon, Alain, 1984. "Pseudo Maximum Likelihood Methods: Applications to Poisson Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 701-720, May.
    4. SOEP Group, 2001. "The German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) after More than 15 Years: Overview," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 70(1), pages 7-14.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    co-payment; moral hazard; count data; Poisson regression; differences-indifferences model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities

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