IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aerins/v4y2022i4p507-26.html

A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Guideline Adherence and Access to Expertise

Author

Listed:
  • Amy Finkelstein
  • Petra Persson
  • Maria Polyakova
  • Jesse M. Shapiro

Abstract

We use administrative data from Sweden to study adherence to 63 medication-related guidelines. We compare the adherence of patients without personal access to medical expertise to that of patients with access, namely doctors and their close relatives. We estimate that observably similar patients with access to expertise have 3.8 percentage points lower adherence, relative to a baseline adherence rate of 54.4 percent among those without access. Our findings suggest an important role in nonadherence for factors other than those, such as ignorance, poor communication, and complexity, that would be expected to diminish with access to expertise.

Suggested Citation

  • Amy Finkelstein & Petra Persson & Maria Polyakova & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2022. "A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Guideline Adherence and Access to Expertise," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 507-526, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aerins:v:4:y:2022:i:4:p:507-26
    DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20210591
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20210591
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20210591.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20210591.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/aeri.20210591?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Chen, Stacey H. & Chen, Jennjou & Chuang, Hongwei & Lin, Tzu-Hsin, 2023. "Physicians Treating Physicians: Relational and Informational Advantages in Treatment and Survival," IZA Discussion Papers 16048, IZA Network @ LISER.
    2. Anupam Jena & David Slusky & Lilly Springer, 2023. "Occupational Hazard? An Analysis of Birth Outcomes Among Physician Mothers," NBER Working Papers 31955, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Nicole Black & David W. Johnston & Martin Knapp & Michael A. Shields & Gloria H. Y. Wong, 2025. "Horizontal inequity in the use of mental healthcare in Australia," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(2), pages 297-315, February.
    4. Amanda Dahlstrand, 2022. "Defying distance? The provision of services in the digital age," CEP Discussion Papers dp1889, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    5. Humlum, Maria Knoth & Morthorst, Marius Opstrup & Thingholm, Peter Rønø, 2024. "Sibling spillovers and the choice to get vaccinated: Evidence from a regression discontinuity design," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    6. Frank A. Sloan, 2024. "Subjective beliefs, health, and health behaviors," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 69(2), pages 105-144, October.
    7. Dahlstrand Rudin, Amanda, 2022. "Defying distance? The provision of services in the digital age," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118042, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Pragya Kakani & Simone Matecna & Amitabh Chandra, 2025. "Expert Patients’ Use of Avoidable Health Care," NBER Working Papers 33573, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Greve, Jane & Kristensen, Søren Rud & Lydiksen, Nis, 2023. "Patient and peer: Guideline design and expert response," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    10. Persson, Ulf & Geoffard, Pierre-Yves & Möller, Jörgen & Brådvik, Gunnar, 2025. "An analysis of behaviour, health, and GDP during the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe," IHE Report / IHE Rapport 2025:1, IHE - The Swedish Institute for Health Economics.
    11. Albertini, Mattia & Bakx, Pieter & Mazzonna, Fabrizio, 2025. "Health and Labor Market Consequences of Low-Value Care: The Role of Practice Style," IZA Discussion Papers 17771, IZA Network @ LISER.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    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:aea:aerins:v:4:y:2022:i:4:p:507-26. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.