IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/hepoli/v91y2009i3p269-276.html

Does subsidy work? Price elasticity of demand for influenza vaccination among the elderly in Japan

Author

Listed:
  • Kondo, Masahide
  • Hoshi, Shu-ling
  • Okubo, Ichiro

Abstract

Objectives Subsidy for influenza vaccination is often provided to the elderly in order to encourage them to receive a flu shot in developed countries. However, its effect on uptake rate, i.e., price elasticity of demand, has not been well studied.Methods Japan's decentralised vaccination programme allows observation of various pairs in price and uptake rate of flu shots among the elderly by the municipality from 2001/2002 to 2004/2005 season. We combine our sample survey data (n = 281), which monitor price, subsidy and uptake rate, with published data on local characteristics in order to estimate price elasticity of demand with panel model.Results We find price elasticity of demand for influenza vaccine: nearly zero in nationwide, nearly zero in urban area, and -1.07 in rural area.Conclusions The results question the rationale for subsidy, especially in urban area. There are cases where maintaining or increasing the level of subsidy is not an efficient allocation of finite health care resources. When organising a vaccination programme, health manager should be careful about the balance between subsidy and other efforts in order to encourage the elderly to receive shots with price elasticity in mind.

Suggested Citation

  • Kondo, Masahide & Hoshi, Shu-ling & Okubo, Ichiro, 2009. "Does subsidy work? Price elasticity of demand for influenza vaccination among the elderly in Japan," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 269-276, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:91:y:2009:i:3:p:269-276
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168-8510(08)00294-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Acton, Jan Paul, 1975. "Nonmonetary Factors in the Demand for Medical Services: Some Empirical Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(3), pages 595-614, June.
    2. John Mullahy, 1999. "It'll only hurt a second? Microeconomic determinants of who gets flu shots," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(1), pages 9-24, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Huang, Jiechen & Wang, Juan & Xia, Chengyi, 2020. "Role of vaccine efficacy in the vaccination behavior under myopic update rule on complex networks," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    2. Ibuka, Yoko & Bessho, Shun-ichiro, 2015. "Subsidies for influenza vaccination, vaccination rates, and health outcomes among the elderly in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 56-66.
    3. Nilanthi de Silva & Donald A. P. Bundy & Susan Horton & Dean T. Jamison & George C. Patton, 2017. "Disease Control Priorities, Third Edition," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 28876, April.
    4. Saito, Yoko & Aizaki, Hideo & Saito, Hisamitsu, 2022. "Assessing the Consumer Acceptability of Vaccine Rice," Japanese Journal of Agricultural Economics (formerly Japanese Journal of Rural Economics), Agricultural Economics Society of Japan (AESJ), vol. 24.
    5. Shimazawa, Rumiko & Ikeda, Masayuki, 2012. "The vaccine gap between Japan and the UK," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 312-317.
    6. Tomas J. Philipson & George Zanjani, 2013. "Economic Analysis of Risk and Uncertainty induced by Health Shocks: A Review and Extension," NBER Working Papers 19005, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Catharina Hjortsberg, 2003. "Why do the sick not utilise health care? The case of Zambia," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(9), pages 755-770, September.
    2. Clarke, Philip M., 1998. "Cost-benefit analysis and mammographic screening: a travel cost approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 767-787, December.
    3. Tarp, Finn & Simler, Kenneth & Matusse, Cristina & Heltberg, Rasmus & Dava, Gabriel, 2002. "The Robustness of Poverty Profiles Reconsidered," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(1), pages 77-108, October.
    4. Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2015. "The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: A Method to Test for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112940, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Gulati, Namrata & Ray, Tridip, 2016. "Inequality, neighbourhoods and welfare of the poor," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 214-228.
    6. Chen, Keith & Lange, Fabian, 2008. "Education, Information, and Improved Health: Evidence from Breast Cancer Screening," IZA Discussion Papers 3548, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Wagner, Todd H. & Hu, Teh-wei & Duenas, Grace V. & Pasick, Rena J., 2000. "Willingness to pay for mammography: item development and testing among five ethnic groups," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 105-121, September.
    8. Biswajit Mandal, 2015. "Demand for maternal health inputs in West Bengal-Inference from NFHS 3 in India," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(4), pages 2685-2700.
    9. Graff Zivin, Joshua & Neidell, Matthew, 2009. "Days of haze: Environmental information disclosure and intertemporal avoidance behavior," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 119-128, September.
    10. Courtney J. Ward, 2014. "Influenza Vaccination Campaigns: Is an Ounce of Prevention Worth a Pound of Cure?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 38-72, January.
    11. Fabbri, Daniele & Monfardini, Chiara, 2009. "Rationing the public provision of healthcare in the presence of private supplements: Evidence from the Italian NHS," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 290-304, March.
    12. Stefan Pichler & Nicolas R. Ziebarth, 2015. "The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: Testing for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1509, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    13. Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2019. "Reprint of: The pros and cons of sick pay schemes: Testing for contagious presenteeism and noncontagious absenteeism behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 86-104.
    14. Mandal, Biswajit, 2015. "Demand for Maternal health inputs in West Bengal-Inference from NFHS 3," MPRA Paper 68224, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Habtom, GebreMichael Kibreab & Ruys, Pieter, 2007. "The choice of a health care provider in Eritrea," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 202-217, January.
    16. De Luca, Giuliana & Ponzo, Michela, 2025. "Occupation and demand for health services in Italy: Ways and means to reduce the opportunity costs imposed on patients," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 645-661.
    17. Jürgen Maurer, 2016. "Inspecting the Mechanism," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 36(7), pages 887-899, October.
    18. Carman, K.G. & Kooreman, P., 2010. "Flu Shots, Mammogram, and the Perception of Probabilities," Other publications TiSEM fba970b8-6fc7-449b-acf9-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    19. Shosh Shahrabani & Amiram Gafni & Uri Ben-Zion, 2008. "Low Flu Shot Rates Puzzle—Some Plausible Behavioral Explanations," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 52(1), pages 66-72, March.
    20. Wojciech Kisiała & Izabela Rącka & Katarzyna Suszyńska, 2022. "Population Access to Hospital Emergency Departments: The Spatial Analysis in Public Health Research," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-15, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    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:eee:hepoli:v:91:y:2009:i:3:p:269-276. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/healthpol .

    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.