IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v13y2004i11p1081-1089.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Co‐payments for prescription drugs and the demand for doctor visits – Evidence from a natural experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Rainer Winkelmann

Abstract

The German health care reform of 1997 provides a natural experiment for evaluating the price sensitivity of demand for physicians' services. As a part of the reform, co‐payments for prescription drugs were increased step up to 200%. 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% on an average. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Rainer Winkelmann, 2004. "Co‐payments for prescription drugs and the demand for doctor visits – Evidence from a natural experiment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(11), pages 1081-1089, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:13:y:2004:i:11:p:1081-1089
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.868
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.868
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.868?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:

    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)

    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. Czarnitzki, Dirk & Doherr, Thorsten & Hussinger, Katrin & Schliessler, Paula & Toole, Andrew A., 2016. "Knowledge Creates Markets: The influence of entrepreneurial support and patent rights on academic entrepreneurship," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 131-146.
    2. Brekke, Kurt R. & Holmas, Tor Helge & Straume, Odd Rune, 2011. "Reference pricing, competition, and pharmaceutical expenditures: Theory and evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 624-638.
    3. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    4. Nadine Levratto & Aurelien Quignon, 2021. "Innovation Performance and the Signal Effect: Evidence from a European Program," Working Papers halshs-03466903, HAL.
    5. Kaiser, Ulrich & Mendez, Susan J. & Rønde, Thomas & Ullrich, Hannes, 2014. "Regulation of pharmaceutical prices: Evidence from a reference price reform in Denmark," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 174-187.
    6. Silvers, Roger, 2021. "Does regulatory cooperation help integrate equity markets?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(3), pages 1275-1300.
    7. Morton, Rebecca B. & Muller, Daniel & Page, Lionel & Torgler, Benno, 2015. "Exit polls, turnout, and bandwagon voting: Evidence from a natural experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 65-81.
    8. Drivas, Kyriakos & Lei, Zhen & Wright, Brian D., 2017. "Academic patent licenses: Roadblocks or signposts for nonlicensee cumulative innovation?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 282-303.
    9. Nguyen, Cuong Viet, 2021. "Do weather extremes induce people to move? Evidence from Vietnam," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 118-141.
    10. Redpath, Connor, 2022. "Spousal Visa Policy and Mixed-Citizenship Couples: Evidence from the End of the Defense Of Marriage Act," SocArXiv mzuwe, Center for Open Science.
    11. Simone Ghislandi & Patrizio Armeni & Claudio Jommi, 2013. "The impact of generic reference pricing in Italy, a decade on," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 14(6), pages 959-969, December.
    12. Pierre Azoulay & Jeffrey L. Furman & Joshua L. Krieger & Fiona E. Murray, 2012. "Retractions," NBER Working Papers 18499, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Aurélien Quignon & Nadine Levratto, 2021. "Innovation Performance and the Signal Effect: Evidence from a European Program," EconomiX Working Papers 2021-34, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    14. Drivas, Kyriakos & Kremmydas, Dimitris, 2020. "The Matthew effect of a journal's ranking," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(4).
    15. Wright, Austin L. & Sonin, Konstantin & Driscoll, Jesse & Wilson, Jarnickae, 2020. "Poverty and economic dislocation reduce compliance with COVID-19 shelter-in-place protocols," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 544-554.
    16. Iacovone, Leonardo & Ferro, Esteban & Pereira-López, Mariana & Zavacka, Veronika, 2019. "Banking crises and exports: Lessons from the past," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 192-204.
    17. Marco Colagrossi & Claudio Deiana & Andrea Geraci & Ludovica Giua, 2022. "Hang up on stereotypes: Domestic violence and an anti‐abuse helpline campaign," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(4), pages 585-611, October.
    18. Donnelly, Grant E. & Simester, Duncan I. & Norton, Michael I., 2021. "The short and long-run impact of empowering customers in corporate social responsibility initiatives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 616-637.
    19. Abel Brodeur, 2012. "Smoking, Income and Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from Smoking Bans," Working Papers halshs-00664269, HAL.
    20. Anthony Briant & Pierre-Philippe Combes & Miren Lafourcade, 2014. "Product Complexity, Quality of Institutions and the Protrade Effect of Immigrants," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(1), pages 63-85, January.

    More about this item

    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

    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:wly:hlthec:v:13:y:2004:i:11:p:1081-1089. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    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.