IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v14y2005i4p363-376.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The economic value of informal care: a study of informal caregivers' and patients' willingness to pay and willingness to accept for informal care

Author

Listed:
  • Bernard van den Berg
  • Han Bleichrodt
  • Louis Eeckhoudt

Abstract

We provide a new test of the feasibility of using contingent valuation to value informal care. We start with a theoretical model of informal caregiving and derive that willingness to pay depends positively on wealth and negatively on own health, whereas the effect of other's health is sign‐ambiguous. These predictions are tested in two new data sets on patients' and caregivers' willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA) for informal care. The data are generally consistent with the theoretical predictions: wealth generally has a positive impact and own health a negative impact. Other's health has a mixed effect. We find only small differences between WTP and WTA. Our findings suggest that contingent valuation may be a useful technique to value informal care in economic evaluations of health care. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Bernard van den Berg & Han Bleichrodt & Louis Eeckhoudt, 2005. "The economic value of informal care: a study of informal caregivers' and patients' willingness to pay and willingness to accept for informal care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(4), pages 363-376, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:14:y:2005:i:4:p:363-376
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.980
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.980
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.980?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. Sloan, Frank A. & Kip Viscusi, W. & Chesson, Harrell W. & Conover, Christopher J. & Whetten-Goldstein, Kathryn, 1998. "Alternative approaches to valuing intangible health losses: the evidence for multiple sclerosis1," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 475-497, August.
    2. Gronau, Reuben, 1987. "Home production -- A survey," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & R. Layard (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 273-304, Elsevier.
    3. Horowitz, John K. & McConnell, Kenneth E., 2002. "A Review of WTA/WTP Studies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 426-447, November.
    4. Viscusi, W Kip & Evans, William N, 1990. "Utility Functions That Depend on Health Status: Estimates and Economic Implications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 353-374, June.
    5. Eisenberger, Roselies & Weber, Martin, 1995. "Willingness-to-Pay and Willingness-to-Accept for Risky and Ambiguous Lotteries," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 223-233, May.
    6. Bernard van denBerg & Werner Brouwer & Job van Exel & Marc Koopmanschap, 2005. "Economic valuation of informal care: the contingent valuation method applied to informal caregiving," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(2), pages 169-183, February.
    7. Jones-Lee, Michael W, 1974. "The Value of Changes in the Probability of Death or Injury," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(4), pages 835-849, July/Aug..
    8. Norton, Edward C., 2000. "Long-term care," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 17, pages 955-994, Elsevier.
    9. Alan Diener & Bernie O'Brien & Amiram Gafni, 1998. "Health care contingent valuation studies: a review and classification of the literature," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(4), pages 313-326, June.
    10. Brown, Thomas C. & Gregory, Robin, 1999. "Why the WTA-WTP disparity matters," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 323-335, March.
    11. Thomas Hammerschmidt & Hans‐Peter Zeitler & Reiner Leidl, 2004. "A utility‐theoretic approach to the aggregation of willingness to pay measured in decomposed scenarios: development and empirical test," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(4), pages 345-361, April.
    12. Brookshire, David S & Coursey, Don L, 1987. "Measuring the Value of a Public Good: An Empirical Comparison of Elicitation Procedures," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(4), pages 554-566, September.
    13. Natalia N. Borisova & Allen C. Goodman, 2003. "Measuring the value of time for methadone maintenance clients: willingness to pay, willingness to accept, and the wage rate," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(4), pages 323-334, April.
    14. Jan Abel Olsen & Richard D. Smith, 2001. "Theory versus practice: a review of ‘willingness‐to‐pay’ in health and health care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(1), pages 39-52, January.
    15. Raymond Y.T. Yeung & Richard D. Smith & Sarah M. McGhee, 2003. "Willingness to pay and size of health benefit: an integrated model to test for ‘sensitivity to scale’," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(9), pages 791-796, September.
    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. Bernard van denBerg & Werner Brouwer & Job van Exel & Marc Koopmanschap, 2005. "Economic valuation of informal care: the contingent valuation method applied to informal caregiving," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(2), pages 169-183, February.
    2. Nathalie Havet & Magali Morelle & Alexis Penot & Raphaël Remonnay, 2012. "The information content of the WTP-WTA gap : An empirical analysis among severely ill patients," Working Papers halshs-00697762, HAL.
    3. Whynes, David K. & Sach, Tracey H., 2007. "WTP and WTA: Do people think differently?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(5), pages 946-957, September.
    4. Emmanouil Mentzakis & Mandy Ryan & Paul McNamee, 2014. "Modelling Heterogeneity and Uncertainty in Contingent Valuation: an Application to the Valuation of Informal Care," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 61(1), pages 1-25, February.
    5. Sayman, Serdar & Onculer, Ayse, 2005. "Effects of study design characteristics on the WTA-WTP disparity: A meta analytical framework," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 289-312, April.
    6. van Exel, N.J.A. & Brouwer, W.B.F. & van den Berg, B. & Koopmanschap, M.A., 2006. "With a little help from an anchor: Discussion and evidence of anchoring effects in contingent valuation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 836-853, October.
    7. Bleichrodt, Han & Crainich, David & Eeckhoudt, Louis, 2003. "Comorbidities and the willingness to pay for health improvements," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(11), pages 2399-2406, October.
    8. Liu, Liqun & Neilson, William S., 2005. "Endogenous private health investment and the willingness to pay for public health projects: The effects of income," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 415-420, June.
    9. Bernie J. O'Brien & Kirsten Gertsen & Andrew R. Willan & A. Faulkner, 2002. "Is there a kink in consumers' threshold value for cost‐effectiveness in health care?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(2), pages 175-180, March.
    10. Henrik Andersson, 2008. "Willingness to Pay for Car Safety: Evidence from Sweden," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 41(4), pages 579-594, December.
    11. David Crainich & Louis Eeckhoudt & James Hammitt, 2015. "The value of risk reduction: new tools for an old problem," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 79(3), pages 403-413, November.
    12. Costa-Font, Joan & Rovira-Forns, Joan, 2008. "Who is willing to pay for long-term care insurance in Catalonia?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 72-84, April.
    13. Johnston, Marie, 2014. "Contingent Valuation: A Comparison of Referendum and Voluntary Contribution Mechanisms," 2014 Conference (58th), February 4-7, 2014, Port Macquarie, Australia 165843, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    14. Zoë Philips & David K. Whynes & Mark Avis, 2006. "Testing the construct validity of willingness to pay valuations using objective information about risk and health benefit," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(2), pages 195-204, February.
    15. Lisa A. Robinson & James K. Hammitt, 2016. "Valuing Reductions in Fatal Illness Risks: Implications of Recent Research," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(8), pages 1039-1052, August.
    16. van den Berg, Bernard & Al, Maiwenn & Brouwer, Werner & van Exel, Job & Koopmanschap, Marc, 2005. "Economic valuation of informal care: The conjoint measurement method applied to informal caregiving," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(6), pages 1342-1355, September.
    17. Hammitt, James K. & Herrera-Araujo, Daniel & Rheinberger, Christoph, 2016. "The Value of Cancer Prevention vs Treatment," TSE Working Papers 16-628, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    18. Liu, Liqun & Rettenmaier, Andrew J., 2007. "Effects of mortality risk on risk-taking behavior," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 49-55, January.
    19. Brown, Thomas C., 2005. "Loss aversion without the endowment effect, and other explanations for the WTA-WTP disparity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 367-379, July.
    20. Mihic, Marko M. & Todorovic, Marija Lj. & Obradovic, Vladimir Lj., 2014. "Economic analysis of social services for the elderly in Serbia: Two sides of the same coin," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 9-21.

    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:wly:hlthec:v:14:y:2005:i:4:p:363-376. 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.