IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v18y2009i12p1461-1480.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pricing in vitro fertilization procedures

Author

Listed:
  • Anthony J. Dukes
  • Rajeev K. Tyagi

Abstract

This paper examines the economics of pricing practices at artificial reproductive clinics, which have introduced money‐back guarantees (MBGs) for in vitro fertilization. We identify incentives for clinics to offer MBGs and evaluate the impact on couples' choices and on social welfare. Introducing MBGs allows a clinic to (i) segment couples simultaneously on their relative fertility and on risk preferences; (ii) offer quantity discounts to relatively infertile couples; and (iii) offer some risk‐sharing to couples for this costly procedure, whose outcome is uncertain. Our results also show how the addition of MBGs can affect the overall social welfare. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Anthony J. Dukes & Rajeev K. Tyagi, 2009. "Pricing in vitro fertilization procedures," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(12), pages 1461-1480, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:18:y:2009:i:12:p:1461-1480
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.1439
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1439
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.1439?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David C. Schmittlein & Donald G. Morrison, 2003. "A Live Baby or Your Money Back: The Marketing of In Vitro Fertilization Procedures," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(12), pages 1617-1635, December.
    2. Matthews, Steven & Moore, John, 1987. "Monopoly Provision of Quality and Warranties: An Exploration in the Theory of Multidimensional Screening," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 441-467, March.
    3. Macer, Darryl R.J., 1994. "Perception of risks and benefits of in vitro fertilization, genetic engineering and biotechnology," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 23-33, January.
    4. Duncan P. Mann & Jennifer P. Wissink, 1988. "Money-Back Contracts with Double Moral Hazard," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(2), pages 285-292, Summer.
    5. Geoffrey Heal, 1977. "Guarantees and Risk-Sharing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 549-560.
    6. Varian, Hal R, 1985. "Price Discrimination and Social Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 870-875, September.
    7. Shiou Shieh, 1996. "Price and Money‐Back Guarantees as Signals of Product Quality," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(3), pages 361-377, September.
    8. K. Sridhar Moorthy, 1984. "Market Segmentation, Self-Selection, and Product Line Design," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(4), pages 288-307.
    9. Sridhar Moorthy & Kannan Srinivasan, 1995. "Signaling Quality with a Money-Back Guarantee: The Role of Transaction Costs," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(4), pages 442-466.
    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. Tinglong Dai & Shubhranshu Singh, 2020. "Conspicuous by Its Absence: Diagnostic Expert Testing Under Uncertainty," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(3), pages 540-563, May.

    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. Li, Dan & Chen, Jing & Liao, Yi, 2021. "Optimal decisions on prices, order quantities, and returns policies in a supply chain with two-period selling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 290(3), pages 1063-1082.
    2. Heiman, Amir & McWilliams, Bruce & Zilberman, David, 2001. "Demonstrations and money-back guarantees: market mechanisms to reduce uncertainty," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 71-84, October.
    3. Liang Guo, 2009. "Service Cancellation and Competitive Refund Policy," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(5), pages 901-917, 09-10.
    4. Steven A. Matthews & Nicola Persico, 2007. "Information Acquisition and Refunds for Returns," PIER Working Paper Archive 07-021, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    5. Jinhong Xie & Eitan Gerstner, 2007. "Service Escape: Profiting from Customer Cancellations," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(1), pages 18-30, 01-02.
    6. Tridib Sharma & Levent Ülkü, 2015. "Money-Back Guarantees," Working Papers 1502, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    7. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:13:y:2004:i:1:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Anthony Dukes & Yi Zhu, 2019. "Why Customer Service Frustrates Consumers: Using a Tiered Organizational Structure to Exploit Hassle Costs," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(3), pages 500-515, May.
    9. Nizovtsev, Dmitri & Novshek, William, 2004. "Money-back guarantees and market experimentation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(7), pages 983-996, September.
    10. Huifang Jiao & Xuan Wang & Chi To Ng & Lijun Ma, 2021. "Pricing and Return Policies in a Competitive Market: A Consumer-Valuation Based Analysis with Valuation Uncertainties," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-23, January.
    11. Suwelack, Thomas & Hogreve, Jens & Hoyer, Wayne D., 2011. "Understanding Money-Back Guarantees: Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Outcomes," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 87(4), pages 462-478.
    12. Chen, Jing & Chen, Bintong & Li, Wei, 2018. "Who should be pricing leader in the presence of customer returns?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 265(2), pages 735-747.
    13. Subramanian Balachander, 2001. "Warranty Signalling and Reputation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(9), pages 1282-1289, September.
    14. Tang, Yao & Chen, Rachel R. & Guan, Xu, 2021. "Daily-deal market with consumer retention: Price discrimination or quality differentiation," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    15. Braouezec, Yann, 2012. "Customer-class pricing, parallel trade and the optimal number of market segments," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 605-614.
    16. Davis, Scott & Hagerty, Michael & Gerstner, Eitan, 1998. "Return policies and the optimal level of "hassle"," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 445-460, September.
    17. James Andreoni, 2018. "Satisfaction Guaranteed: When Moral Hazard Meets Moral Preferences," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 159-189, November.
    18. Nancy A. Lutz, 1988. "Warranties as Signals Under Consumer Moral Hazard," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 867, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    19. Lázár Ede, 2014. "Quantifying the Economic Value of Warranties: A Survey," Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 2(1), pages 75-94, October.
    20. Valerie Graf-Drasch & Maximilian Röglinger & Annette Wenninger & Sabiölla Hosseini, 2022. "A Contextualized Acceptance Model for Proactive Smart Services," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 345-387, September.
    21. Boom, Anette, 1998. "Product risk sharing by warranties in a monopoly market with risk-averse consumers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 241-257, January.

    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:18:y:2009:i:12:p:1461-1480. 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.