Profit or Patients' Health Benefit? - Exploring the Heterogeneity in Physician Altruism
HERO WP 2011/07: Authors: Godager, G, Wiesen, D., Institute for health and society, University of Bonn and Chair of Quantitative Economic Policy, University of Duisburg-Essen, and University of Oslo, HERO. (PDF 202 kb)
Abstract
This paper investigates physician altruism toward patients’ health benefit using behavioral data from the fully incentivized laboratory experiment of Hennig-Schmidt et al. (2011). This setup identifies both physicians’ profits and patients’ health benefit resulting from medical treatment decisions.
We estimate a random utility model applying multinomial logit regression, finding that physicians attach a positive weight on patients’ health benefit. Furthermore, physicians vary substantially in their degree of altruism. Finally, we provide some implications for the design of physician payment schemes.
ISSN 1890-1735
ISBN 978-82-7756-227-8