The Importance of the First Generic Substitution: Evidence from Sweden

Aljoscha Janssen () and David Granlund ()
Additional contact information
Aljoscha Janssen: Singapore Management University, Postal: and Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden, https://aljoschajanssen.com/
David Granlund: Umea University

No 1428, Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Abstract: We analyze changes in the willingness to substitute from prescribed pharmaceuticals to more affordable generic equivalents in response to the first experience with a substitution. Using Swedish individual-level data of prescribed and dispensed pharmaceuticals, we employ a dynamic event study and an instrumental variable approach to show that an initial substitution reduces the probability of opposing subsequent substitutions by 39 percentage points. The impact of a first substitution is especially large among elderly patients. We recommend that policy-makers target patients with a history of opposed substitution and offer additional discounts to promote substitution as long-term savings outweigh one-time costs.

Keywords: Generic Substitution; Pharmaceuticals; Health Care Costs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 I11 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2022-04-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hea and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ifn.se/wfiles/wp/wp1428.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1428

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Box 55665, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Elisabeth Gustafsson ().