Price Subsidies, Diagnostic Tests, and Targeting of Malaria Treatment: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial

Jessica Cohen, Pascaline Dupas and Simone Schaner

American Economic Review, 2015, vol. 105, issue 2, 609-45

Abstract: Both under- and over-treatment of communicable diseases are public bads. But efforts to decrease one run the risk of increasing the other. Using rich experimental data on household treatment- seeking behavior in Kenya, we study the implications of this trade-off for subsidizing life-saving antimalarials sold over-the-counter at retail drug outlets. We show that a very high subsidy (such as the one under consideration by the international community) dramatically increases access, but nearly one-half of subsidized pills go to patients without malaria. We study two ways to better target subsidized drugs: reducing the subsidy level, and introducing rapid malaria tests over-the-counter. (JEL D12, D82, I12, O12, O15)

JEL-codes: D12 D82 I12 O12 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.20130267
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (97)

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Working Paper: Price Subsidies, Diagnostic Tests, and Targeting of Malaria Treatment: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial (2012)
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