Off‐Label Use of Pharmaceuticals: A Detection Controlled Estimation Approach

W. David Bradford, John Turner () and Jonathan W. Williams

Journal of Industrial Economics, 2018, vol. 66, issue 4, 866-903

Abstract: We identify the rate of off‐label use of prescription drugs in the United States during 1993‐2008 using Detection Controlled Estimation. We find that the rate rises from 29.9% to 38.3% during this period. Off‐label prescribing increases when there are fewer FDA‐approved alternatives and a patient’s insurance has less restrictive formularies and lower copayments. The temporal increase in off‐label use coincides with a surge in settlements of Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuits for off‐label marketing. Those drugs targeted by the DOJ have 4.6% higher rates of off‐label use initially, but the rate decreases 10.2% after the company becomes aware of the suit. The welfare effects of such regulatory intervention are unclear because we find off‐label prescribing patterns by physicians that are consistent with enhancement of patient welfare.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/joie.12189

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:bla:jindec:v:66:y:2018:i:4:p:866-903

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0022-1821

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Industrial Economics is currently edited by Pierre Regibeau, Yeon-Koo Che, Kenneth Corts, Thomas Hubbard, Patrick Legros and Frank Verboven

More articles in Journal of Industrial Economics from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().