Physicians prescribing originals causes welfare losses

David Granlund and David Sundström

Economics Letters, 2018, vol. 170, issue C, 143-146

Abstract: We analyze 319,000 choices of medically equivalent drugs at Swedish pharmacies. The results show that patients dislike substitutions for the prescribed product and that this effect is larger when the prescribed product is an original. At the same time, patients have strong preferences to buy the cheapest generic product. This implies that patients in most cases buy the cheapest generic product and experience welfare losses when the physician has prescribed another product.

Keywords: Doctors; Pharmaceuticals; Prescription drugs; Generic drugs; Welfare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 D60 D90 I11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:170:y:2018:i:c:p:143-146

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2018.06.017

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