Framing and subject pool effects in healthcare credence goods

Silvia Angerer, Daniela Glätzle-Rützler and Christian Waibel

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2023, vol. 103, issue C

Abstract: Credence goods markets are characterized by asymmetric information between experts and consumers, specifically relating to quality (what is needed and/or supplied). The functioning of the market is heavily reliant on trust on the side of the consumer and trustworthiness on the side of the expert. However, a large body of empirical and experimental research has demonstrated the existence of overtreatment, undertreatment, and overcharging in several credence goods markets. In this paper, we study two determinants of trust and trustworthiness in experimental credence goods markets: the effects of a health frame (vs. a neutral frame) and an expert subject pool (vs. standard student subject pool). Our results reveal that the subject pool, in combination with the health frame, has a significant impact on the level of trust and trustworthiness, shown by a higher willingness of consumers (patients) to enter the market and a lower rate of undertreatment by experts.

Keywords: Healthcare economics; Trust; Fraud; Framing effects; Experts; Credence goods; Undertreatment; Overcharging; Laboratory experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D82 I11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804322001434
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:soceco:v:103:y:2023:i:c:s2214804322001434

DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2022.101973

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) is currently edited by Pablo Brañas Garza

More articles in Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().