Identifying Placebo Effects with Data from Clinical Trials

Anup Malani

Journal of Political Economy, 2006, vol. 114, issue 2, 236-256

Abstract: A medical treatment is said to have placebo effects if patients who are optimistic about the treatment respond better to the treatment. This paper proposes a simple test for placebo effects. Instead of comparing the treatment and control arms of a single trial, one should compare the treatment arms of two trials with different probabilities of assignment to treatment. If there are placebo effects, patients in the higher-probability trial will experience better outcomes simply because they believe that there is a greater chance of receiving treatment. This paper finds evidence of placebo effects in trials of antiulcer and cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Date: 2006
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:114:y:2006:i:2:p:236-256

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