TY  - JOUR
AU  - Currie,Janet
AU  - Lin,Wanchuan
AU  - Meng,Juanjuan
TI  - Using Audit Studies to Test for Physician Induced Demand: The Case of Antibiotic Abuse in China
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18153
PY  - 2012
Y2  - June 2012
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18153
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18153.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Janet Currie
Princeton University
316 Wallace Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544
Tel: 609-258-7393
Fax: 609-258-5974
E-Mail: jcurrie@princeton.edu

Wanchuan Lin
Department of Applied Economics
Guanghua School of Management
Peking University
Rm. 325, Hall 2
Beijing 100871, China
E-Mail: wanchuan@gmail.com

Juanjuan Meng
Department of Applied Economics 
Guanghua School of Management
Rm. 323, Hall 2
Peking University
Beijing 100871, China
E-Mail: jumeng@gsm.pku.edu.cn
AB  - The overuse of medical services including antibiotics is often blamed on Physician Induced Demand.  But since this theory is about physician motivations, it is difficult to test.  We conduct an audit study in which physician financial incentives, beliefs about what patients want, and desires to reciprocate for a small gift are systematically varied.  We find that all of these treatments reduce antibiotics prescriptions, suggesting that antibiotics abuse in China is not driven by patients actively demanding antibiotics, by physicians believing that patients want antibiotics, or by physicians believing that antibiotics are in the best interests of their patients, but is largely driven by financial incentives.  Our results also show that physician behavior can be significantly influenced by the receipt of a token gift, such as a pen.
ER  -