Physician Agency and Adoption of Generic Pharmaceuticals
研究医生在品牌药和仿制药选择中的代理问题，利用日本微观面板数据发现医生常忽视患者成本，且受利润差价影响，但仿制药的差价优势短暂，政策可针对这些因素提高效率。
I examine physician agency in health care services in the context of the choice between brand-name and generic pharmaceuticals. I examine micro-panel data from Japan, where physicians can legally make profits by prescribing and dispensing drugs. The results indicate that physicians often fail to internalize patient costs, explaining why cheaper generics are infrequently adopted. Doctors respond to markup differentials between the two versions, indicating another agency problem. However, generics' markup advantages are short-lived, which limits their impact on increasing generic adoption. Additionally, state dependence and heterogeneous doctor preferences affected generics' adoption. Policy makers can target these factors to improve static efficiency.