Consumer Health Information and the Demand for Medical Care
利用新的直接信息度量，将信息和就诊次数作为内生变量，实证发现信息增加就医概率但不影响就医量，反驳了医生诱导需求假说，并提示信息不足者可能低估医疗效果。
This paper is an empirical investigation of consumer health information. Using a new direct measure of information, the econometric approach treats both information and physician visits as endogenous variables when estimating the demand for medical care. The results show that information increases the probability that a consumer uses medical care, but that conditional on use the quantity of care consumed is not related to information. The results contradict specific implications of models where physicians can create or induce demand for their own services. Several results suggest that poorly informed consumers tend to underestimate the productivity of medical care in treating illness. Copyright 1990 by MIT Press.