Modelling Nonlinearities and Reference Dependence in General Practitioners' Income Preferences
通过离散选择实验，发现挪威全科医生对收入损失的敏感度约为同等收益的三倍，验证了参照依赖效用理论，并解释了基于收入增加的激励方案效果不佳的原因。
This paper tests for the existence of nonlinearity and reference dependence in income preferences for general practitioners. Confirming the theory of reference dependent utility within the context of a discrete choice experiment, we find that losses loom larger than gains in income for Norwegian general practitioners, i.e. they value losses from their current income level around three times higher than the equivalent gains. Our results are validated by comparison with equivalent contingent valuation values for marginal willingness to pay and marginal willingness to accept compensation for changes in job characteristics. Physicians' income preferences determine the effectiveness of 'pay for performance' and other incentive schemes. Our results may explain the relative ineffectiveness of financial incentive schemes that rely on increasing physicians' incomes. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.