Ask Your Doctor? Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Pharmaceuticals
利用政治广告周期和监管干预带来的广告市场冲击，测量药品电视广告对品牌药销售、同类非广告药销售及社会福利的影响，发现广告主要吸引新客户且具有社会成本效益。
We measure the impact of direct-to-consumer television advertising (DTCA) by drug manufacturers. Our identification strategy exploits shocks to local advertising markets generated by the political advertising cycle and a regulatory intervention affecting a single product. We find evidence of significant business stealing effects among branded, advertised drugs. In addition, we show positive spillovers from drug advertisements to non-advertised competitors in the same class. We decompose the effect and show it is primarily due to new customers. Finally, we provide evidence that DTCA is cost-effective from a societal standpoint in our setting.