Does Patient Demand Contribute to the Overuse of Prescription Drugs?
在马里的实验中，告知患者抗疟药折扣信息使折扣使用增加35%，总体疟疾治疗增加10%，但新增患者很少患有疟疾，导致治疗与病情匹配恶化。
In an experiment in Mali, we tested whether patients pressure providers to prescribe unnecessary medical treatment. We varied patients’ information about a discount for antimalarial tablets and measure demand for both tablets and costlier antimalarial injections. We find evidence of patient-driven demand: informing patients about the discount, instead of letting providers decide to share this information, increased discount use by 35 percent and overall malaria treatment by 10 percent. These marginal patients rarely had malaria, worsening the illness-treatment match. Providers did not use the information advantage to sell injections—their use fell in both information conditions.