Overtreatment and benevolent provider moral hazard: Evidence from South African doctors
通过外生改变南非私人医生的激励，发现供给者道德风险不增加治疗数量但推高治疗成本，医生承担边际成本时会选择更便宜药物，为医疗改革中的成本分担激励提供证据。
Overtreatment is widespread in health, with potentially dire consequences for patients, health systems and public health. It may be fueled by providers when they do not bear the cost of treatment (moral hazard), even they do not profit financially from it (i.e. benevolent providers). We test this hypothesis by creating an exogeneous change in the incentives faced by private doctors in South Africa. We find that provider moral hazard has no effect on overtreatment in volume but fuels overtreatment in cost. By contrast, when they bear the marginal treatment cost, doctors choose cheaper drug. While these results suggest that provider moral hazard contributes to overtreatment in primary care, we consider other plausible channels, such as responses to a perceived demand for high-quality drugs or market segmentation. We discuss the potential scope for supply-side cost-sharing incentives to reduce inefficiency in future health system reforms in South Africa.