Promoting Wellness or Waste? Evidence from Antidepressant Advertising

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Shapiro, Bradley T.
• 署名单位: University of Chicago
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20190277
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 439-477
• 关键词: major depressive disorder; economic burden; HEALTH; IMPACT; work; PRODUCTIVITY; sertraline

摘要

It is taken as given by many policy makers that Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of prescription drugs drives inappropriate patients to treatment. Alternatively, advertising may provide useful information that causes appropriate patients to seek treatment. I study this dynamic in the context of antidepressants. Leveraging variation driven by the borders of television markets, I find that a 10 percent increase in antidepressant advertising leads to a 0.3 percent ($32 million) increase in new prescriptions followed by reductions in workplace absenteeism worth about $770 million. I find no effect of advertising on prices, generic penetration, drug switches, adverse effects, non-adherence rates, or therapist visits.