Information Avoidance and Medical Screening: A Field Experiment in China

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Li, Yufeng; Meng, Juanjuan; Song, Changcheng; Zheng, Kai
• 署名单位: Capital Medical University; Peking University; Singapore Management University; University of California System; University of California Irvine
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2020.3723
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 4252-4272
• 关键词: anticipation utility; Information avoidance; health anxiety; health screening

摘要

Will individuals, especially high-risk individuals, avoid a disease test because of information avoidance? We conduct a field experiment to investigate this issue. We vary the price of a diabetes test (price experiment) and offer both a diabetes test and a cancer test (disease experiment) after eliciting participants' subjective beliefs about their disease risk. We find evidence that, first, some people avoid the test even when there is neither a monetary nor a transaction cost, and second, both low-and high-risk individuals select out of the test as the price increases. We explain our findings using three classes of models of anticipatory utility.