{"title":"Drug Diffusion Through Peer Networks: The Influence of Industry Payments.","authors":"Leila Agha, Dan Zeltzer","doi":"10.1257/pol.20200044","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Pharmaceutical companies market to physicians through individual detailing accompanied by monetary or in-kind transfers. Large compensation payments to a small number of physicians account for most of this promotional spending. Studying US promotional payments and prescriptions for anticoagulant drugs, we investigate how peer influence broadens the payments' reach. Following a compensation payment, prescriptions for the marketed drug increase by both the paid physician and the paid physician's peers. Payments increase prescriptions to both recommended and contraindicated patients. Over three years, marketed anticoagulant prescriptions rose 23 percent due to payments, with peer spillovers contributing a quarter of the increase.</p>","PeriodicalId":48093,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Journal-Economic Policy","volume":"14 2","pages":"1-33"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6000,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9387671/pdf/nihms-1764085.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"American Economic Journal-Economic Policy","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.20200044","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Pharmaceutical companies market to physicians through individual detailing accompanied by monetary or in-kind transfers. Large compensation payments to a small number of physicians account for most of this promotional spending. Studying US promotional payments and prescriptions for anticoagulant drugs, we investigate how peer influence broadens the payments' reach. Following a compensation payment, prescriptions for the marketed drug increase by both the paid physician and the paid physician's peers. Payments increase prescriptions to both recommended and contraindicated patients. Over three years, marketed anticoagulant prescriptions rose 23 percent due to payments, with peer spillovers contributing a quarter of the increase.
期刊介绍:
The American Economic Review (AER) is a general-interest economics journal. The journal publishes 12 issues containing articles on a broad range of topics. Established in 1911, the AER is among the nation's oldest and most respected scholarly journals in economics.
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy publishes papers covering a range of topics, the common theme being the role of economic policy in economic outcomes. Subject areas include public economics; urban and regional economics; public policy aspects of health, education, welfare and political institutions; law and economics; economic regulation; and environmental and natural resource economics.