Should product-specific advertisement be regulated in pharmaceutical markets?

This paper examines the optimal content regulation of direct-to-consumer advertisement (DTCA) by comparing two forms of DTCA—product-specific and category-specific—and identifies a key tradeoff which underlies this policy debate. Our analysis suggests that the optimal form of DTCA depends crucially on the cost effectiveness of DTCA and the market-size distortion induced by DTCA. When the cost of advertisement is high, there often exists a Pareto-improving policy choice: category-specific DTCA is preferred when the market-size distortion is more severe while produce DTCA is preferred when it is less so. As the cost decreases, however, a conflict emerges between pharmaceutical firms and patients: firms are worse off under product-specific DTCA while patients are better off. We also find that the physician's reluctance to persuade misinformed patients can actually alleviate the market-size distortion and hence be welfare-enhancing.