| 来源类型 | Working Paper
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| 规范类型 | 报告
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| DOI | 10.3386/w8548
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| 来源ID | Working Paper 8548
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| An Empirical Model of Heterogeneous Consumer Search for Retail Prescription Drugs |
| Alan T. Sorensen
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| 发表日期 | 2001-10-01
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| 出版年 | 2001
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| 语种 | 英语
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| 摘要 | This paper uses detailed data on retail pharmacy transactions to make inferences about the nature and intensity of consumer search for prescription drugs. Prescription prices exhibit patterns that should, in principle, induce search: in particular, prices vary widely across stores, and stores' price rankings are inconsistent across drugs (so the low-price pharmacy is different for one prescription vs. another). Estimates from a model of pharmacy choice suggest that search intensities are generally low: I estimate that for a typical prescription, the fraction of consumers that price-shops is approximately 5-10 percent. However, variation in this estimated search intensity across drugs is substantial and appears to be consistent with explanations based on rational search; for instance, price-shopping is more prevalent for maintenance medications than for one-time purchases, presumably because the benefits of finding a low price are magnified for prescriptions that are purchased repeatedly. Under some relatively strong assumptions imposed by the empirical model, the data also identify parameters of a search cost distribution, suggesting that the cost of conducting an exhaustive price search is approximately $15 for the average consumer. |
| 主题 | Microeconomics
; Economics of Information
; Industrial Organization
; Industry Studies
|
| URL | https://www.nber.org/papers/w8548
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| 来源智库 | National Bureau of Economic Research (United States)
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| 引用统计 |
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| 资源类型 | 智库出版物
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| 条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/566152
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推荐引用方式
GB/T 7714 |
Alan T. Sorensen. An Empirical Model of Heterogeneous Consumer Search for Retail Prescription Drugs. 2001.
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文件名：
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w8548.pdf
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格式：
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Adobe PDF
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