Health Services as Credence Goods: a Field Experiment

Gottschalk, Felix C.H.; Mimra, Wanda; Waibel, Christian

doi:10.1093/ej/ueaa024

Cited by 62 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…In real world markets for credence goods, overtreatment is frequently observed (see e.g. Rasch and Waibel, 2017;Baniamin and Jamil, 2018;Gottschalk et al, 2020). Note also that the results from this experimental procedure were successfully replicated by Camerer et al (2016).…”

Section: Energy Efficiency As a Credence Good: A Simple Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 61%

Asymmetric Information on the Market for Energy Efficiency: Insights from the Credence Goods Literature

Lanz¹,

Reins²

2021

The Energy Journal

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Asymmetric information is an important barrier to the adoption of energy efficient technologies. In this paper, we study supply-side implications of the associated incentive structure. We build on existing evidence that, in some settings, energy efficiency owns a credence component, whereby the supply side of the market has more information about what technology is best for consumers. The literature on credence goods markets suggests that an information advantage by expert-sellers leads to market inefficiencies, including low trade volume. We start by developing a simple framework to study supply-side incentives related to the provision of energy efficient technologies. We then document inefficiencies and potential remedies by discussing linkages between an empirical literature on credence goods and that on the market for energy efficiency. Doing so, we identify implications for the design of policies promoting the adoption of energy-efficient technologies.

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Section: Energy Efficiency As a Credence Good: A Simple Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 61%

Asymmetric Information on the Market for Energy Efficiency: Insights from the Credence Goods Literature

Lanz¹,

Reins²

2021

The Energy Journal

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“…Balafoutas et al (2013Balafoutas et al ( , 2017 show that taxi passengers who reveal that they are unfamiliar with the optimal route to their destination or with the tariff system in the respective city are more likely to be taken on detours and to be overcharged than passengers who simply state the requested destination. Gottschalk et al (2018) report that patients who are perceived as less informed about the proper treatment at a dentist are more likely to be overtreated (with respect to the recommended treatment). All of these papers compare binary information levels and investigate whether changing the information level of consumers has an effect on the behavior of sellers.…”

Section: Formentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The finding that a correct self-diagnosis does not reduce the repair price resembles the result inGottschalk et al (2018) that a second opinion does not reduce overtreatment.23 See, for instance, the New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/technology/finding-fakereviews-online.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper (accessed on 10 January 2019). 24 See https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/your-money/22haggler.html (accessed on 10 January 2019).…”

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confidence: 90%

Credence Goods Markets and the Informational Value of New Media: A Natural Field Experiment

2019

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Credence goods markets are characterized by pronounced informational asymmetries between consumers and expert sellers. As a consequence, consumers are often exploited and market efficiency is threatened. However, in the digital age, it has become easy and cheap for consumers to self-diagnose their needs using specialized webpages or to access other consumers' reviews on social media platforms in search for trustworthy sellers. We present a natural field experiment that examines the causal effect of information acquisition from new media on the level of sellers' price charges for computer repairs. We find that even a correct self-diagnosis of a consumer about the appropriate repair does not reduce prices, and that an incorrect diagnosis more than doubles them. Internet ratings of repair shops are a good predictor of prices. However, the predictive valued of reviews depends on whether they are judged as reliable or not. For reviews recommended by the platform Yelp we find that good ratings are associated with lower prices and bad ratings with higher prices, while non-recommended reviews have a clearly misleading effect, because non-recommended positive ratings increase the price.

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“…The potential impact on credence goods can be seen in the results of a field experiment in the market for dental care of Gottschalk et al [55] where an overtreatment recommendation rate of 28% and a striking heterogeneity in treatment recommendations was observed. It was found that mainly dentists with shorter waiting times are more likely to propose unnecessary treatment than others.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The patient–physician relationship: an account of the physician’s perspective

Berger

Bulmash

Drori

et al. 2020

Isr J Health Policy Res

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Background: The issue of patient-physician relationships in general, and particularly the trust of patients in their primary care physician has gained much interest in academia and with practitioners in recent years. Most research on this important topic, however, focused on how patients view the relationship and not how the physicians see it. This research strives to bridge this gap, with the resolution of leading to an improved appreciation of this multifaceted relationship. Methods: A survey of 328 actively practicing physicians from all four health maintenance organizations (HMOs) in Israel resulted in a hierarchical formation of components, indicating both the relative as well as absolute importance of each component in the formation of the patient-physician relationship. The sample conducted was a convenience one. Methodologically, we used two different complementary methods of analysis, with the primary emphasis on the Analytic Hierarchical Processing (AHP), a unique and advanced statistical method. Results: The results provide a detailed picture of physicians' attitudes toward the patient-physician relationship. Research indicates that physicians tend to consider the relationship with the patient in a rather pragmatic manner. To date, this attitude was mostly referred to intuitively, without the required rigorous investigation provided by this paper. Specifically, the results indicate that physicians tend to consider the relationship with the patient in a rather pragmatic manner. Namely, while fairness, reliability, devotion, and serviceability received high scores from physicians, social interaction, friendship, familial, as well as appreciation received the lowest scores, indicating low priority for warmth and sociability in the trust relationship from the physician's perspective. The results showed good consistency between the AHP results and the ANOVA comparable analyses. Conclusions: In contrast to patients who traditionally stress the importance of interpersonal skills, physicians stress the significance of the technical expertise and knowledge of health providers, emphasizing the role of competence and performance. Physicians evaluate the relationship on the basis of their ability to solve problems through devotion, serviceability, reliability, and trustworthiness and disregard the "softer" interpersonal aspects such as caring, appreciation, and empathy that have been found to be important to their patients. This illustrates a mismatch in the important components of relationship building that can lead to a loss of trust, satisfaction, and repeat purchase.

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Health Services as Credence Goods: a Field Experiment

Cited by 62 publications

References 44 publications

Asymmetric Information on the Market for Energy Efficiency: Insights from the Credence Goods Literature

Asymmetric Information on the Market for Energy Efficiency: Insights from the Credence Goods Literature

Credence Goods Markets and the Informational Value of New Media: A Natural Field Experiment

The patient–physician relationship: an account of the physician’s perspective

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