This paper is the first to apply prospect theory to societal health-related decision making. In particular, we allow for utility curvature, equity weighting, sign-dependence, and loss aversion in choices concerning quality of life of other people. We find substantial inequity aversion, both for gains and losses, which can be attributed to both diminishing marginal utility and differential weighting of better-off and worse-off. There are also clear framing effects, which violate expected utility. Moreover, we observe loss aversion, indicating that subjects give more weight to one group's loss than another group's gain of the same absolute magnitude. We also elicited some information on the effect of the age of the studied group. The amount of inequity aversion is to some extent influenced by the age of the considered patients. In particular, more inequity aversion is observed for gains of older people than gains of younger people.
Estimating sign-dependent societal preferences for quality of life
Résumé
en
This paper is the first to apply prospect theory to societal health-related decision making. In particular, we allow for utility curvature, equity weighting, sign-dependence, and loss aversion in choices concerning quality of life of other people. We find substantial inequity aversion, both for gains and losses, which can be attributed to both diminishing marginal utility and differential weighting of better-off and worse-off. There are also clear framing effects, which violate expected utility. Moreover, we observe loss aversion, indicating that subjects give more weight to one group's loss than another group's gain of the same absolute magnitude. We also elicited some information on the effect of the age of the studied group. The amount of inequity aversion is to some extent influenced by the age of the considered patients. In particular, more inequity aversion is observed for gains of older people than gains of younger people.
Auteur(s)
Arthur E. Attema1
, Werner B.F. Brouwer1
, Olivier L’haridon2
, Jose Luis Pinto3
1
Institute of Health Policy and Management
( 173697 )
- Rotterdam
- Pays-Bas
Erasmus University Rotterdam ( 485122 )
2
CREM -
Centre de recherche en économie et management
( 894 )
- 7 place Hoche, BP 86514
35065 RENNES CEDEX
- France
Université de Caen Normandie ( 7127 )
;
Normandie Université ( 455934 )
;
Université de Rennes ( 105160 )
;
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UMR6211 ( 441569 )
3
Yunus Centre
( 425463 )
- Royaume-Uni
Glasgow Caledonian University ( 327586 )
Date de publication
2015
Langue du document
Anglais
Nom de la revue
J Health Econ -
Journal of Health Economics
(ISSN : 0167-6296)
Publié par Elsevier
Revue non référencée dans Sherpa-Romeo
D - Microeconomics/D.D6 - Welfare Economics/D.D6.D63 - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
I - Health, Education, and Welfare/I.I0 - General
Domaine(s)
Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Economies et finances
Financement
This research was made possible through a grant from The Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMW), project number 152002041. We are grateful to Peter P. Wakker for advice and Job van Exel for assistance in the design of the experiment. The usual disclaimer applies.
Mots-clés
en
Equity weighting, health-related social welfare function, loss aversion, prospect theory, QALYs
Arthur E. Attema, Werner B.F. Brouwer, Olivier L’haridon, Jose Luis Pinto. Estimating sign-dependent societal preferences for quality of life. Journal of Health Economics, 2015, 43, pp.229-243. ⟨10.1016/j.jhealeco.2015.07.006⟩. ⟨halshs-01183561⟩
