The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Portrait of Anders Anell. Photo.

Anders Anell

Professor

Portrait of Anders Anell. Photo.

Information, switching costs, and consumer choice: Evidence from two randomised field experiments in Swedish primary health care

Author

  • Anders Anell
  • Jens Dietrichson
  • Lina Maria Ellegård
  • Gustav Kjellsson

Summary, in English

Consumer choice policies may improve the matching of consumers and providers, and may spur competition over quality dimensions relevant to consumers. However, the gains from choice may fail to materialise in markets characterised by information frictions and switching costs. We use two large-scale randomised field experiments in primary health care to examine if individuals reconsider their provider choice when receiving leaflets with comparative information and pre-paid choice forms by postal mail. The first experiment targeted a representative subset of the 1.3 million residents in a Swedish region. The second targeted new residents in the same region, a group expected to have less prior information and lower switching costs than the general population. The propensity to switch providers increased after the interventions in both the population-representative sample (by 0.6–0.8 percentage points, 10–14%) and among new residents (2.3 percentage points, 26%). The results demonstrate that there are demand side frictions in the primary care market. Exploratory analyses indicate that the effects on switching were larger in urban markets and that the interventions had heterogeneous effects on the type of providers chosen, and on health care and drug consumption.

Department/s

  • Department of Business Administration
  • Department of Economics

Publishing year

2021-04-01

Language

English

Publication/Series

Journal of Public Economics

Volume

196

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Economics
  • Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy

Keywords

  • Information friction
  • Switching costs
  • Consumer choice
  • Field experiment
  • Primary care
  • D89
  • I11

Status

Published

Project

  • Public Management Research

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0047-2727