Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics
HERO Online Working Paper Series,
University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme
No 2023:4: Economics of Healthcare Provider Altruism
Matteo M Galizzi (), Geir Godager (), Jing Li, Ismo Linnosmaa, Timo Tammi and Daniel Wiesen
Additional contact information
Matteo M Galizzi: Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, and LSE Behavioural Lab, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
Geir Godager: Department of Health Management and Health Economics
Jing Li: School of Pharmacy, University of Washington, USA
Ismo Linnosmaa: Department of Health and Social Management, University of Eastern Finland and Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Finland
Timo Tammi: Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland
Daniel Wiesen: Department of Healthcare Management, and Center for Social and Economic Behavior (C-SEB), University of Cologne, Germany
Abstract: We propose a comprehensive overview of the main theoretical notions and empirical findings on altruism among physicians and other healthcare providers. While altruism in the behavioral and experimental economics literature is typically defined as a deviation from purely self-interested behavior, the theoretical health economics literature embeds the notion of physician altruism within the doctor–patient relationship. The altruism of physicians is typically defined as the weight in the doctor’s utility function attached to patient’s health benefits, besides the self-interested monetary considerations. We broadly group the empirical evidence into three main categories of evidence: evidence from (i) survey and interview data, (ii) prescriptions records, and (iii) behavioral experiments. Across each of those groups of studies and different methods, the evidence generally supports the theoretical notion that physicians behave ‘altruistically’ in their healthcare decisions. Some studies indicate, however, considerable heterogeneity in physicians’ altruistic preferences.
Keywords: Altruism; healthcare providers; experimental evidence; structural estimation
Language: English
20 pages, June 23, 2023
Note: This article is a revised version of the working paper “Provider altruism in health economics”, which appeared in the discussion paper series of the National Institute for Health and Welfare (No. 04/2015). We thank Helena Reisgies for her excellent research assistance
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