Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Empirical Tests of Asymmetric Information in the Pharmaceutical Retail Market

经济学博士论文研究：药品零售市场信息不对称的实证检验

• 批准号: 1260911
• 负责人: Rebecca Thornton
• 金额: $ 2.26万
• 依托单位: Regents of the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-08-15 至 2015-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1260911&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Economics; Empirical

This award funds research conducted by doctoral candidate Anne Fitzpatrick under the guidance of Dr. Rebecca Thornton. The project seeks to determine the role of pharmaceutical retailers in the sale of counterfeit drugs. The research will ascertain whether retailers know which drugs within their stock are counterfeit, and whether they can make different purchasing decisions and avoid purchasing counterfeit stock.The research includes several rounds of data collection at over 500 drug vendors that sell anti-malarial drugs in an area where malaria is a serious public health problem. An audit study will determine the prevalence of counterfeit drugs and whether or not the vendors are aware they are selling counterfeits; the study achieves this goal by comparing purchases from anonymous shoppers to purchases from shoppers who announce that their purchases will subjected to quality testing. A randomized controlled trial will be conducted as well; this trial will test the effects of an incentive scheme that gives the retailers incentives to avoid counterfeits. Economic theory predicts that the incentive scheme will have the desired effect, so the project also tests key hypotheses about seller incentives to provide quality products.The broader impact of the project comes from the eventual use of the research results. The project could result in a workable solution to curb the worldwide sale of counterfeit pharmaceuticals.

该奖项资助博士候选人安妮菲茨帕特里克在丽贝卡桑顿博士的指导下进行的研究。 该项目旨在确定药品零售商在销售假药中的作用。 这项研究将确定零售商是否知道他们库存中的哪些药物是假冒的，以及他们是否可以做出不同的购买决定，避免购买假冒库存。这项研究包括对500多家药品供应商进行几轮数据收集，这些药品供应商在疟疾是一个严重的公共卫生问题的地区销售抗疟疾药物。 一项审计研究将确定假药的流行程度，以及供应商是否知道他们在销售假药;这项研究通过比较匿名购物者的购买和宣布他们的购买将接受质量测试的购物者的购买来实现这一目标。 还将进行一项随机对照试验;这项试验将测试一项激励计划的效果，该计划将激励零售商避免假冒伪劣产品。 经济学理论预测，激励计划将产生预期的效果，因此该项目还测试了关于卖方激励提供优质产品的关键假设。该项目的更广泛影响来自研究结果的最终使用。 该项目可能会导致一个可行的解决方案，以遏制世界各地的假冒药品销售。