IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v19y2010i2p142-153.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Medical technology adoption, uncertainty, and irreversibilities: is a bird in the hand really worth more than in the bush?

Author

Listed:
  • Joshua Graff Zivin
  • Matthew Neidell

Abstract

The influence of current medical technology adoption decisions on the use of future potential interventions is often overlooked. Some health interventions, once exercised, restrict future potential interventions for both related and unrelated medical conditions. For example, treatment of a patient with an antibiotic may lead to resistance in that patient that precludes future treatment with the same or related compounds. This irreversibility raises the value of treatment modalities that preserve future treatment options. Surprisingly, partial reversibility with or without learning can either increase or decrease this value, depending on the distribution of patient types within the treated population. Evaluations that ignore these option values miss an important part of the welfare equation that is becoming increasingly important as individuals live longer and the stock of medical treatments increases. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Joshua Graff Zivin & Matthew Neidell, 2010. "Medical technology adoption, uncertainty, and irreversibilities: is a bird in the hand really worth more than in the bush?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(2), pages 142-153, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:19:y:2010:i:2:p:142-153
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.1455
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1455
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.1455?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adrian Towse, 2007. "If it ain't broke, don't price fix it: the OFT and the PPRS," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(7), pages 653-665, July.
    2. Palmer, Stephen & Smith, Peter C., 2000. "Incorporating option values into the economic evaluation of health care technologies," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(5), pages 755-766, September.
    3. Pindyck, Robert S, 1991. "Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Investment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(3), pages 1110-1148, September.
    4. Kenneth J. Arrow & Anthony C. Fisher, 1974. "Environmental Preservation, Uncertainty, and Irreversibility," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Chennat Gopalakrishnan (ed.), Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics, chapter 4, pages 76-84, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Claude Henry, 1974. "Investment decisions under uncertainty: The "irreversibility effect"," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/327343, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    6. Pindyck, Robert S, 1988. "Irreversible Investment, Capacity Choice, and the Value of the Firm," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(5), pages 969-985, December.
    7. Joshua Graff Zivin, 2001. "Cost‐effectiveness analysis with risk aversion," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(6), pages 499-508, September.
    8. Hanemann, W. Michael, 1989. "Information and the concept of option value," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 23-37, January.
    9. Henry, Claude, 1974. "Investment Decisions Under Uncertainty: The "Irreversibility Effect."," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(6), pages 1006-1012, December.
    10. Kolstad, Charles D., 1996. "Fundamental irreversibilities in stock externalities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 221-233, May.
    11. Meltzer, David, 1997. "Accounting for future costs in medical cost-effectiveness analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 33-64, February.
    12. David Meltzer, 1997. "Accounting for Future Costs in Medical Cost-Effectiveness Analysis," NBER Working Papers 5946, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Richard D. Smith, 2007. "Use, option and externality values: are contingent valuation studies in health care mis‐specified?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(8), pages 861-869, August.
    14. McDonald, Robert L & Siegel, Daniel R, 1985. "Investment and the Valuation of Firms When There Is an Option to Shut Down," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 26(2), pages 331-349, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shan Liu & Margaret L. Brandeau & Jeremy D. Goldhaber-Fiebert, 2017. "Optimizing patient treatment decisions in an era of rapid technological advances: the case of hepatitis C treatment," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 16-32, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pindyck, Robert S, 1991. "Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Investment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(3), pages 1110-1148, September.
    2. Baudry, Marc, 1999. "Stock externalities and the diffusion of less polluting capital: an option approach," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3-4), pages 395-420, December.
    3. Pindyck, Robert S., 2000. "Irreversibilities and the timing of environmental policy," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 233-259, July.
    4. Attanasi, Giuseppe Marco & Montesano, Aldo, 2010. "Testing Value vs Waiting Value in Environmental Decisions under Uncertainty," TSE Working Papers 10-154, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    5. Abebayehu Tegene & Keith Wiebe & Betsey Kuhn, 1999. "Irreversible Investment Under Uncertainty: Conservation Easements and the Option to Develop Agricultural Land," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 203-219, May.
    6. May Elsayyad & Florian Morath, 2016. "Technology Transfers For Climate Change," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(3), pages 1057-1084, August.
    7. Coggins, Jay S. & Ramezani, Cyrus A., 1996. "AN ARBITRAGE-FREE APPROACH TO QUASI-OPTION VALUE; Proceedings of the Fifth Joint Conference on Agriculture, Food, and the Environment, June 17-18, 1996, Padova, Italy," Working Papers 14469, University of Minnesota, Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy.
    8. Gollier, Christian & Jullien, Bruno & Treich, Nicolas, 2000. "Scientific progress and irreversibility: an economic interpretation of the 'Precautionary Principle'," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 229-253, February.
    9. Charles Sims & David Finnoff, 2016. "Opposing Irreversibilities and Tipping Point Uncertainty," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(4), pages 985-1022.
    10. Mensink, Paul & Requate, Till, 2005. "The Dixit-Pindyck and the Arrow-Fisher-Hanemann-Henry option values are not equivalent: a note on Fisher (2000)," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 83-88, January.
    11. Francois Salanie & Nicolas Treich, 2009. "Option Value and Flexibility: A General Theorem with Applications," LERNA Working Papers 09.12.288, LERNA, University of Toulouse.
    12. Coggins, Jay S. & Ramezani, Cyrus A., 1998. "An Arbitrage-Free Approach to Quasi-Option Value," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 103-125, March.
    13. Catherine Chambers & Paul Chambers & John Whitehead, 1997. "Historical resources, uncertainty and preservation values: An application of option and optimal stopping models," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 21(2), pages 51-61, June.
    14. Giovanni Immordino, 2003. "Looking for a Guide to Protect the Environment: The Development of the Precautionary Principle," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(5), pages 629-644, December.
    15. Scheinkman, Jose A. & Zariphopoulou, Thaleia, 2001. "Optimal Environmental Management in the Presence of Irreversibilities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 96(1-2), pages 180-207, January.
    16. Fisher, Anthony C., 2000. "Investment under uncertainty and option value in environmental economics," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 197-204, July.
    17. Albers, Heidi & Fisher, Anthony & Hanemann, W., 1993. "Valuation and Management of Tropical Forests: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis," CUDARE Working Papers 198629, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    18. repec:dau:papers:123456789/1046 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Robert S. Pindyck, 2006. "Uncertainty In Environmental Economics," NBER Working Papers 12752, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Guillouet, Louise & Martimort, David, 2023. "Acting in the Darkness: Towards some Foundations for the Precautionary Principle," TSE Working Papers 23-1411, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Jul 2024.
    21. Sandri, Serena & Schade, Christian & Mußhoff, Oliver & Odening, Martin, 2010. "Holding on for too long? An experimental study on inertia in entrepreneurs' and non-entrepreneurs' disinvestment choices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 30-44, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:19:y:2010:i:2:p:142-153. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.