IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bol/bodewp/559.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Rationale for Searching (Imprecise) Health Information

Author

Listed:
  • F. Barigozzi
  • R. Levaggi

Abstract

We analyse a model of patient decision-making where anxiety about the future characterizes the patient s utility function. Anxiety corresponds to fear of bad news and results in the patient being averse to information. First, the patient chooses the accuracy of a signal which discloses information on his health status. Then he up-dates his beliefs according to Bayes s rule and chooses an action. We show that the choice of imprecise information can be optimal because it allows the patient to trade off the damage deriving from complete ignorance with the anxiety raised by the news about his health level.

Suggested Citation

  • F. Barigozzi & R. Levaggi, 2006. "A Rationale for Searching (Imprecise) Health Information," Working Papers 559, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    • Handle: RePEc:bol:bodewp:559
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://amsacta.unibo.it/4728/1/559.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Koszegi, Botond, 2003. "Health anxiety and patient behavior," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 1073-1084, November.
    2. Andrew Caplin & John Leahy, 2004. "The supply of information by a concerned expert," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(497), pages 487-505, July.
    3. Wagner, Todd H. & Hu, Teh-wei & Hibbard, Judith H., 2001. "The demand for consumer health information," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 1059-1075, November.
    4. Andrew Caplin & John Leahy, 2001. "Psychological Expected Utility Theory and Anticipatory Feelings," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 55-79.
    5. F. Barigozzi & R. Levaggi, 2005. "New Developments in Physician Agency: the Role of Patient Information," Working Papers 550, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    6. Giuseppe Moscarini & Lones Smith, 2001. "The Optimal Level of Experimentation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(6), pages 1629-1644, November.
    7. Caplin, Andrew & Eliaz, Kfir, 2003. "AIDS Policy and Psychology: A Mechanism-Design Approach," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(4), pages 631-646, Winter.
    8. M. Kate Bundorf & Laurence Baker & Sara Singer & Todd Wagner, 2004. "Consumer Demand for Health Information on the Internet," NBER Working Papers 10386, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Eliaz, Kfir & Spiegler, Ran, 2006. "Can anticipatory feelings explain anomalous choices of information sources?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 87-104, July.
    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. F. Barigozzi & R. Levaggi, 2005. "New Developments in Physician Agency: the Role of Patient Information," Working Papers 550, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.

    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. Francesca Barigozzi & Rosella Levaggi, 2010. "Emotional decision-makers and anomalous attitudes towards information," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 255-280, June.
    2. Nikolaus Schweizer & Nora Szech, 2018. "Optimal Revelation of Life-Changing Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(11), pages 5250-5262, November.
    3. Kang, Min Jeong & Camerer, Colin, 2018. "Measured anxiety affects choices in experimental “clock” games," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 49-64.
    4. Barigozzi, Francesca & Levaggi, Rosella, 2008. "Emotions in physician agency," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 1-14, October.
    5. Gottlieb, Daniel, 2014. "Imperfect memory and choice under risk," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 127-158.
    6. Foster, Gigi & Frijters, Paul & Johnston, David W., 2012. "The triumph of hope over disappointment: A note on the utility value of good health expectations," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 206-214.
    7. Battigalli, Pierpaolo & Dufwenberg, Martin, 2009. "Dynamic psychological games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 1-35, January.
    8. Roland Bénabou, 2013. "Groupthink: Collective Delusions in Organizations and Markets," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(2), pages 429-462.
    9. Larry G. Epstein, 2008. "Living with Risk," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(4), pages 1121-1141.
    10. Immordino, Giovanni & Menichini, Anna Maria C. & Romano, Maria Grazia, 2011. "A simple impossibility result in behavioral contract theory," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(3), pages 307-309.
    11. Jan B. Engelmann & Maël Lebreton & Nahuel A. Salem-Garcia & Peter Schwardmann & Joël J. van der Weele, 2024. "Anticipatory Anxiety and Wishful Thinking," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(4), pages 926-960, April.
    12. Hoel, Michael & Iversen, Tor & Nilssen, Tore & Vislie, Jon, 2006. "Genetic testing in competitive insurance markets with repulsion from chance: A welfare analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 847-860, September.
    13. Coutts, Alexander, 2019. "Testing models of belief bias: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 549-565.
    14. Schünemann, Johannes & Strulik, Holger & Trimborn, Timo, 2023. "Anticipation of deteriorating health and information avoidance," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    15. Chen, Si, 2012. "Optimistic versus Pessimistic--Optimal Judgemental Bias with Reference Point," MPRA Paper 50693, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. F. Barigozzi & R. Levaggi, 2005. "New Developments in Physician Agency: the Role of Patient Information," Working Papers 550, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    17. Ananda Ganguly & Joshua Tasoff, 2017. "Fantasy and Dread: The Demand for Information and the Consumption Utility of the Future," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 4037-4060, December.
    18. Marta Serra-Garcia & Nora Szech, 2023. "Incentives and Defaults Can Increase COVID-19 Vaccine Intentions and Test Demand," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(2), pages 1037-1049, February.
    19. Yufeng Li & Juanjuan Meng & Changcheng Song & Kai Zheng, 2021. "Information Avoidance and Medical Screening: A Field Experiment in China," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(7), pages 4252-4272, July.
    20. Eliaz, Kfir & Spiegler, Ran, 2006. "Can anticipatory feelings explain anomalous choices of information sources?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 87-104, July.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bol:bodewp:559. 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: Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sebolit.html .

    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.