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Do Conflict of Interests Disclosures Work? Evidence from Citations in Medical Journals

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Listed:
  • Christian Leuz
  • Anup Malani
  • Maximilian Muhn
  • Laszlo Jakab

Abstract

Financial ties between drug companies and medical researchers are thought to bias studies published in medical journals. To enable readers to account for such bias, most medical journals require authors to disclose potential conflicts of interest. We examine whether disclosure reduces article citations, indicating a discount. A challenge to estimating this effect is selection as drug companies may seek out higher quality authors. Our analysis confirms this positive association. Including observable controls for article and author quality attenuates but does not eliminate this relation. We perform three tests. First, we show that the positive association is weaker for review articles, which are more susceptible to bias. Second, we examine article recommendations to family physicians among articles that are a priori more homogenous in quality. We find a significantly negative association between disclosure and expert recommendations, consistent with discounting. Third, we conduct an analysis within author and article, exploiting journal policy changes that result in conflict disclosure by an author. We examine the effect of this disclosure on citations to a previously published article by the same author. This analysis reveals a negative citation effect. Overall, our evidence is consistent with the notion that other researchers discount articles with disclosed conflicts.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Leuz & Anup Malani & Maximilian Muhn & Laszlo Jakab, 2023. "Do Conflict of Interests Disclosures Work? Evidence from Citations in Medical Journals," NBER Working Papers 30927, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30927
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • K20 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - General
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation
    • M40 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - General
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

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