IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/qmw/qmwecw/596.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Tests of Utility Independence When Health Varies over Time

Author

Listed:
  • Anne Spencer

    (Queen Mary, University of London)

  • Angelo Ranaldo

    (University of East Anglia)

Abstract

In the conventional QALY model, people's preferences are assumed to satisfy utility independence. When health varies over time, utility independence implies that the value attached to a health state is independent of the health state that arise before or after it. In this paper we set out to test the extent to which utility independence is undermined by sequence and duration effects. Two separate studies were conducted involving a total of 155 respondents. In study one, we conducted 5 tests of utility independence using a standard gamble question. Three of the tests of utility independence were repeated in study two after randomisation was introduced in order to take account of possible ordering effects. Utility independence holds in the majority of cases examined here and so our work generally supports the use of utility independence to derive more tractable models.

Suggested Citation

  • Anne Spencer & Angelo Ranaldo, 2007. "Tests of Utility Independence When Health Varies over Time," Working Papers 596, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:596
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sef/media/econ/research/workingpapers/2007/items/wp596.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Kahneman & Robert Sugden, 2005. "Experienced Utility as a Standard of Policy Evaluation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 32(1), pages 161-181, September.
    2. Guerrero, Ana M. & Herrero, Carmen, 2005. "A semi-separable utility function for health profiles," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 33-54, January.
    3. Amiram Gafni, 1995. "Time in Health," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 15(1), pages 31-37, February.
    4. John M. Miyamoto & Peter Wakker, 1996. "Multiattribute Utility Theory Without Expected Utility Foundations," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 44(2), pages 313-326, April.
    5. Peter C. Fishburn, 1965. "Independence in Utility Theory with Whole Product Sets," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 13(1), pages 28-45, February.
    6. Bleichrodt, Han, 1995. "QALYs and HYEs: Under what conditions are they equivalent?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 17-37, May.
    7. Doctor, Jason N. & Bleichrodt, Han & Miyamoto, John & Temkin, Nancy R. & Dikmen, Sureyya, 2004. "A new and more robust test of QALYs," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 353-367, March.
    8. Jonathan R. Treadwell, 1998. "Tests of Preferential Independence in the QALY Model," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 18(4), pages 418-428, October.
    9. Bleichrodt, Han & Quiggin, John, 1997. "Characterizing QALYs under a General Rank Dependent Utility Model," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 151-165, November.
    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. Hougaard, Jens Leth & Moreno-Ternero, Juan D. & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2013. "A new axiomatic approach to the evaluation of population health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 515-523.
    2. Attema, Arthur E. & Brouwer, Werner B.F., 2012. "A test of independence of discounting from quality of life," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 22-34.
    3. Andrea C. Hupman & Jay Simon, 2023. "The Legacy of Peter Fishburn: Foundational Work and Lasting Impact," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 20(1), pages 1-15, 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. Anne Spencer & Angela Robinson, 2007. "Tests of Utility Independence When Health Varies over Time," Working Papers 596, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    2. Spencer, Anne & Robinson, Angela, 2007. "Tests of utility independence when health varies over time," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 1003-1013, September.
    3. Bleichrodt, Han & Filko, Martin, 2008. "New tests of QALYs when health varies over time," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1237-1249, September.
    4. Han Bleichrodt & Jose Luis Pinto, 2012. "Conceptual Foundations for Health Utility Measurement," Chapters, in: Andrew M. Jones (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Second Edition, chapter 35, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Spencer, Anne & Rivero-Arias, Oliver & Wong, Ruth & Tsuchiya, Aki & Bleichrodt, Han & Edwards, Rhiannon Tudor & Norman, Richard & Lloyd, Andrew & Clarke, Philip, 2022. "The QALY at 50: One story many voices," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 296(C).
    6. Bleichrodt, Han & Quiggin, John, 1999. "Life-cycle preferences over consumption and health: when is cost-effectiveness analysis equivalent to cost-benefit analysis?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 681-708, December.
    7. Hougaard, Jens Leth & Moreno-Ternero, Juan D. & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2013. "A new axiomatic approach to the evaluation of population health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 515-523.
    8. Carmen Herrero Blanco, 2001. "Individual Evidence Of Independence In Health Profiles Evaluation," Working Papers. Serie AD 2001-20, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    9. Anne Spencer, 2000. "Testing the Additive Independence Assumption in the QALY Model," Working Papers 427, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    10. Anne Spencer, 2000. "Testing the Additive Independence Assumption in the QALY Model," Working Papers 427, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    11. Han Bleichrodt & José-Luis Pinto-Prades, 2004. "The Validity of QALYs Under Non-Expected Utility," Working Papers 113, Barcelona School of Economics.
    12. Moreno-Ternero, Juan D. & Platz, Trine Tornøe & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2023. "QALYs, DALYs, and HALYs: A unifying framework for the evaluation of population health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    13. Han Bleichrodt & John Miyamoto, 2003. "A Characterization of Quality-Adjusted Life-Years Under Cumulative Prospect Theory," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(1), pages 181-193, February.
    14. Han Bleichrodt & Ulrich Schmidt & Horst Zank, 2009. "Additive Utility in Prospect Theory," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(5), pages 863-873, May.
    15. José Mª Abellán & José Luis Pinto & Ildefonso Méndez & Xabier Badía, 2004. "A test of the predictive validity of non-linear QALY models using time trade-off utilities," Economics Working Papers 741, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    16. Bleichrodt, Han & Gafni, Amiram, 1996. "Time preference, the discounted utility model and health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 49-66, February.
    17. Guerrero, Ana M. & Herrero, Carmen, 2005. "A semi-separable utility function for health profiles," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 33-54, January.
    18. José‐María Abellán‐Perpiñán & José‐Luis Pinto‐Prades & Ildefonso Méndez‐Martínez & Xabier Badía‐Llach, 2006. "Towards a better QALY model," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(7), pages 665-676, July.
    19. Leonhard K. Lades & Liam Delaney, 2024. "Self-control failures, as judged by themselves," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, December.
    20. Glenn Jenkins & Chun-Yan Kuo & Arnold C. Harberger, 2011. "Cost-Benefit Analysis for Investment Decisions: Chapter 15 (Cost-Effectiveness and Cost-Utility Analysis)," Development Discussion Papers 2011-15, JDI Executive Programs.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Utility independence; QALY;

    JEL classification:

    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

    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:qmw:qmwecw:596. 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: Nicholas Owen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deqmwuk.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.