The impact of advertising on price and practice volume. A case study of dental markets.
Advertising is often considered a catalyst which stimulates competition by communicating the important attributes (information) of goods and services to consumers. Theoretically, advertising makes demand responsive to strategic price differences. This advertisement-induced price elasticity puts competitive pressure on the providers' pricing strategy. It has been assumed that this effect also exists in the health care market. This study investigates the impact that the advertising of services has on the price and demand behaviour in the dental care market. The sampling frame includes 1,326 dentists, 558 (44.3%) of whom have advertised their services. The statistical results seem to dispute the claim that advertising lowers the consumer's price and increases the advertising dentist's market share.
St. Louis University.
I W
IW
Kwon
S R
SR
Safranski
J H
JH
Kim
D000329:Advertising / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003625:Data Collection; D003752:Dental Health Services / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005250:Fees, Dental / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006302:Health Services Research; D008389:Marketing of Health Services / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015233:Models, Statistical; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012044:Regression Analysis; D014481:United States