Estimating sign-dependent societal preferences for quality of life.
This paper is the first to apply prospect theory to societal health-related decision making. In particular, we allow for utility curvature, equity weighting, sign-dependence, and loss aversion in choices concerning quality of life of other people. We find substantial inequity aversion, both for gains and losses, which can be attributed to both diminishing marginal utility and differential weighting of better-off and worse-off. There are also clear framing effects, which violate expected utility. Moreover, we observe loss aversion, indicating that subjects give more weight to one group's loss than another group's gain of the same absolute magnitude. We also elicited some information on the effect of the age of the studied group. The amount of inequity aversion is to some extent influenced by the age of the considered patients. In particular, more inequity aversion is observed for gains of older people than gains of younger people.
iBMG, Erasmus University, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Electronic address: attema@bmg.eur.nl.
Arthur E
AE
Attema
iBMG, Erasmus University, The Netherlands.
Werner B F
WB
Brouwer
CREM, Université de Rennes, France.
Olivier
O
l'Haridon
Yunus Centre, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK.
Jose Luis
JL
Pinto
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000941:ethics; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D005260:Female; D015276:Health Care Rationing / Q000191:economics / Q000941:ethics*; D006291:Health Policy / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D019057:Quality-Adjusted Life Years; D040841:Resource Allocation / Q000191:economics / Q000941:ethics*; D012935:Social Justice / Q000191:economics / Q000941:ethics*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
Equity weighting; Health-related social welfare function; Loss aversion; Prospect theory; QALYs