In his seminal work, Arrow (1963) emphasizes the prevalence of uncertainty in health care, both on the demand side and on the supply side. As the information available to agents on the two sides of the market is not identical in general, uncertainty in health care is closely interrelated to problems associated with asymmetric information. Although it is arguable whether information problems in markets for health care are really different from other markets, knowledge on inefficiencies in the health care market is particularly important with regard to continuously rising health care expenditures in many countries. By means of three case studies, the objective of the present thesis is therefore to empirically examine health market outcomes originating from the behavior of individuals under asymmetric information. One of the most discussed issues in health economics is the supplier-induced demand (SID) hypothesis. This hypothesis is rooted in the information asymmetry between patients and physicians. The latter are suspected to exploit their information advantage to influence the demand for their own services while acting as agents for their patients. Obviously, one approach to empirically address the SID hypothesis relies on the comparison of the health care demand of individuals with different information levels. In other words, individuals with a high level of information are supposed to be less prone to demand inducement and, therefore, exhibit a smaller utilization of medical services. The focus of Chapter 2 is to examine whether SID exists for physician services in Switzerland. Our analysis suggests a statistically significant reduction of 0.55 physician visits per year for individuals with a high information level, ceteris paribus. Thus, our empirical results provide evidence in favor of the SID hypothesis. In general, policy makers are aware of the conflicting incentives faced by physicians that arise from their double role as patients’ agents and entrepreneurs. Therefore, many policies attempt to disentangle this double role. One important such policy is the regulation of drug dispensing by physicians as the margin on drug sales may incentivize physicians to sell more drugs to patients or to substitute towards more expensive prescriptions in order to generate additional income. Therefore, the objective of Chapter 3 is to examine empirically whether the possibility for physicians to dispense drugs, as opposed to issuing prescriptions, affects drug expenditures. Our analysis exploits the fact that there is heterogeneity in the dispensing rule in Switzerland. We find that physician dispensing increases both drug expenditures per patient by roughly 30% (CHF 75) and non-drug expenditures by about 20% (CHF 100) per patient. Thus, our findings in Chapter 3 suggest that the dispensing policy clearly affects physician’ behavior in ways that affect health care expenditure. Although supply side inefficiencies may result in considerable welfare losses, patient behavior is of particular importance as well. In general, individuals’ health is not observable and health insurance contracts cannot be conditioned on health outcomes. Moreover, the behavior of patients in case of illness cannot be observed by the insurer. As a result of the eligibility for insurance benefits, patients face the incentive to buy health care where marginal costs exceed marginal benefits. The objective in Chapter 4 is to estimate the response in health care demand to the discrete price increase that is generated by resetting the deductible of the mandatory health insurance in Switzerland at the start of each calendar year. We find that, for individuals with high deductibles, health care demand drops by 27%, which translates into an elasticity of -0.21. However, it is ambiguous whether the observed behavioral responses can be attributed to intertemporal substitution or whether they constitute a classic moral hazard effect. Though we cannot decompose the observed effect, our estimates suggest that patients react quite strongly to the price change at the turn of the year.weiterlesen