The Debate on Influencing Doctors’ Decisions: Are Drug Characteristics the Missing Link?

Decision-making by physicians on patients’ treatment has come under increased public scrutiny. In fact, there is a fair amount of debate on the effects of marketing actions of pharmaceutical firms toward physicians and their impact on physician prescription behavior. While some scholars find a strong and positive influence of marketing actions, some find only moderate effects, and others even find negative effects. Debate is also mounting on the role of other influencers (such as patient requests) in physician decision-making, both on prescriptions and sample-dispensing. The authors argue that one factor that may tip the balance in this debate is the role of drug characteristics, such as a drug’s effectiveness and a drug’s side effects. Using a unique data set, they show that marketing efforts – operationalized as detailing and symposium meetings of firms to physicians – and patient requests do affect physician decision-making differentially across brands. Moreover they find that the responsiveness of physicians’ decision-making to marketing efforts and patient requests depends upon the drug’s effectiveness and side effects. The paper presents clear guidelines for public policy and managerial practice and envisions that the study of the role of drug characteristics – such as effectiveness and side effects – may lead to valuable insights in this surging public debate.public policy;side effects;sampling;Physician decision-making;drug effectiveness;drug prescription;marketing efforts;patient requests;pharmaceuticals;sample-dispensing

An empirical study of the transition from paid work to self-employment

We explore the relationship between the probability of a transition from paid work to self-employment and three explanatory variables: paid income, predicted income, and income for ability. We use panel data for heads of households from the PSID SRC sample for eight pairs of years. Our results show that therelationship between paid income and self-employment is not linear. We then break up paid income into two components: a)predicted income based on human capital, demographic, and locational variables, and b) income for ability. Again, we find nolinear relationship between self-employment and either predicted income or income for ability. We then test for curvilinear relationships between these three variables (i.e., paid income, predicted income, and income for ability) and the transition to self-employment. We find that individuals with low incomes are more likely to take up self-employment. Further, income for ability is a stronger predictor of the transition to self-employment than predicted income. We show that the relationship between ability and self-employment is U shaped: very low ability and very high ability individuals are more likely to take up self-employment than medium ability individuals. We use prospect theory to explain this result.Entrepreneurship; self-employment; opportunity costs; value creation;

Elliptic Curves with Complex Multiplication and a Character Sum

AbstractLetf(x)∈Q[X] be a cubic such thaty2=f(x) is an elliptic curve with complex multiplication by[formula],[formula],[formula]or[formula]. We want to calculate the character sum[formula]where (·/p) is the Legendre symbol. We show that it is enough to calculate the sum for a finite number of primes and this has been done

An Empirical Study of the Transition from Paid Work to Self-Employment

We explore the transition from paid work to self-employment using three explanatory variables: paid income, predicted income, and income for ability. We find no linear relationship between the three variables and the self-employment transition. We then test for curvilinear relationships. We find that individuals with low incomes are more likely to take up self-employment. Further, income for ability is the strongest predictor of the transition to self-employment. The relationship between ability and self-employment is U-shaped: very low ability and very high ability individuals are more likely to take up self-employment

The Debate on Influencing Doctors’ Decisions: Are Drug Characteristics the Missing Link?

Decision-making by physicians on patients’ treatment has come under increased public scrutiny. In fact, there is a fair amount of debate on the effects of marketing actions of pharmaceutical firms toward physicians and their impact on physician prescription behavior. While some scholars find a strong and positive influence of marketing actions, some find only moderate effects, and others even find negative effects. Debate is also mounting on the role of other influencers (such as patient requests) in physician decision-making, both on prescriptions and sample-dispensing. The authors argue that one factor that may tip the balance in this debate is the role of drug characteristics, such as a drug’s effectiveness and a drug’s side effects. Using a unique data set, they show that marketing efforts – operationalized as detailing and symposium meetings of firms to physicians – and patient requests do affect physician decision-making differentially across brands. Moreover they find that the responsiveness of physicians’ decision-making to marketing efforts and patient requests depends upon the drug’s effectiveness and side effects. The paper presents clear guidelines for public policy and managerial practice and envisions that the study of the role of drug characteristics – such as effectiveness and side effects – may lead to valuable insights in this surging public debate