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| dc.title | Direct-to-Consumer Advertisement and Prescription Contraceptive Choices |
| dc.contributor.author | Tojal Ramos Dos Santos, Carolina |
| dc.contributor.orgunit | Department of Research and Chief Economist |
| dc.coverage | United States |
| dc.date.available | 2025-10-06T00:10:00 |
| dc.date.issue | 2025-10-06T00:10:00 |
| dc.description.abstract | This paper investigates the impact of direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) on womens prescription contraceptive choices using television advertisement data and health insurance claims. I leverage quasi-random variation in exposure to local television advertising to identify the causal effect on womens decisions. The findings indicate that a 10% increase in DTCA for short-term contraceptive methods, such as pills, increases demand for the advertised product by 2.7% and generates positive spillovers to branded and generic products in the same category. At the same time, DTCA for short-term methods reduces demand for long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs), such as intrauterine devices (IUDs) and implants. After the Affordable Care Act reduced out-of-pocket costs for prescription contraceptives for insured women, advertising shifted from short-term to long-term methods. The television advertising for permanent methods increased demand for LARCs and decreased demand for short-term products. These results provide new causal evidence on how television advertising influences consumer decisions in a market where patients have wide discretion and products vary by type, cost, and effectiveness. |
| dc.format.extent | 29 |
| dc.identifier.doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.18235/0013744 |
| dc.identifier.url | https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/Direct-to-Consumer-Advertisement-and-Prescription-Contraceptive-Choices.pdf |
| dc.language.iso | en |
| dc.publisher | Inter-American Development Bank |
| dc.subject | Consumer Credit |
| dc.subject | Income, Consumption and Saving |
| dc.subject | Branding |
| dc.subject | Population Aging |
| dc.subject | Health Behavior |
| dc.subject | Women's Health |
| dc.subject | Women of Reproductive Age |
| dc.subject.jelcode | I12 - Health Behavior |
| dc.subject.jelcode | M37 - Advertising |
| dc.subject.jelcode | D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis |
| dc.subject.jelcode | J13 - Fertility • Family Planning • Child Care • Children • Youth |
| dc.subject.keywords | Advertising;Contraceptives;HEALTH BEHAVIOR;Insurance |
| dc.type | Working Papers |
| idb.identifier.pubnumber | IDB-WP-01762 |
| idb.operation | RG-K1415 |