Experiencing Breast Cancer at the Workplace

Quaderni - Working Paper DSE N° 938

41 Pages Posted: 16 Apr 2014

See all articles by Giulio Zanella

Giulio Zanella

University of Bologna

Ritesh Banerjee

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Date Written: March 14, 2014

Abstract

We study unique data from a dynamic natural experiment involving more than 7,000 American women to understand how a woman’s propensity to perform an annual mammography changes over time after a co-worker is diagnosed with breast cancer. We find that in the year this event occurs the probability that a woman performs a mammography drops by about 8 percentage points, off a base level of about 70%. This impact effect is persistent during at least the following 2 years, is driven by cases of breast cancer diagnosed at non-early stages, and by the behavior of individuals who are less knowledgeable about health issues. This negative effect is confirmed when we allow for serial correlation in screening behavior and when we estimate the effect of the treatment on the hazard of not screening, at the daily frequency. However, the effect vanishes in placebo experiments.

Keywords: breast cancer, social interactions, information aversion

JEL Classification: I10, C31, D03, Z10

Suggested Citation

Zanella, Giulio and Banerjee, Ritesh, Experiencing Breast Cancer at the Workplace (March 14, 2014). Quaderni - Working Paper DSE N° 938, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2424782 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2424782

Giulio Zanella (Contact Author)

University of Bologna ( email )

Piazza Scaravilli 2
Bologna, 40100
Italy

Ritesh Banerjee

affiliation not provided to SSRN

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