Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 
Title: Choosing from multiple alternatives in cost-effectiveness analysis with fuzzy willingness-to-pay/accept and uncertainty
Author-Name: Michał Jakubczyk 
Abstract: Cost-effectiveness analysis of medical technologies requires valuing health,an uneasy task, as confirmed by variability of published estimates. Treating the willingness-to-pay/accept (WTP/WTA) as fuzzy seems an intuitivesolution. Based on this premise, I construct a framework allowing to compare multiple health technologies using choice functions. The final choicemust be crisp, so I discuss various defuzzification methods and show thatusing indecisiveness point (IP) for WTP/WTA (the value the decision maker equally approves/disapproves) has desirable properties: satisfying the independenceof irrelevant alternatives and not treating the Likert scale as interval.I suggest three approaches to infer about IP with Likert-based surveysin random samples (hypothesis testing, Bayesian or frequentist estimation). No difference between IPs for WTP/WTA is found, and an explanation of the WTP-WTA disparity is provided. Estimating IP results in stochastic uncertainty, and I show how to conduct sensitivity analysis in the frameworkand what new insight is gained.
Number: 2016-006
Length: 31 pages 
Creation-Date: 2016-04
Keywords: Willingness-to-pay/accept, Fuzzy sets, Preference elicitation, Cost-effectiveness analysis, Sensitivity analysis
Classification-JEL: C44, C13, D81, D61
File-URL: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12182/1082
File-Format: Application/pdf
DOI: 10.33119/kaewps2016006
Handle: RePEc:sgh:kaewps:2016006