In this paper, we address the issue of spurious correlation in the production of health in a systematic way. Spurious correlation entails the risk of linking health status to medical (and nonmedical) inputs when no links exist. This note first presents the bounds testing procedure as a method to...

There have been many studies of the volume-outcome relationship. In all of these, the unit of analysis is the hospital or physician. However, this level of analysis is mostly limited to the use of in-hospital mortality rates and is particularly sensitive to selective referral. Moreover, the...

In this paper, we address the issue of spurious correlation in the production of health in a systematic way. Spurious correlation entails the risk of linking health status to medical (and nonmedical) inputs when no links exist. This note first presents the bounds testing procedure as a method to...

Dean Baker and Adriane Fugh-Berman have published a critique of a study I performed in 2007, entitled "Why has longevity increased more in some states than in others?ʺ One of the conclusions I drew from that study was that medical innovation accounts for a substantial portion of recent...

Between 1960 and 1997, life expectancy at birth of Americans increased approximately 10% G from 69.7 to 76.5 years G and it has been estimated that the value of life extension during this period nearly equaled the gains in tangible consumption. While life expectancy has tended to increase, there...

This paper uses several decades of US time-diary surveys to assess the impact of low-skilled immigration, through lower prices for commercial child care, on parental time investments. Using an instrumental variables approach that accounts for the endogenous location of immigrants, we find that...

There were no innovations in chemotherapy for myeloma patients during the period 1977-1997, but there have been several important innovations since 1997. We investigate the impact of recent chemotherapy innovation on the longevity of myeloma patients using both time-series U.S. data and...