We study the drivers of geographic variation in US health care utilization, using an empirical strategy that exploits migration of Medicare patients to separate the role of demand and supply factors. Our approach allows us to account for demand differences driven by both observable and...

More than one in four births are delivered by Cesarean section across the OECD where fee-for-service remuneration schemes generally compensate C-sections more generously than vaginal deliveries. In this paper, we exploit unique features of the Canadian health care system to investigate if...

There is considerable controversy about the causes of regional variations in health care expenditures. We use vignettes from patient and physician surveys linked to Medicare expenditures at the Hospital Referral Region to test whether patient demand-side factors or physician supply-side factors...

I use the Medicare Part D prescription drug insurance market to examine the dynamics of firm interaction with consumers on an insurance exchange. Enrollment data show that consumers face switching frictions leading to inertia in plan choice, and a regression discontinuity design indicates...

In a complex economy, production is vertical and crosses jurisdictional lines. Goods are often produced by an upstream national or global firm and improved or distributed by local firms downstream. In this context, heightened products liability may have unintended consequences on product sales...

The theory of cost-shifting posits that nonprofit hospitals respond to negative financial shocks by raising prices for privately insured patients. We examine how hospitals responded to the sharp reductions in their endowments caused by the 2008 stock market collapse. We find that the average...

This paper exploits a sharp reduction in patient cost sharing at age 70 in Japan, using a regression discontinuity design to examine its effect on utilization, health, and financial risk arising from out-of-pocket expenditures. Due to the national policy, cost sharing is 60-80 percent lower at...

Doctors and hospitals in the United States serve patients covered by many types of insurance. This overlap in the supply of health care services means that changes in the prices paid or the volume of services demanded by one group of patients may affect other patient groups. This paper examines...

Perhaps because health care is a local service sector, health economists have paid little attention to international linkages between domestic health care economies. However, the growth in domestic health care sectors is often attributed to medical innovations whose returns are earned worldwide....

Why have health care costs moderated in the last decade? Some have suggested the Great Recession alone was the cause, but health expenditure growth in the depths of the recession was nearly identical to growth prior to the recession. Nor can the Affordable Care Act (ACA) can take credit, since...