Reference prices constitute a main determinant of patient health care reimbursement in many countries. We study the effects of a change from an "external" (based on a basket of prices in other countries) to an "internal" (based on comparable domestic products) reference price system. We find...

Using both household and linked-employer-employee data we study the effects of works councils on individual sickness absence rates and a subjective measure of personnel problems due to absenteeism in Germany. We find that the existence of a works council is positively correlated with the...

Since 2003/2004, German hospitals are reimbursed based on a prospective payment scheme (diagnosis related groups, DRGs). Patient classification in neonatology is based inter alia on birth weight, with substantial discontinuities in reimbursement at the relevant thresholds. These discontinuities...

This paper demonstrates why an increased quantity of funding as claimed by big health lenders is not effective to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). An alternative funding mechanism linking the disbursement of matching grants with a minimum provision level is suggested. In order to...

This paper seeks to understand the impact of the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexi- bility (Flex) Program on rural resident hospital choice and welfare. The Flex program created a new class of hospital, the Critical Access Hospital (CAH), which receives more generous reimbursement in return for...

This paper studies externalities of nationally determined cost-sharing systems, in particular coinsurance rates (patients pay a percentage of the price), under pharmaceutical parallel trade, i.e. trade outside the manufacturer's authorized distribution channel, in a two-country model with a...

We examine subsidies for health care when consumers have present-biased preferences, which lead them to underestimate the effect of today s consumption on future health. We compare immediate subsidies paid for health-conscious consumption and future subsidies rewarding a good health outcome. We...

Excessive alcohol consumption among youth and young adults is a major public health concern. On March 1, 2010 the German federal state of Baden-W rttemberg banned the sale of alcoholic beverages between 10pm and 5am in off-premise outlets (e.g. kiosks, petrol stations, supermarkets). We use rich...

This paper makes use of Hierarchical Bayes Models to model and estimate spatial health effects. We focus on Germany, combining rich individual-level household panel data with administrative county level information to estimate spatial county-level health dependencies. As dependent variable, we...

Based on the Canadian National Population Health Survey we estimate the effects of individ-ual sports and exercise on individual labor market outcomes. The data covers the period from 1994 to 2008. It is longitudinal and rich in life-style, health, and physical activity in-formation. Exploiting...