We ask how patient knowledge of appropriate antibiotic usage affects both physicians prescribing behavior and the physician-patient relationship. We conduct an audit study in which a pair of simulated patients with identical flu-like complaints visits the same physician. Simulated patient A is...

The overuse of medical services including antibiotics is often blamed on Physician Induced Demand. But since this theory is about physician motivations, it is difficult to test. We conduct an audit study in which physician financial incentives, beliefs about what patients want, and desires to...

Using national data on opioid prescriptions written by physicians from 2006 to 2014, we uncover a striking relationship between opioid prescribing and medical school rank. Even within the same specialty and practice location, physicians who completed their initial training at top medical schools...

We develop a method to compare levels and trends in inequality in mortality in the United States and France in a similar framework. The comparison shows that while income inequality has increased in both the United States and France, inequality in mortality in France remained remarkably low and...

This paper uses quarterly county-level data from 2006–2014 to examine the direction of causality in the relationship between per capita opioid prescription rates and employment-to-population ratios. We first estimate models of the effect of per capita opioid prescription rates on...

The origins of American exceptionalism þ the apolitical nature of American labor unions compared to their European counterparts þ have puzzled labor historians. Recently, the hypothesis has been advanced that organized labor abandoned attempts to win reform through legislation because the...

This paper estimates the impact of collective bargaining legislation on disputes during labor negotiations in the U.S. public sector. We use a large national sample of U.S. state and local government contracts to compare the incidence and intensity of disputes by similar workers under different...

Mental health disorders are a leading cause of disability worldwide. Many mental health disorders start in adolescence and appropriate treatment at the outset has the potential to improve trajectories. But what is appropriate treatment? We use a large national data base of insurance claims to...

The last 40 years have seen huge innovations in computing technology and data availability. Data derived from millions of administrative records or by using (as we do) new methods of data generation such as text mining are now common. New data often requires new methods, which in turn can...

Two key issues for public insurance policy are the effect of insurance status on medical treatment, and the implications of insurance-induced treat- ment differentials for health outcomes. We address these issues in the context of the treatment of childbirth, using Vital Statistics data on every...