Measuring the lifetime costs and benefits of medical technologies is essential in evaluating technological change and determining the productivity of medical care. Using data on Medicare beneficiaries with a heart attack in the late 1980s and 17 years of follow up data, I evaluate the long-term...

A puzzling feature of many medical innovations is that they simultaneously appear to reduce unit costs and increase total costs. We consider this phenomenon by examining the diffusion of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) -- a treatment for coronary artery disease -- over the...

We use data across states to examine the relation between HMO enrollment and medical spending. We find that increased managed care enrollment significantly reduces hospital cost growth. While some of this effect is offset by increased spending on physicians, we generally find a significant...

We evaluate the costs and benefits of increased medical spending for low birth weight infants. Lifetime spending on low birth weight babies increased by roughly $40,000 per birth between 1950 and 1990. The health improvements resulting from this have been substantial. Infant mortality rates fell...

We develop a model of induced innovation where research effort is a function of the death rate, and thus the potential to reduce deaths in the population. We also consider potential social consequences that arise from this form of induced innovation based on differences in disease prevalence...

In the last two decades, Medicare spending has doubled in real terms despite the fact that the health of Medicare beneficiaries improved over this period. The goals of this paper are to document how trends in spending by age have changed among elderly Medicare beneficiaries in the last decade...

Recent literature on the relationship between ethnic or racial segregation and outcomes has failed to produce a consensus view of the role of ghettos; some studies suggest that residence in an enclave is beneficial, some reach the opposite conclusion, and still others imply that any relationship...

Understanding how healthy lifespans are changing is essential for public policy. This paper explores changes in healthy lifespan in the U.S. over time and considers reasons for the changes. We reach three fundamental conclusions. First, we show that healthy life increased measurably in the US...

Adverse behavioral risk factors contribute to a large share of deaths. We examine the effects on life expectancy (LE) and quality-adjusted life expectancy (QALE) of changes in six major behavioral risk factors over the 1960-2010 period: smoking, obesity, heavy alcohol use, and unsafe use of...