This paper examines the impacts of private hospital entry on publicly funded elective care in England. From 2006, private hospitals were encouraged to enter certain publicly funded markets to compete with existing public hospitals and stimulate quality improvements. Studying elective hip...

This paper investigates how changes in hospital choice sets affect levels of patient demand for elective hospital care. We exploit a set of reforms in England that opened up the market for publicly-funded patients to private hospitals. Impacts on demand are estimated using variation in distance...

Reforms to public services have extended consumer choice by allowing for the entry of private providers. The aim is to generate competitive pressure to improve quality when consumers choose between providers. However, for many services new entrants could also affect whether a consumer demands...