We present two new findings based on annual antipsychotic US prescribing data from IMS Health on 2867 psychiatrists who wrote 50 or more prescriptions in 2007. First, many of these psychiatrists have prescription patterns that are statistically significantly different than random draws from...

In this paper, I examine the impact of uninsured patients on the in-hospital mortality rate of insured heart attack patients. I employ panel data models using patient discharge and hospital financial data from California (1999–2006). My results indicate that uninsured patients have an...

We estimate a multi-sector model of nursing qualification holders’ labour supply in different occupations. A structural approach allows us to model the labour force participation decision, the occupational and shift-type choice, and the decision about hours worked as a joint outcome following...

Not only does economic theory predict high-risk individuals to be more likely to purchase insurance, but insurance coverage is also thought to crowd out precautionary activities. In spite of stark theoretical predictions, there is conflicting empirical evidence on adverse selection, and evidence...

Policymakers in countries around the world are faced with rising health care costs and are debating ways to reform health care to reduce expenditures. Estimates of price elasticity of expenditure are a key component for predicting expenditures under alternative policies. Using unique...

Increased health care spending has placed pressure on public and private payers to prioritize spending. Cost-effectiveness (CE) analysis is the main tool used by payers to prioritize coverage of new therapies. We argue that reimbursement based on CE is subject to a form of the “Lucas...

We study gatekeeping physicians’ referrals of patients to specialty care. We derive theoretical results when competition in the physician market intensifies. First, due to competitive pressure, physicians refer patients to specialty care more often. Second, physicians earn more by treating...

To test how practice interruptions affect worker productivity, we estimate how temporal breaks affect surgeons’ performance of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Examining 188 surgeons who performed 56,315 CABG surgeries in Pennsylvania between 2006 and 2010, we find that a surgeon's...

This paper revisits the relationship between nurse staffing and quality of care in nursing homes using an instrumental variables approach. Most prior studies rely on cross-sectional evidence, which renders causal inference problematic and policy recommendations inappropriate. We exploit...

We examine the effects of a policy change in the province of Quebec, Canada which greatly expanded insurance coverage for prescription medications. We show that the change was associated with a sharp increase in the use of stimulant medications commonly prescribed for ADHD in Quebec relative to...