Patient sorting can confound estimates of the returns to physician human capital. This paper compares nearly 30,000 patients who were randomly assigned to clinical teams from one of two academic institutions. One institution is among the top medical schools in the country, while the other...

This study examines the effect of HMO and for-profit HMO share on the survival of safety net services and profitable services in hospitals. Using data from 1990-2003 and proportional hazard models, I find that hospitals in high HMO markets started out having lower hazard of shutting down...

One of the most important debates among health economists in rich nations is whether advances in biotechnology will spare their health care systems from a financial crisis. We must consider that prevalence rates of chronic diseases declined during the twentieth century and that this rate of...

Improvements in medical treatment have contributed to rising health spending. Yet there is relatively little evidence on whether the spending increase is “worth it” in the sense of producing better health outcomes of commensurate value—a critical question for understanding productivity in...

Doctors and hospitals in the United States serve patients covered by many types of insurance. This overlap in the supply of health care services means that changes in the prices paid or the volume of services demanded by one group of patients may affect other patient groups. This paper examines...