The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected the United States healthcare system, resulting in major disruptions in the delivery of essential care and causing crippling financial losses that threaten the viability of millions of medical practices. There is little empirical evidence on the types...

This paper examines the tradeoffs of monitoring for wasteful public spending. By penalizing unnecessary spending, monitoring improves the quality of public expenditure and incentivizes firms to invest in compliance technology. I study a large Medicare program that monitored for unnecessary...

We study the role of physicians in driving geographic variation of US healthcare utilization. We estimate a model that separates variation in average utilization of Medicare beneficiaries due to physicians, non-physician supply side factors, and patient demand. The model is identified by...

This chapter provides an overview of the German long-term care insurance. We document care needs and wellbeing of the elderly population. Moreover, we provide a detailed description of the German long-term care institutions (sources of finance and types of benefits), the professional care work...

Japan, renowned for its significantly aged population, presents a distinctive landscape in elderly care. Notably, there exists no apparent correlation between the economic well-being of the elderly and the limitations they experience in Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) and Instrumental...

The developed world is in the midst of an enormous demographic transition, with life expectancy increasing and fertility falling, leading to a rapid aging of the population. This trend has critical implications for long-term care around the world. This paper serves as the introduction to a...

The paper examines whether, among inpatient psychiatric admissions in California, for-profit (FP) hospitals engage in cream skimming, i.e., choosing patients for some characteristic(s) other than their need for care, which enhances the profitability of the provider. We propose a novel approach...

Governments in many low- and middle-income countries are developing health insurance products as a complement to tax-funded, subsidized provision of health care through publicly operated facilities. This paper discusses two rationales for this transition. First, health insurance would boost...