In this paper we examine the recent change of health care policy reform in the Netherlands, which introduced elements of market competition into the system with the goals of strengthening solidarity, guaranteeing an equitable and cost-efficient health care market, and preserving individuals'...

In this paper we concentrate on the question whether the financing structure of the health care systems converges. In a world of increasing economic integration convergence in health care financing (HCF) and, hence, decreasing differences in HCF across countries enhance individuals' (labour)...

Firm turnover has recently attracted increased interest in economic research. The entry of new firms increases competition and promises efficiency gains. Moreover, changes in the market structure influence productivity growth, because firm entry usually leads to increased innovation. The health...

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) has been at the epicenter of public discussions due to its possibly adverse effects on the domestic regulation of public services. While the GATS has an admittedly broad scope, its ‘bite’ largely depends on commitments undertaken by WTO...

This paper studies how gifts - monetary or in-kind payments - from drug firms to physicians in the US affect prescriptions and drug costs. We estimate heterogeneous treatment effects by combining physician-level data on antidiabetic prescriptions and payments with causal inference and machine...

This study examines the impact of competition on hospital quality. Our panel covers all Dutch hospitals in the period 2004–2008, in which the transparency of hospital quality information increased substantially. The paper contributes to the existing literature by including both outcome and...

As the healthcare sector grows in significance due to social and technical developments the EU competition rules are likely to be more frequently applied to healthcare both as a result of the broad interpretation of the concept of undertaking and because the applicable antitrust rules are since...

Whereas the EU's internal market rules govern market access and public intervention, its competition rules are concerned with the market conduct of private parties. When do the competition rules apply to healthcare? In principle the scope for application of the competition rules to the...