We address long-standing problems in measuring medical inflation by estimating two types of price indices. The first, a Service Price Index, prices specific medical services, as does the current CPI. The second, a Cost of Living Index, measures a quality-adjusted cost of treating a health...

'Defensive medicine' is a potentially serious social problem: if fear of liability drives health care providers to administer treatments that do not have worthwhile medical benefits, then the current liability system may generate inefficiencies much larger than the costs of compensating...

We explore the effectiveness of matching grants when lower levels of government can expropriate some of the funds for other uses. Using data on the Medicaid Disproportionate Share program, we identify states that were most able to expropriate funds. Payments to public hospitals in these states...

The authors investigate the effect of abortion access on teen birthrates using county-level panel data. Past research suggested that prohibiting abortion led to higher teen birthrates. Perhaps surprisingly, the authors find that more recent restrictions in abortion access, including the closing...

We examine the impact of increased abortion availability on the average living standards of children through a selection effect. Would the marginal child who was not born have grown up in different circumstances than the average child? We use variation in the timing of abortion legalization...