Despite numerous attempts to enact legislation throughout the 20th century, the U.S. is the only developed country without a system of national health insurance. Yet, public opinion polls over the last 20 years consistently find that a solid majority of Americans support national health...

Recent studies on human decision-making under uncertainty have revealed the following typical behavioral principles: (1) the importance of the status quo as a reference point ("target") for assessing outcomes, (2) the prevalence of risk-aversion for gains, i.e. above-target payoffs, but...

No cross-sectional consumer price index is currently available by state, and the BLS's cross-sectional "family budget" index for metropolitan areas is not well-suited for cross-state analyses. In this paper we propose an algorithm for constructing a state-specific Laspeyres price index using...

The growth in single-person households is a pervasive behavioral phenomenon in the United States in the post-war period. In this paper we investigate determinants of the propensity to live alone, using 1970 data across states for single men and women ages 25 to 34 and for elderly widows. Income...

In order to gain insight into the possible consequences of prospective payment for university hospitals, we studied 2,025 admissions to the faculty and community services of a university hospital, measuring differences in case mix, costs, and outcomes. The faculty service case mix was...