Since 2003/2004, German hospitals are reimbursed based on a prospective payment scheme (diagnosis related groups, DRGs). Patient classification in neonatology is based inter alia on birth weight, with substantial discontinuities in reimbursement at the relevant thresholds. These discontinuities...

Education yields substantial non-monetary benefits, but the size of these gains is still debated. Previous studies, for example, report contradictory effects of education and compulsory schooling on mortality – ranging from zero to large mortality reductions. Using data from 19 compulsory...

Using data from the Health Survey for England and the English Longitudinal Study on Ageing, we estimate causal effects of schooling on health. Our study complements earlier studies exploiting two nationwide increases in British compulsory school leaving age in 1947 and 1973, respectively, by...

We use German SHARE data to study the relationship between district general practitioner density and the quality of preventive care provided to older adults. We measure physician quality of care as the degree of adherence to medical guidelines (for the management of risk factors for...

Aktuell weisen die Krankenkassen und der Gesundheitsfonds Überschüsse von über 20 Mrd. Euro auf. Für Daniel Bahr, Bundesminister für Gesundheit, eröffnen diese Überschüsse – neben der Abschaffung der Praxisgebühr – Spielräume für Prämien. Die zentrale Herausforderung an eine...

Anchoring vignettes are commonly used to study and correct for differential item functioning and response bias in subjective survey questions. Self-assessed health status is a leading example. A crucial assumption of the vignette methodology is ’vignette equivalence’: The health status of...

Education yields substantial non-monetary benefits, but the size of these gains is still debated. Previous studies, for example, report contradictory effects of education and compulsory schooling on mortality – ranging from zero to large mortality reductions. Using data from 19 compulsory...

Applying the theory of yardstick competition to the schooling system, we show that it is optimal to have central tests of student achievement and to engage in benchmarking, because it raises the quality of teaching. This is true even if teachers´pay (defined in monetary terms) is not...