This paper examines effects of reference pricing for prescription drugs in German social health insurance based on econometric panel data methods. We analyze the effect on ex-factory prices. Moreover, we investigate whether manufacturers adapt prices of their products not subject to reference...

This paper examines the effect of copayments on doctor visits using the German health care reform of 2004 as a natural experiment. In January 2004, copayments of 10 euros for the first doctor visit in each quarter have been introduced for all adults in the statutory health insurance. Individuals...

We complement the empirical evidence on the sustainability of weight loss achieved through cash rewards and, for the first time, rigorously examine the potential of cash rewards to prevent weight cycling. In a three period randomized controlled trial, about 700 obese persons were first assigned...

We test whether financial incentives have an effect on weight reduction in a randomized controlled trial involving 700 obese persons assigned to three experimental groups. While two treatment groups obtain Euro150 and Euro300, respectively, for achieving an individually assigned target weight...

This paper investigates cost and profit efficiency of German hospitals. More specifically, it deals with the question how hospital efficiency varies with ownership, patient structure and other exogenous factors, which are neither inputs nor outputs of the production process. We conduct a...

This paper investigates the relationship between health outcomes and variations in staffing levels as approximated by admissions on weekdays versus admissions on weekends. Because days of admission are potentially endogenous, we instrument on emergency admissions only, which are reasonably...

This paper considers the role of ownership form for the financial performance of German acute care hospitals and its development over time.We measure financial performance by a hospital-specific yearly probability of default (PD). Using a panel of hospital data, our models allow for state...

This paper uses individual level data to analyze the effect of changes in the compulsory benefit package of the German statutory health insurance scheme on the demand for private supplementary insurance. In particular, we aim at measuring the effect of excluding dentures from the benefit package...

Huge underinvestment increases the need for private borrowing in the German hospital sector, the access to which is partly determined by the probability of default (PD) of individual hospitals. Using ordinary least squares and quantile regression techniques this paper provides first empirical...

This paper investigates the method of matching regarding two crucial implementation choices, the distance measure and the type of algorithm.We implement optimal full matching – a fully efficient algorithm – and present a framework for statistical inference. The implementation uses data from...