We study the competitive effects of restricting direct access to secondary care by gatekeeping, focusing on the informational role of general practitioners (GPs). In the secondary care market there are two hospitals choosing quality and specialisation. Patients, who are ex ante uninformed, can...

This paper studies the impact of hospital competition on waiting times. We use a Salop-type model, with hospitals that differ in (geographical) location and, potentially, waiting time, and two types of patients; high-benefit patients who choose between neighbouring hospitals (competitive...

We develop a dynamic model of hospital competition where (i) waiting times increase if demand exceeds supply; (ii) patients choose a hospital based in part on waiting times; and (iii) hospitals incur waiting time penalties. We show that, whereas policies based on penalties will lead to lower...

Primary healthcare institutions (PHIs) in China have experienced a sizable decline in medical services in recent years. Despite the large regional disparities in China, there is a lack of evidence on the differential patterns of medical services offered by PHIs, especially from a spatial...

We analyse – theoretically and empirically – the effect of hospital mergers on waiting times in healthcare markets where prices are fixed. Using a spatial modelling framework where patients choose provider based on travelling distance and waiting times, we show that the effect is...

Competition among physicians is widespread, but compelling empirical evidence on the impact on service provision is limited, mainly due to lack of exogenous variation in the degree of competition. In this paper we exploit that many GPs, in addition to own practice, work in local emergency...

In this paper we study the impact of reference pricing (RP) on entry of generic firms in the pharmaceutical market. For given prices, RP increases generic firms' expected profit, but since RP also stimulates price competition, the impact on generic entry is theoretically ambiguous. In order to...

The proportion of people aged 60 years or over is growing faster than other age groups. The well-being older adults depend heavily on their state of health. This study evaluates the effects of pensions on older adults' health service utilization, and estimates the size of pension required to...

The proportion of people aged 60 years or over is growing faster than other age groups. The well-being older adults depend heavily on their state of health. This study evaluates the effects of pensions on older adults' health service utilization, and estimates the size of pension required to...