We analyze the causal impact of competition on managerial quality (and hospital performance). To address the endogeneity of market structure we analyze the English public hospital sector where entry and exit are controlled by the central government. Because closing hospitals in areas where the...

In this paper we examine the causal impact of competition on management quality. We analyze the hospital sector where geographic proximity is a key determinant of competition, and English public hospitals where political competition can be used to construct instrumental variables for market...

Labour market regulation can have harmful unintended consequences. In many markets, especially for public sector workers, pay is regulated to be the same for individuals across heterogeneous geographical labour markets. We would predict that this will mean labour supply problems and potential...

Economists rely heavily on self-reported measures of health status to examine the relationship between income and health. In this paper we directly compare survey responses to a self-reported measure of health that is commonly available in nationally-representative individual and household...

Performance targets are commonly used in the public sector, despite their well known problems when organisations have multiple objectives and performance is difficult to measure. It is possible that such targets may work where there is considerable consensus that performance needs to be...

Labor market regulation can have harmful unintended consequences. In many markets, especially for public sector workers, pay is regulated to be the same for individuals across heterogeneous geographical labor markets. We would predict that this will mean labor supply problems and potential falls...

Waiting times have been a central concern in the English NHS, where care is provided free at the point of delivery and is rationed by waiting time. Pro-market reforms introduced in the NHS in the 1990s were not accompanied by large drops in waiting times. As a result, the English government in...

Labor market regulation can have harmful unintended consequences. In many markets, especially for public sector workers, pay is regulated to be the same for individuals across heterogeneous geographical labor markets. We would predict that this will mean labor supply problems and potential falls...

We examine the relationship between common sources of airborne pollution and population mortality in present day England. The current air quality limit values are low by both historical and international standards, and these are set at levels which are believed not to be harmful to health. We...

Economists rely heavily on self-reported measures of health status to examine the relationship between income and health. In this paper we directly compare survey responses to a self-reported measure of health that is commonly available in nationally-representative individual and household...