The paper is concerned with the efficient organization of contractual relationships between health insurers and providers. An introduction to relevant aspects of contract theory is followed by their adaptation to the characteristics of the health care system. The focus lies on an ex ante...

In the home-care services industry, caregivers drive to visit patients scattered in a district and deliver various care services at the patient's home. We use a unique data set, with a standard panel structure, recording the hours of service and the exact number of miles traveled by each...

The healthcare industry has been slow to adopt new technologies and practices. However, digital and data-enabled innovations diffuse the market, and the COVID-19 pandemic has recently emphasized the necessity of a fundamental digital transformation. Available research indicates the relevance of...

In this paper we investigate the existence of a two-tier medical system in the German acute care hospital sector using data from a survey of 483 German hospitals. The focus of our analysis lies on the impact of hospital concentration on the probability of discrimination of patients with...

This paper examines the competition of nonprofit sickness funds in the market for supplementary health insurance. We investigate product quality strategies when quality is costly and the sickness funds are competing for customers. As long as the sickness funds choose the qualities for...

Important differences in labor market characteristics suggest that men and women physicians may be viewed as imperfect substitutes in the labor market. Concerns about efficiency and cost-cutting, which have led to the adoption of managed care practices, may have (unintentionally) favored female...

New approaches in health care, such as e.g. Integrated Delivery Systems, affect the role and tasks of medical suppliers. More and more, medical suppliers are incorporated into the process of guiding patients to medical specialists and hospitals and thus managing the course of disease. In this...

We investigate the impact of exogenous local conditions which favour high market concentration on supply, price and quality in local markets for care homes for older people in England. We extend the existing literature in: (i) considering supply capacity as a market outcome alongside price and...

This study investigates the role of retail pharmacy ownership in the opioid epidemic in the United States by comparing independently owned pharmacies' and chain pharmacies' prescription opioid dispensing practices. Using data of prescription opioid orders at the pharmacy level between 2006 and...

Die COVID-19-Pandemie ist das beherrschende Thema der letzten 18 Monate gewesen. Die Impfung gegen COVID-19 ist nach wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis als der Ausweg anzusehen. Der Beitrag verdeutlicht, dass die mit COVID-19 zusammenhängende Impfstrategie in drei Phasen einzuteilen ist, wobei...