"Professional partnerships might facilitate matching between specialized professionals and heterogeneous consumers, particularly where matching across firms is limited by information, incentives or regulation. We examine the extent to which internally-differentiated medical groups promote...

Economic theory indicates that firms can match workers to jobs and promote productivity-enhancing specialization better than markets, yet few data exist. We empirically test whether firms enhance matching and specialization in the context of obstetrics. We then examine whether consumers benefit...

type="main" <p>Patients rely on physicians to act as their agents when prescribing medications, yet the efforts of pharmaceutical manufacturers and prescription drug insurers may alter this agency relationship. We evaluate how formularies, and the use of information technology (IT) that provides...</p>

Our understanding of the determinants of physician skill and the extent to which skill is valued in the marketplace is superficial. Using a large, detailed panel of new obstetricians, we find that, even though physicians' maternal complication rates improve steadily with years of practice,...