Prior studies find that the growth of managed care through the early 1990s introduced a strong positive relationship between price and concentration in hospital markets. We hypothesize that the relaxation of constraints on consumer choice in response to a "managed care backlash" has diminished...

This paper discusses the supplier power of medical specialists. We argue that a combination of factors, including the structure of health care delivery, reimbursement systems, the presence of option demand, and high consumer switching costs, create circumstances in which medical specialists may...

Health care markets fail to satisfy many requirements for perfect competition, including large numbers of consumers and firms, zero search costs, and marketability of all goods and services. Over time, health care markets have evolved to overcome the resulting inefficiencies. We combine the...

Estimated responses to report cards may reflect learning about quality that would have occurred in their absence (market-based learning). Using panel data on Medicare HMOs, we examine the relationship between enrollment and quality before and after report cards were mailed to 40 million Medicare...