We exploit a large-scale natural experiment – the rollout of a nationwide electronic prescribing system in Finland – to study how digitization of prescriptions affects pharmaceutical use and health outcomes. We use comprehensive administrative data from patients treated with benzodiazepines,...

Background: Assessing the impact of cost sharing on healthcare utilization is a critical issue in health economics and health policy. It may affect the utilization of different services, but is yet to be well understood. Objective: This paper investigates the effects of reducing cost sharing for...

Cesarean deliveries are widely used in many high- and middle-income countries. This overuse both increases costs and lowers quality of care and is thus a major concern in the healthcare industry. The study first examines the impact of prenatal care utilization on cesarean delivery rates. It then...

In the last decades, demographic change coupled with new and expensive medical innovations have put most health care systems in developed countries under financial pressure. Therefore, ensuring efficient service provision is essential for a sustainable health care system. This paper investigates...

Background: This paper analyses the volume-outcome relationship and the effects of minimum volume regulations in the German hospital sector. Methods: We use a full sample of administrative data from the unselected, complete German hospital population for the years 2005 to 2007. We apply...

This paper studies systematic reporting heterogeneity in self-assessed health in India using World Health Survey (WHS)-SAGE survey that has subjective assessments on own health and hypothetical vignettes as well as objective measures like measured anthropometrics and performance tests on a range...

This paper studies the short-term impact of public smoking bans on hospitalizations in Germany. It exploits the staggered implementation of smoking bans over time and across the 16 federal states along with the universe of hospitalizations from 2000-2008 and daily county-level weather and...

Health at birth is an important indicator of human capital development over the life course. This paper uses longitudinal data from the Young Lives survey and employs instrumental variable regression models to estimate the effect of birth weight on cognitive development during childhood in...

This study examines the effects of targeted preventive interventions for pregnant women with elevated alcohol risk on infant health and maternal behavior. The detrimental effects of alcohol exposure in utero are well documented and universal alcohol prevention programs are an important part of...

High vaccination rates have a social protection function in addition to individual prevention of infections and diseases. To reach herd immunity thresholds and to protect risk groups, the timeliness of immunization is an important goal for vaccination policy. There is currently no causal...