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The Production Of Health And The Valuation Of Medical Inputs In Wage-Amenity Models, Edward J. Schumacher, John C. Whitehead

Health Care Administration Faculty Research

Using a hedonic wage-amenity model, this paper examines the valuation of medical inputs into the production of health. The data used in this study include the incomes, demographics and measures of human capital for households in eastern North Carolina with county level medical input supply. These data allow an estimate of the marginal value of medical care inputs such as the physician to population ratio and the availability of specialized services in an area of the country where the lack of available medical care has been of particular concern to policy makers. Our results indicate that while health care inputs …