Health Economics Commons^™

Do Medical Marijuana Laws Reduce Addictions And Deaths Related To Pain Killers?, David Powell, Rosalie Pacula, Mireille Jacobson

David Powell

Intermediate Input Sharing In The Hospital Service Industry, Jing Li

Jing LI

This paper addresses two related questions that help to explain geographic variation in access to medical services. The first question examines the existence of agglomeration economies in the hospital service industry. The second considers whether the sharing of intermediate inputs contributes to spillovers from spatial concentration of hospital services. These questions are addressed by estimating a bivariate probit model that explicitly controls for potential correlations between whether a service is provided and how the service is provided. Three key findings are obtained. First, hospitals in more concentrated areas are more likely to outsource intermediate services to specialized intermediate service suppliers. …

The Influence Of State Policy And Proximity To Medical Services On Health Outcomes, Jing Li

Jing LI

This paper examines two factors that help to explain geographic variation in health outcomes. The first factor concerns proximity to medical services. The second factor is state-specific health care policy that may impede access to nearby medical services. Four key findings are obtained. First, the effect of local doctors on reducing mortality rates of various diseases in a county attenuates with distance. Second, at approximately the same distance, in-state doctors contribute more to lowering mortality rates in the primary county than do out-of-state doctors. Third, the lesser impact of nearby out-of-state doctors is further reduced when the primary state adopts …

The Effect Of Chronic Pain On Life Satisfaction: Evidence From Australian Data, Silvia Mendolia, Paul Mcnamee

Silvia Mendolia

This paper investigates the relationship between chronic pain and life satisfaction using the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics of Australia Survey (HILDA). We estimate the negative impact on life satisfaction and examine the persistence of the effect over multiple years. Chronic pain is associated with poor health conditions, disability, decreased participation in the labour market and lower quality of life. We calculate the compensating income variation of chronic pain, based on the measurement of chronic pain, the life satisfaction of individuals and the income of households. Panel data models with random and fixed effects are used to control for characteristics …

Do Higher Salaries Lower Physician Migration?, Edward Okeke

Edward Okeke

It is believed that low wages are an important reason why doctors and nurses in developing countries migrate, and this has led to a call for higher wages for health professionals in developing countries. In this paper, we provide some of the first estimates of the impact of raising health workers’ salaries on migration. Using aggregate panel data on the stock of foreign doctors in 16 OECD countries, we explore the effect of a wage increase programme in Ghana on physician migration. We find evidence that 6 years after the implementation of this programme, the foreign stock of Ghanaian doctors …

Education And The Poor, Lisa Barrow, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

No abstract provided.

Empirical Evidence For Decreasing Returns To Scale In A Health Capital Model, Titus Galama, Patrick Hullegie, Meijer Erik, Sarah Outcault

Titus Galama

We estimate a health investment equation, derived from a health capital model that is an extension of the well-known Grossman model. Of particular interest is whether the health production function has constant returns to scale, as in the standard Grossman model, or decreasing returns to scale, as in the Ehrlich-Chuma model and extensions thereof. The model with decreasing returns to scale has a number of theoretically and empirically desirable characteristics that the constant returns model does not have. Although our empirical equation does not point-identify the decreasing returns to scale curvature parameter, it does allow us to test for constant …

School Policies And Children's Obesity, Patricia Anderson, Kristin Butcher, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

No abstract provided.

Workers On The Margin: Who Drops Health Coverage When Prices Rise?, Edward Okeke, Richard Hirth, Kyle Grazier

Edward Okeke

We revisit the question of price elasticity of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) take-up by directly examining changes in the take-up of ESI at a large firm in response to exogenous changes in employee premium contributions. We find that, on average, a 10% increase in the employee’s out-of-pocket premium increases the probability of dropping coverage by approximately 1%. More importantly, we find heterogeneous impacts: married workers are much more price-sensitive than single employees, and lower-paid workers are disproportionately more likely to drop coverage than higher-paid workers. Elasticity estimates for employees below the 25th percentile of salary distribution in our sample are nearly …

Child Disadvantage And Obesity: Is Nurture Trumping Nature?, Patricia Anderson, Kristin Butcher, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

No abstract provided.

The Economic Costs Of Childhood Poverty In The United States, Harry Holzer, Diane Schanzenbach, Jens Ludwig, Greg Duncan

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

No abstract provided.

Insurer Competitive Strategy And Enrollment In Newly Offered Preferred Provider Organizations (Ppo), Richard Hirth, Kyle Grazier, Michael Chernew, Edward Okeke

Edward Okeke

While early PPO growth coincided with growth of managed care generally, recent growth has come primarily at the expense of other managed care plans. Little is known about the micro behavior underlying these trends. In 2005, University of Michigan employees were offered PPOs for the first time by vendors who also offered other plans. PPOs helped the offering vendors maintain or grow their total enrollment share. PPOs were most attractive to workers who had previously chosen less managed plans. Because PPOs drew few enrollees from HMOs, there was little evidence of a backlash against managed care in the context of …

Would Smaller Classes Help Close The Black-White Achievement Gap?, Alan Krueger, Diane Schanzenbach

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Welfare Reform On The Afdc Caseload, Diane Schanzenbach, Phillip Levine

Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

No abstract provided.