The health economics literature contains contradictory empirical findings regarding the cost of an empty hospital bed. Recent empirical studies which account for the endogeneity of reserve capacity produce high estimates of these costs, while earlier studies and industry experts maintain that...

The consensus among many health economists is that no meaningful performance differences exist among for-profit and non-profit hospitals in the US, but this topic has continued to be a matter of academic, judicial, and public policy interest. A similar debate has ensued internationally,...

Recent models of firm failure and growth have ignored demand factors. In this paper, we generalize these theoretical analyses to include demand factors in explaining failure and growth for heterogeneous firms in local markets facing imperfect but increasing competition. The model is then applied...

Although there is evidence that people are aware of local ozone levels and may adjust their day-to-day routines when ozone levels change, little is known about the relationship between local ozone levels and the timing of residential moves. Results from a discrete-time hazard model suggest that...

By about 1988, the consensus among leading health economists was that no meaningful differences existed among hospitals of differences owernership form, and this position was embraced by the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice. But behavioural differences among hospitals of...

The hospital competition literature shows that estimates of the effect of local market structure (concentration) on pricing (competition) are sensitive to geographic market definition. Our spatial lag model approach effects smoothing of the explanatory variables across the discrete market...