This paper exploits a unique opportunity to evaluate the impact of the quality change in the labor and delivery services brought about by the Mother and Infant Health Project in Ukraine. Employing program evaluation methods, we find that the administrative units participating in the Project have...

This study models the relationship between Medicare beneficiary decisions to join Medicare HMOs and subsequent health services utilization. The relationship between health plan choice and utilization is thought to be endogenous because of favorable selection into HMOs. Previous studies found...

A change in payment mechanism for inpatient care from per diem to per episode creates two incentives - a marginal and an average price effect - to change length of stay. The decrease in marginal price per day to zero should reduce the length of stay, while an increase in average price per...

This study examines whether the effects of peer substance use on adolescent alcohol and tobacco use are due to endogeneity of adolescents selecting their peer group. We analyzed data collected for a longitudinal analysis of a drug-use prevention programme for upper elementary school students. We...

Government projections of future health care expenditures - a great concern given the aging baby-boom generation - are based on econometric regressions that control explicitly for age but do not control for end-of-life expenditures. Because expenditures increase dramatically on average at the...

Proposed changes to the mental health care system are usually debated in terms of either health benefits or costs savings. However, because of the extensive intersection between the mental health system and the criminal justice system, changes in the organization and financing of mental health...

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Economists have argued that obesity may lead to worse labor market outcomes, especially for women. Empirical methods to test this hypothesis have not thus far adequately controlled for the endogeneity of obesity. We use variation in genotype to predict variation in phenotype (obesity). Genetic...

The extent to which increasing longevity increases per capita demand for long-term care depends on the degree to which utilization is concentrated at the end of life. We estimate the marginal effect of proximity to death, measured by being within 2 years of death, on the probabilities of nursing...

Past empirical work has shown a negative relationship between the body mass index (BMI) and wages in most cases. We improve on this work by allowing the marginal effect of non-linear BMI groups to vary by gender, age, and type of interpersonal relationships required in each occupation. We use...