Addiction has attracted considerable attention in health and behavioral economics, and economists have attempted to understand addiction from the viewpoint of decision making over time. This paper investigates whether two time preference parameters can successfully predict smoking status,...

HPV infections can cause substantial burden in females and males as it is associated with several genital cancers, in addition to genital warts. Traditional economic evaluations often focus on quantifying cost-effectiveness, however, it is increasingly recognized that vaccinations may generate...

This study measured the effect of media exposure on grapefruit/grapefruit juice consumption changes, in particular grapefruit-medicine interaction. Respondents' attitudes about health news on television and the internet were measured to account for consumers exposed versus not exposed to such...

We examine the impact of Emergency Department (ED) overcrowding on wait times and patient outcomes using a unique cross section of about 32,000 patients for an ED located in the Southwestern United States. We construct a measure of a patient's outcome and estimate the extent to which it is...

An increasing focus on hospital productivity has rendered a need for more thorough knowledge of cost drivers in hospitals, including a need for quantification of the impact of age, case-mix and other characteristics of patients, as well as establishment of the cost-quality relationship. The aim...

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...

The threshold approach to medical decision-making, in which treatment decisions are made based on whether the probability of sickness exceeds a predetermined threshold, was introduced by (Pauker and Kassirer, N Engl J Med 293:229-234, 1975) and (Pauker and Kassirer, N Engl J Med 302:1109-1116,...

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...