Prices for consultations with General Practitioners (GPs) in Australia are unregulated, and patients pay the difference between the price set by the GP and a fixed reimbursement from the national tax-funded Medicare insurance scheme. We construct a Vickrey-Salop model of GP price and quality...

Using data from a new longitudinal survey of doctors from Australia, the authors test whether observed large gender-pay gaps among general practitioners (GPs) are the result of women’s larger willingness to interrupt their careers. On average, female GPs earn A$83,000 or 54% less than male...

The pursuit of equity is a key objective of many health care systems, including Australia’s Medicare. Using the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, we measured the extent of inequity in the utilisation of hospital services. We used methodology developed by the...

Stated preference discrete choice experiments are being increasingly used to value the quality of health care services. To date in the health economics literature, discrete choice experiments have used only a relatively small number of attributes due to concerns about task complexity,...

To date, there has been little data or empirical research on the determinants of doctors' earnings despite earnings having an important role in influencing the cost of health care, decisions on workforce participation and labour supply. This paper examines the determinants of annual earnings of...

Australia introduced an incentive payment scheme for general practitioners to ensure systematic and high quality care in chronic disease management. There is little empirical evidence and ambiguous theoretical guidance on which effects to expect on the quality of care. This paper evaluates the...

Physicians are one, albeit key, input into the production of better health and well being. There are two parts to the measurement of doctor productivity: activities performed and the value of those activities to society, via their impact on health and welfare. The former is easiest to measure,...

A number of studies suggest there is an over-supply of specialists and an undersupply of GPs in many developed countries. Previous econometric studies of specialty choice from the US suggest that a number of factors play a role, including expected future earnings, educational debt, and having...

A key policy issue in many countries is the maldistribution of doctors across geographic areas, which has important effects on equity of access and health care costs. Many government programs and incentive schemes have been established to encourage doctors to practise in rural areas. However,...

Many countries face a continuing shortage in nurses’ labour supply. Previous research suggests that nurses respond only weakly to changes in wages. However, the decision to exit or enter the nursing profession has not been taken into account in previous studies, although the occupational...