Nurses comprise the largest health profession. In this paper, we measure the effect of nurses on health care delivery and patient health outcomes across sectors. Our empirical strategy takes advantage of a parental leave program, which led to a sudden, unintended, and persistent 12% reduction in...

This paper evaluates a randomized controlled trial of the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) program conducted in Memphis, TN in 1990. NFP offers home visits conducted by nurses for disadvantaged first-time mothers during pregnancy and early childhood. We test NFP treatment effects using...

The quality and cost of care in nursing homes depend critically on the number and types of nurses. Recent research suggests that the nursing supply adjusts to macroeconomic conditions. However, prior work has failed to consider the effect of macroeconomic conditions on demand for nurses through...

Unlike in the production of most goods, changes in capacity for labor-intensive services only affect outcomes of interest insofar as service providers change the way they allocate their time in response to those capacity changes. In this paper, we examine how public sector service providers...

We study how short-term labor markets responded to an extraordinary demand shock during the COVID-19 pandemic. We use traveling nurse jobs - a market hospitals use to fill temporary staffing needs - to examine workers' willingness to move to places with larger demand shocks. We find a dramatic...

Nursing homes and other long-term care facilities account for a disproportionate share of COVID-19 cases and fatalities worldwide. Outbreaks in U.S. nursing homes have persisted despite nationwide visitor restrictions beginning in mid-March. An early report issued by the Centers for Disease...

This paper uses data from the 1990s to examine changes in the wages, employment, and effort of nurses in California hospitals following takeovers by large chains. The market for nurses has been described as a classic monopsony, so that one might expect increases in firm market power to be...

Hospitals are currently under pressure to control the cost of medical care, while at the same time improving patient health outcomes. These twin concerns are at play in an important and contentious decision facing hospitals--choosing appropriate nurse staffing levels. Intuitively, one would...

This paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between human capital and organizational performance. We use detailed longitudinal monthly data on nursing units in the Veterans Administration hospital system to identify how the human capital (general, hospital-specific and unit or...

Autism is a developmental disorder characterized by impairments in social interaction, communication, and restricted or repetitive behaviors. This previously rare condition has dramatically increased in prevalence from 0.5 in 1000 children during the 1970s to 11.3 in 1000 children in 2008. Using...