This paper investigates the correlates of union success in NLRB certification and decertification elections. The analysis includes a wide variety of bargaining unit, union, industry, and geographic attributes, many of which have not been considered in previous studies. Variables having a...

Electric utilities can reduce sulfur dioxide emissions through a variety of strategies such as adding scrubbers, switching to low- sulfur coal, or shifting output between generating plants with different emissions. The cost of achieving a given emission target can be minimized using a market for...

In 2001, use of the STRIDE data base for the purposes of analyzing drug prices and the impact of public policies on drug markets came under serious attack by the National Research Council (Manski et al., 2001; Horowitz, 2001). While some of the criticisms raised by the committee were valid, many of...

The impacts of choice in public services are controversial. We exploit a reform in the English National Health Service to assess the impact of relaxing constraints on patient choice. We estimate a demand model to evaluate whether increased choice increased demand elasticity faced by hospitals...

The US health care sector is large and growing - health care spending in 2011 amounted to $2.7 trillion and 18% of GDP. Approximately half of health care output is allocated via markets. In this paper, we analyze the industrial organization literature on health care markets focusing on the...

The literature on mergers between private hospitals suggests that such mergers often produce little benefit. Despite this, the UK government has pursued an active policy of hospital merger. These mergers are initiated by a regulator, acting on behalf of the public, and justified on the grounds...

We use data from California to document and offer possible explanations for the sharp increase in hospital prices charged to private payers after 1999. We find a downward trend in price for private pay patients in the 1990s and a rapid upward trend beginning in 1999, amounting to an annual...

There has been considerable consolidation in the hospital industry in recent years. Over 900 deals occurred from 1994-2000, and many local markets, even in large urban areas, have been reduced to monopolies, duopolies, or triopolies. This surge in consolidation has led to concern about...

The goal of this paper is to identify key issues concerning the nature of competition in health care markets and its impacts on quality and social welfare and to identify pertinent findings from the theoretical and empirical literature on this topic. The theoretical literature in economics on...

In this paper we review issues relating to antitrust and competition in health care markets. The paper begins with a brief review of antitrust legislation. We then discuss whether and how health care is different from other industries in ways that might affect the optimality of competition. The...