If health care expenditure for the elderly grows faster than for younger people, the expenditure profiles become steeperʺ we call that "steepingʺ. Three instruments for measuring steepingʺ are presented: (1) trend of the relation between per-capita-expenditure of the old and the young; (2)...

In 1996 free choice of health insurers has been introduced in the German social health insurance scheme. Competition between insurers was supposed to increase efficiency. A crucial precondition for effective competition among health insurers is that consumers search for lower-priced health...

This paper investigates the relationship between health outcomes and variations in staffing levels as approximated by admissions on weekdays versus admissions on weekends. Because days of admission are potentially endogenous, we instrument on emergency admissions only, which are reasonably...

In times of peak demand hospitals may fail to deliver the high standard of treatment quality that they are able to offer their patients at regular times. To assess the magnitude of these effects, this study analyzes the effects of low staff-to-patients ratios on patient outcomes empirically. We...