How do for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals differ? We consider one dimension: the shifting of a patient's diagnostic related group (DRG) to one that yields a greater reimbursement from the Medicare system, also known as upcoding. It has played a major role in recent federal lawsuits against...

Do saving incentives such as Individual Retirement Accounts stimulate new saving or merely reshuffle existing assets?

Objective:- To compare the performance of two new approaches to risk adjustment that are free of the influence of observational intensity with methods that depend on diagnoses listed in administrative databases. Setting:- Administrative data from the US Medicare program for services provided in...

Do saving incentives such as Individual Retirement Accounts stimulate new saving or merely reshuffle existing assets?

The authors argue that there is more to be learned from recent research on the effectiveness of targeted saving incentives than the wide variation in empirical estimates suggests. They conclude that characterizations of 'all new saving' or 'no new saving' are extreme IRAs and 401(k) plans appear...

Following an acrimonious healthcare reform debate involving charges of "death panels," in 2010, Congress explicitly forbade the use of cost-effectiveness analysis in government programs of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In this context, comparative effectiveness research emerged...

There is growing concern over the rising share of the US economy devoted to health care spending. Fueled in part by demographic transitions, unchecked increases in entitlement spending will necessitate some combination of substantial tax increases, elimination of other public spending, or...

In his classic 1957 study of hybrid corn, Griliches emphasized the importance of economic incentives and profitability in the adoption of new technology, and this focus has been continued in the economics literature. But there is a distinct literature with roots in sociology emphasizing the...