Editorial Board
Publication date: January 2019Source: Journal of Health Economics, Volume 63Author(s): (Source: Journal of Health Economics)
Source: Journal of Health Economics - February 20, 2019 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Motivated health risk denial and preventative health care investments
Publication date: Available online 19 February 2019Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Peter SchwardmannAbstractPeople deny health risks, invest too little in disease prevention, and are highly sensitive to the price of preventative health care, especially in developing countries. Moreover, private sector R&D spending on developing-country diseases is almost non-existent. To explain these empirical observations, I propose a model of motivated belief formation, in which an agent's decision to engage in health risk denial balances the psychological benefits of reduced anxiety with the physical cost of underpreventi...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - February 20, 2019 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Cash on delivery:Results of a randomized experiment to promote maternal health care in Kenya
Publication date: Available online 18 February 2019Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Karen A. Grépin, James Habyarimana, William JackAbstractWe conducted a randomized controlled experiment to test whether vouchers, cash transfers, and SMS messages were effective in boosting facility delivery rates among poor, pregnant women in rural Kenya. We find a strong effect of the full vouchers and the conditional cash transfers: 48% of women with access to both interventions delivered in a health facility, while only 36% of those with neither did. Amongst women who did not receive a cash transfer, we find that a small c...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - February 19, 2019 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Contemporaneous and Long-term Effects of Children’s Public Health Insurance Expansions on Supplemental Security Income Participation
This study explores the interplay between two important public programs for vulnerable children: Medicaid and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. Children’s public health insurance eligibility increased dramatically during the late 1990s with the launch of the Children’s Health Insurance Program along with concurrent Medicaid expansions. We use a measure of simulated eligibility as an exogenous source of variation in Medicaid generosity to identify the effects of the eligibility expansions on SSI outcomes. Though increases in eligibility for public health insurance did not affect contemporaneous youth SSI a...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - February 13, 2019 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
One Lab, Two Firms, Many Possibilities: on R&D outsourcing in the biopharmaceutical industry
Publication date: Available online 13 February 2019Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Etienne Billette de Villemeur, Bruno VersaevelAbstractWe draw from documented characteristics of the biopharmaceutical industry to construct a model where two firms can choose to outsource R&D to an external unit, and/or engage in internal R&D, before competing in a final market. We investigate the distribution of profits among market participants, and the incentives to coordinate outsourcing activities or to integrate R&D and production. Consistent with the empirical evidence, we find that the sign and magnitude of an aggregat...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - February 13, 2019 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Healing the Poor: The Influence of Patient Socioeconomic Status on Physician Supply Responses
Publication date: Available online 10 February 2019Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Alice Chen, Darius LakdawallaAbstractA longstanding literature explores how altruism affects the way physicians respond to incentives and provide care. We analyze how patient socioeconomic status mediates these responses. We show theoretically that patient socioeconomic status systematically influences the way physicians respond to reimbursement changes, and we identify the channels through which these effects operate. We use two Medicare reimbursement changes to investigate these insights empirically. We confirm that a given p...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - February 11, 2019 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Seeing and Hearing: The Impacts of New York City’s Universal Pre-Kindergarten Program on the Health of Low-Income Children
Publication date: Available online 10 February 2019Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Kai Hong, Kacie Dragan, Sherry GliedAbstractWe examine the effect of New York City’s universal pre-kindergarten program (UPK) on the health and utilization of children enrolled in Medicaid using a difference-in-regression-discontinuities design. We find that UPK increases the probability that a child is diagnosed with asthma or with vision problems, receives treatment for hearing or vision problems, or receives an immunization or screening during the pre-kindergarten year. These effects are not offset by lower rates in the ki...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - February 11, 2019 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
The Effect of Predictive Analytics-Driven Interventions on Healthcare Utilization
Publication date: Available online 10 February 2019Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Guy David, Aaron Smith-McLallen, Benjamin UkertAbstractThis paper studies a commercial insurer-driven intervention to improve resource allocation. The insurer developed a claims-based algorithm to derive a member-level healthcare utilization risk score. Members with the highest scores were contacted by a care management team tasked with closing gaps in care. The number of members outreached was dictated by resource availability and not by severity, creating a set of arbitrary cutoff points, separating treated and untreated memb...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - February 11, 2019 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Low-risk isn’t no-risk: Perinatal treatments and the health of low-income newborns
Publication date: Available online 2 February 2019Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): N. Meltem Daysal, Mircea Trandafir, Reyn van EwijkAbstractWe investigate the effects of perinatal medical treatments on low-income newborns who are classified as low-risk. A policy rule in The Netherlands states that low-risk deliveries before week 37 should be supervised by physicians and later deliveries only by midwives with no physician present. This creates large discontinuities in the probability of receiving medical interventions only physicians are allowed to perform. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - February 3, 2019 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Drivers of the Fatal Drug Epidemic
This study examines the contributions of the medium-run evolution of local economies and of changes in the “drug environment’ in explaining county-level changes in drug and related mortality rates from 1999-2015. A primary finding is that drug mortality rates did increase more in counties experiencing relative economic decline than in those with more robust growth, but that the relationship is weak and mostly accounted for by confounding factors. In the preferred estimates, less than one-tenth of the rise in drug and opioid-involved fatality rates is explained and the contribution is even smaller, quite possibly zero, ...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - January 15, 2019 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Does external medical review reduce disability insurance inflow?
Publication date: Available online 14 January 2019Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Helge LiebertAbstractThis paper investigates the effects of introducing external medical review for disability insurance (DI) in a system relying on treating physician testimony for eligibility determination. Using a unique policy change and administrative data from Switzerland, I show that medical review reduces DI incidence by 23%. Incidence reductions are closely tied to difficult-to-diagnose conditions, suggesting inaccurate assessments by treating physicians. Due to a partial benefit system, reductions in full benefit award...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - January 15, 2019 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Measuring Multivariate Risk Preferences in the Health Domain
Publication date: Available online 27 December 2018Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Arthur E. Attema, Olivier l’Haridon, Gijs van de KuilenAbstractWe investigate univariate and multivariate risk preferences for health (longevity) and wealth. We measure attitudes toward correlation and attitudes toward higher order dependence structures such as cross-prudence and cross-temperance, making use of the risk apportionment technique proposed by Eeckhoudt et al. (2007). For multivariate gains, we find correlation aversion and cross-prudence in longevity and wealth. For losses, we observe correlation seeking and cros...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - December 28, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Mother’s mental health after childbirth: Does the delivery method matter?
Publication date: January 2019Source: Journal of Health Economics, Volume 63Author(s): Valentina ToneiAbstractThe dramatic increase in the utilization of caesarean section has raised concerns on its impact on public expenditure and health. While the financial costs associated with this surgical procedure are well recognized, less is known on the intangible health costs borne by mothers and their families. We contribute to the debate by investigating the effect of unplanned caesarean deliveries on mothers’ mental health in the first nine months after the delivery. Differently from previous studies, we account for the unob...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - December 27, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
What Are Consumers Willing to Pay for a Broad Network Health Plan?: Evidence from Covered California
Publication date: Available online 21 December 2018Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Coleman DrakeAbstractHealth Insurance Marketplaces have received considerable attention for their narrow network health plans. Yet, little is known about consumer tastes for network breadth and how they affect plan selection. I estimate demand for health plans in California’s Marketplace, Covered California. Using 2017 individual enrollment data and provider network directories, I develop a geospatial measure of network breadth that reflects the physical locations of households and network providers. I find that households ar...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - December 22, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
Competition and Equity in Health Care Markets
Publication date: Available online 21 December 2018Source: Journal of Health EconomicsAuthor(s): Luigi Siciliani, Odd Rune StraumeAbstractWe provide a model where hospitals compete on quality under fixed prices to investigate how hospital competition affects (i) quality differences between hospitals, and as a result, (ii) health inequalities across hospitals and patient severities. The answer to the first question is ambiguous and depends on factors related to both demand and supply of health care. Whether competition increases or reduces health inequalities depends on the type and measure of inequality. Health inequalitie...
Source: Journal of Health Economics - December 22, 2018 Category: Health Management Source Type: research
