Testing a Roy Model with Productivity Spillovers: Evidence from the Treatment of Heart Attacks / Amitabh Chandra, Douglas Staiger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chandra, Amitabh.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Staiger, Douglas.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w10811.

NBER working paper series no. w10811

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Testing a Roy Model with Productivity Spillovers

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2004.

Summary:

Productivity spillovers are often cited as a reason for geographic specialization in production. A large literature in medicine documents specialization across areas in the use of surgical treatments, which is unrelated to patient outcomes. We show that a simple Roy model of patient treatment choice with productivity spillovers can generate these facts. Our model predicts that high-use areas will have higher returns to surgery, better outcomes among patients most appropriate for surgery, and worse outcomes among patients least appropriate for surgery. We find strong empirical support for these and other predictions of the model, and decisively reject alternative explanations commonly proposed to explain geographic variation in medical care.

Notes:

Print version record

October 2004.