OBJECTIVE To estimate the relationship between variations in medical spending and health outcomes of the elderly. DATA SOURCES 1992-2002 Medicare Current Beneficiary Surveys. STUDY DESIGN We used instrumental variable (IV) estimation to identify the relationships between alternative measures of elderly Medicare beneficiaries' medical spending over a 3-year observation period and health stat...

We estimate the magnitude of social interaction effects in disability pension participation in Norway. Specifically, we investigate how a worker’s propensity to draw disability benefits is affected by a plausibly exogenous shock to the disability entry rate of similarly-aged workers in his neighborhood. The problem of omitted variable bias is addressed employing a novel instrumental variable (I...