Sanitation improvement is crucial in saving lives that are lost due to water contamination. Progress towards achieving full sanitation coverage is still slow in low-income informal settlements in most developing countries. Furthermore, resources are being wasted on installing facilities that are later misused or never used because they do not meet the local demand. Understanding demand for impr...

This paper empirically assesses the selection effects and determinants of the demand for supplemental health insurance that covers hospital and dental benefits in Germany. Our representative dataset provides doctor-diagnosed indicators of the individual’s health status, risk attitude, demand for medical services and insurance purchases in other lines of insurance as well as rich demographic and...

I use data on the hospital networks offered by managed care health insurers to estimate the expected division of profits between insurers and providers. I include a simple profit-maximization framework and an additional effect: hospitals that can secure demand without contracting with all insurers (e.g., those most attractive to consumers and those that are capacity constrained) may demand high...

The New Zealand health care sector stands out relative to other OECD countries, with relatively low per-capita health expenditure and a public dominant health system. Efficient allocation of resources is therefore paramount. This paper creates a predictive model for patient volume using the national database of hospital admissions. Contrasting predicted with actual demand, we construct indicato...

We examine competition in the hospital industry, in particular the effect of ownership type (for-profit, not-for-profit, government). We estimate a structural model of demand and pricing in the hospital industry in California, then use the estimates to simulate the effect of a merger. California hospitals in 1995 face an average price elasticity of demand of -4.85. Not-for-profit hospitals face...

Many health care systems collect and disseminate information on provider quality in order to facilitate patient choice and induce competitive behaviour amongst providers. The Department of Health in England has recently mandated the collection of patient-reported health outcome measures (PROMs) for the purpose of performance assessment and consumer information. This is the first attempt to rout...