nep-hea New Economics Papers
on Health Economics
Issue of 2005‒10‒22
four papers chosen by
Yong Yin
SUNY at Buffalo, USA

  1. Disability Risk and Miraculous Recoveries in Russia By Becker, Charles M.; Merkuryeva, Irina S.
  2. Work Absence in Europe By Lusine Lusinyan; Leo Bonato
  3. Doctor Who? Who Gets Admission Offers in UK Medical Schools By Wiji Arulampalam; Robin A. Naylor; Jeremy Smith
  4. 'Taxing' Doctors: The Impact of Income Caps on the Provision of Medical Services By Boris Kralj; Jasmin Kantarevic; Darrel Weinkauf

  1. By: Becker, Charles M.; Merkuryeva, Irina S.
    Abstract: This paper examines determinants of being disabled in Russia, along with the probability of moving from one disability status to another, using data from 1994 through 2002 from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey. Disability risk rises with age, declines with income and self-reported good health, and is lower for women. On the other hand, neither smoking nor drinking alcohol increase either the risk of being or becoming disabled.
    JEL: J10 J15 P36
    Date: 2005
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:duk:dukeec:05-07&r=hea
  2. By: Lusine Lusinyan; Leo Bonato
    Abstract: Work absence is an important part of the individual decision on actual working hours. This paper focuses on sickness absence in Europe and develops a stylized model where absence is part of the labor-leisure decision made by workers and the production decision made by profit-maximizing firms, with insurance provisions and labor market institutions affecting the costs of absence. The results from a panel of 18 European countries indicate that absence is increased by generous insurance schemes where employers bear little responsibility for their costs. Shorter working hours reduce absence, but flexible working arrangements are preferable if labor supply erosion is a concern.
    Keywords: Sick leave , Europe , Insurance , Labor supply , Data analysis , Data collection , Economic models ,
    Date: 2004–10–21
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:04/193&r=hea
  3. By: Wiji Arulampalam (University of Warwick and IZA Bonn); Robin A. Naylor (University of Warwick); Jeremy Smith (University of Warwick)
    Abstract: In the context of the UK Government’s ambitious programme of medical school expansion, it is important to have an understanding of how the medical school admissions process works, and with what effects. The issue is also relevant for the Schwartz Review (2004) into higher education admissions. Using individual-level data for two entire cohorts of medical student applicants in UK universities and exploiting the panel structure of the applicant-medical school information, we estimate models to analyse the probability that an individual student receives an offer of a place. We find that prior qualifications, school type, gender, age, social class and ethnic background are major influences on whether a student receives an offer from a medical school. We also find that the probability of receiving an offer from a particular medical school is influenced by the identity of other medical schools applied to. Finally, we find evidence that certain groups of applicants are particularly disadvantaged the later they apply within the application process.
    Keywords: medical students, admissions, offer (non-rejection) probabilities, endogenous selection, unobserved heterogeneity
    JEL: J24 I2 C41
    Date: 2005–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1775&r=hea
  4. By: Boris Kralj (Ontario Medical Association); Jasmin Kantarevic (Ontario Medical Association and IZA Bonn); Darrel Weinkauf (Ontario Medical Association)
    Abstract: Income cap or threshold systems rely on incentives that encourage physicians to limit medical expenditures, but little is known about how physicians respond to these incentives. Conceptually, the threshold system is to physicians what an income tax system is to taxpayers. We exploit this similarity to analyze the impact of a reform that changed what is included in the ‘taxable’ billings of physicians in Ontario, Canada. We find that for services that the reform turned from exempted to non-exempted, the reform had a strong, negative impact for physicians with billings above the minimum threshold and a negligible impact for physicians below the threshold. The reform had no impact on services that were nonexempted both before and after the reform. This response of physicians to the threshold reform resembles the expected response of taxpayers to a similar change in the income tax system.
    Keywords: physicians' behavior, income thresholds, non-convex budget sets
    JEL: I10 I18
    Date: 2005–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1784&r=hea

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