The present paper provides first empirical evidence on the relationship between market size and the number of firms in the healthcare industry for a transition economy. We estimate market-size thresholds required to support different numbers of suppliers (firms) for three occupations in the healthcare industry in a large number of distinct geographic markets in Slovakia, taking into account the spatial interaction between local markets. The empirical analysis is carried out for three time periods (1995, 2001 and 2010) which characterise different stages of the transition process. Our results suggest that the relationship between market size and the number of firms differs both across industries and across periods. In particular, we find that pharmacies, as the only completely liberalised market in our dataset, experience the largest change in competitive behaviour during the transition process. Furthermore, we find evidence for correlation in entry decisions across administrative borders, suggesting that future market analysis should aim to capture these regional effects.

Despite generous universal social health insurance with little formal restrictions of outpatient utilisation, Austria exhibits high rates of avoidable hospitalisations, which indicate the inefficient provision of primary healthcare and might be a consequence of the strict regulatory split between the Austrian inpatient and outpatient sector. This paper exploits the considerable regional variations in acute and chronic avoidable hospitalisations in Austria to investigate whether those inefficiencies in primary care are rather related to regional healthcare supply or to population characteristics. To explicitly account for inter-regional dependencies, spatial panel data methods are applied to a comprehensive administrative dataset of all hospitalisations from 2008 to 2013 in the 117 Austrian districts. The initial selection of relevant covariates is based on Bayesian model averaging. The results of the analysis show that supply-side variables, such as the number of general practitioners, are significantly associated with decreased chronic and acute avoidable hospitalisations, whereas characteristics of the regional population, such as the share of population with university education or long-term unemployed, are less relevant. Furthermore, the spatial error term indicates that there are significant spatial dependencies between unobserved characteristics, such as practice style or patients' utilization behaviour. Not accounting for those would result in omitted variable bias.

The present paper provides first empirical evidence on the relationship between market size and the number of firms in the healthcare industry for a transition economy. We estimate market-size thresholds required to support different numbers of suppliers (firms) for three occupations in the healthcare industry in a large number of distinct geographic markets in Slovakia, taking into account the spatial interaction between local markets. The empirical analysis is carried out for three time periods (1995, 2001 and 2010) which characterise different stages of the transition process. Our results suggest that the relationship between market size and the number of firms differs both across industries and across periods. In particular, we find that pharmacies, as the only completely liberalised market in our dataset, experience the largest change in competitive behaviour during the transition process. Furthermore, we find evidence for correlation in entry decisions across administrative borders, suggesting that future market analysis should aim to capture these regional effects.

Many countries have reduced the generosity of disability benefits while making them more activating - yet few studies have examined how employment rates have subsequently changed. We present estimates of how the employment rates of older workers with poor health in 13 high-income countries changed between 2004-7 and 2012-15 using HRS/SHARE/ELSA data. We find that those in poor health in the USA have experienced a unique deterioration: they have not only seen a widening gap to the employment rates of those with good health, but their employment rates fell per se. We find only for Sweden (and possibly England) signs that the health employment gap shrank. We then examine possible explanations for the development in the USA: we find no evidence it links to labour market trends, but possible links to the USA's lack of disability benefit reform - which should be considered alongside the wider challenges of our findings for policymakers. / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

It is frequently argued that the high costs of clinical trials prior to the admission of new pharmaceuticals are stifling innovation. At the same time, regulation of the access to markets is often justified on the basis of consumers` inability to detect the true quality of a product. We examine these arguments from an information economic perspective by setting a framework where the incentives to invest in R&D are influenced by the information structure prevailing when the product is launched in the market at a later stage. In this setting, by changing the information structure, regulation (or the lack of) can thus indirectly affect R&D efforts. More formally, we construct a moral hazard - cum - adverse selection model in which a pharmaceutical firm exerts an unobservable effort towards developing an innovative (high quality) drug (moral hazard) and then announces the (unobservable) quality outcome to an uninformed regulator and/or consumers (adverse selection). We compare the outcomes in regard to innovation effort and expected welfare under two regimes: (i) regulation, where products undergo a clinical trial designed to ascertain product quality at the point of market access; and (ii) laissez-faire with free entry, where the revelation of quality is left to the market process. Results show that whether or not innovation is greater in the presence of entry regulation crucially depends on the efficacy of the trial in identifying (poor) quality, on the probability that unknown qualities are revealed in the market process, and on the preference and cost structure. The welfare ranking of the two regimes depends on the differential effort incentive and on the net welfare gain from implementing full information instantaneously. For example, in settings of vertical monopoly, vertical differentiation and horizontal differentiation with no variable cost of quality, entry regulation tends to be the preferred regime if the effort incentive under pooling is relatively low and profits do not count too much towards welfare. A complementary numerical Analysis shows how the outcomes vary with the market and cost structure. (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

While linkages between some macroeconomic phenomena (e.g. unemployment, GDP growth) and suicide rates in some countries have been explored, only one study, hitherto, has established a causal relationship between fiscal consolidation and suicide, albeit in a single country. This study examines the impact of budget consolidation on suicide mortality across all Eurozone peripheral economies, while controlling for various economic and sociodemographic differences. The impact of fiscal adjustments is found to be gender, age and time specific. In particular, fiscal consolidation has short-, medium- and long-run suicide increasing effects on the male population between 65 and 89 years of age. A one percentage point reduction in government spending is associated with an 1.39%, 2.35% and 2.64% increase in the short-, medium- and long-run, respectively, of male suicides rates between 65 and 89 years of age in the Eurozone periphery. These results are highly robust to alternative measures of fiscal consolidation. Unemployment benefits and substantial employment protection legislation seem to mitigate some of the negative effects of fiscal consolidation on suicide mortality. Plausible explanations for these impacts are provided and policy implications drawn. (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2018-07-20T15:48:26Z No. of bitstreams: 1 mateusclovisdesouzacosta.pdf: 2901250 bytes, checksum: 8af7b5baf07040748804059716275b90 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2018-09-03T16:18:14Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 mateusclovisdesouzacosta.pdf: 2901250 bytes, checksum: 8af7b5baf07040748804059716275b90 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-03T16:18:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 mateusclovisdesouzacosta.pdf: 2901250 bytes, checksum: 8af7b5baf07040748804059716275b90 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-06-29 / A tese tem por objetivo estimular a discussão, por meio de três estudos independentes, sobre os impactos econômico-financeiros das cesarianas desnecessárias no Brasil, estimando os custos, propondo estratégias para redução do procedimento quando desnecessário e investigando a hipótese de que obstetras induzem a demanda por cesariana. A epidemia de cesariana é um problema de saúde pública que onera financeiramente os sistemas público e privado de saúde e que desperdiça recursos que poderiam ser utilizados de maneira mais eficiente. O primeiro estudo estima o custo da cesariana desnecessária no Brasil. Tendo como base dados da pesquisa Nascer no Brasil, DATASUS, SIGTAP, UNIDAS e estimando por regressão logística, foi possível concluir que o custo da cesariana desnecessária é no mínimo R$ 10,5 milhões no setor público e R$ 17,6 milhões no setor privado, o que representa 1,6% a 6% dos gastos públicos com cesariana. O segundo estudo propõe mudança no modelo de assistência obstétrica que envolve alteração na jornada de trabalho, na forma de remuneração e no aumento da punição aos obstetras, como forma de inibir a prática de indução de demanda. A partir de referências na literatura, dados da AMB, DATASUS e da pesquisa Nascer no Brasil, atribuíram-se métricas para a utilidade do obstetra e utilizou-se uma simulação para sensibilizar as métricas de remuneração e ética profissional, permitindo observar o efeito na decisão do obstetra. Concluise que remunerar obstetras com salário fixo, introduzi-los na jornada de trabalho sob regime plantão e em equipe colaborativa e aumentar da punição pela prática antiética de indução de demanda são ações que podem somar a outros esforços para o combate à epidemia da cirurgia no Brasil. O terceiro estudo investigou a hipótese de indução de demanda por cesariana no Brasil. Com dados do DATASUS, CFM e da pesquisa Nascer no Brasil, foi possível descrever comportamentos da assistência obstétrica brasileira no que diz respeito ao volume de nascimentos por hora, processos éticos contra obstetras e a probabilidade de haver cesariana sem indicação clínica. As conclusões são de que o volume de nascimentos por cesariana no Brasil supera aos do parto vaginal em horários comerciais, que ginecologia-obstetrícia é a especialidade com maior volume processos ético-disciplinares no CFM, que a maioria das decisões dos CRM’s/CFM tem caráter reservado e que quando o trabalho de parto de mulheres de risco habitual, que se iniciou espontaneamente, é acompanhando só por médico obstetra, ocorre em dia de semana e o obstetra decidiu a via de nascimento no final da gestação, houve maior chance de cesariana, levando à suspeita da prática de medicina defensiva. / This thesis aims to stimulate the discussion, by means of three independent studies, of the economic-financial impacts of unnecessary cesarean sections in Brazil, estimating the costs, suggesting strategies to decrease this procedure when unnecessary and investigating the hypothesis that obstetricians induces the demand for this surgery. The cesarean sections epidemic is a public health issue that financially burdens both public and private health systems, wasting resources that could be used in a more efficient way. The first study estimates the cost of unnecessary cesarean section in Brazil. Basing on Birth in Brazil research, DATASUS, SIGTAP and UNIDAS data and estimating by logistic regression, it was possible to conclude that the cost of unnecessary cesarean sections is at least R$ 10,5 million in the public sector and R$ 17,6 million in the private sector, representing 1.6% to 6 % of public expenses with this procedure. The second study proposes a change in the obstetric assistance model that involves alteration in the working hours, in the remuneration forms and the increase of penalties to obstetricians, as way to inhibit the practice of demand induction. Starting from literature references, AMB, DATASUS and Birth in Brazil research data, a metric for the obstetrician utility has been attributed and a simulation to sensetize the metrics for remuneration and professional ethics has been used, allowing to observe the effects in the obstetrician decisions. It was concluded that remunerating obstetricians with a fixed wage, puting them in a on call working journey with a collaborative team and increasing penalties for the unethical practice of demand induction are means that can be added to other efforts to fight the epidemic of this surgery in Brazil. The third study has investigated the hypothesis of demand induction for cesarean sections in Brazil. With DATASUS, CFM and Birth in Brazil research data, it was possible to describe behaviors of Brazilian obstetric assistance regarding the amount of births per hour, ethical law suits against obstetricians and the probability of a cesarean section without clinical indication. The conclusions are that the amount of births by cesarean section in Brazil exceeds those of vaginal delivery during business hours, that gynecology-obstetrics is the specialty with the greatest amount of ethical-disciplinary law suits in the CFM, that most CRMs/CFM decisions have a reserved character and that when the labor of women on habitual risk, which started spontaneously, occurs on weekdays and is followed only by an obstetrician, and the obstetrician decided the birth path at the end of gestation, there was a higher chance of a cesarean section, leading to the suspicion of the defensive medicine practice.