Suchergebnisse

This paper exploits a government initiative to analyze the effect of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for individuals with mild or moderate mental illness and multidisciplinary treatment (MDT) for individuals with pain in back and shoulders. We employ a propensity score matching approach to study the effects on sick leave, health care consumption and drug prescriptions. We find that CBT improved health and prevented sick leave for individuals who were not on sick leave when treatment was initiated but had no effect for individuals who were on sick leave when the treatment was initiated. MDT was a failure regardless of the individual's sick leave status at the time of treatment. MDT increased sick leave while having no long term impact on either health care visits or drug prescriptions.

Non-contractible quality dimensions are at risk of degradation when the provision of public services is privatized. However, privatization may increase quality by fostering performance-improving innovation, particularly if combined with increased competition. We assemble a large data set on elderly care services in Sweden between 1990 and 2009 and estimate how opening to private provision affected mortality rates - an important and not easily contractible quality dimension - using a difference-in-difference in-difference approach. The results indicate that privatization and the associated increase in competition significantly improved non-contractible quality as measured by mortality rates.

Non-contractible quality dimensions are at risk of degradation when the provision of public services is privatized. However, privatization may increase quality by fostering performance-improving innovation, particularly if combined with increased competition. We assemble a large data set on elderly care services in Sweden between 1990 and 2009 and estimate how opening to private provision affected mortality rates – an important and not easily contractible quality dimension – using a difference-in-difference-in-difference approach. The results indicate that privatization and the associated increase in competition significantly improved non-contractible quality as measured by mortality rates.