Are Doctors Better Health Ministers?

Adam Pilny and Felix Rösel
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Felix Roesel

No 328, ifo Working Paper Series from ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich

Abstract: Appointing or electing professionals to be public officials is a double-edged sword. Experts can use their rich knowledge to implement reforms, but they can also favor their own profession. In this study, we compare physician-trained state health ministers to ministers of other professions in Germany during 1955-2017. German state health ministers have great power to determine hospital capacities and infrastructure. Our results show that physiciantrained health ministers increase hospital capacities, capital, and funding by the statutory health insurance (SHI). This prompts hospitals to hire more physicians, but with little impact on hospital outputs. As a result, total factor productivity (TFP) growth in hospital care slows down substantially under physician-ministers. At the same time, job satisfaction of hospital doctors tends to increase. We conclude that, in particular, the medical profession benefits from medical doctors in office.

Keywords: Hospitals; health minister; productivity; TFP; favoritism; profession; technocracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 I11 I18 O47 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ias
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Are Doctors Better Health Ministers? (2020)
Working Paper: Are doctors better health ministers? (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ifowps:_328

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