New Medical Schools, Access to Doctors and Health Outcomes: Evidence from Japan

Kisho Hoshi

No 2023-05, CEI Working Paper Series from Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract: We investigate the effects of the medical school and the associated university hospital constructions in the 1970s on access to doctors and mortality, using the prefecture-level panel data of Japan and an event study design that exploits an exogenous variation in the pre-war location of medical schools. We find the long-term effect of an increase in doctors, and the effect closes the gap in the access to doctors that existed between treated and control prefectures before the policy intervention. We also find a decline in mortality for acute and intractable diseases after the establishment of the university hospital. Our results suggest that opening medical schools in rural areas are a potential policy to mitigate geographical disparities in access to doctors. Our results also indicate that the university hospital and the new medical graduates played an important role in decreasing mortality rates.

JEL-codes: I10 I14 I18 I19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2023-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hit:hitcei:2023-05

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