Foreign Nurses and Hospital Quality: Evidence from Brexit

Henrique Castro-Pires, Marco Mello () and Giuseppe Moscelli
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Marco Mello: University of Aberdeen

No 16616, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We exploit the 2016 Brexit referendum as a migration shock to evaluate the impact of reduced labour supply on the provision of hospital care. After the referendum, a sharp drop in the number of early-career new joiners from Europe resulted in a considerable decrease in the share of EU nurses in the English NHS. Using an enclave instrumental variable empirical strategy, we find that emergency readmission rates increased, and more so in hospital organizations more exposed to the missing inflow of new joiners. A theoretical model shows that this is consistent with a decrease in the quality of new hires.

Keywords: labour supply; workers' mobility; immigration; patient care; hospital quality; Brexit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C26 I11 J45 J61 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2023-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-eur, nep-hea, nep-int, nep-inv, nep-lab and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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