More Doctors, Better Health? Evidence from a Physician Distribution Policy

José Féres

Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers from HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York

Abstract: In 2013, the Brazilian government implemented one of the largest physician distribution programs on record. Using a difference-in-difference framework, we document that the number of physicians increased by 17 percent in treated areas, with effects that are substantially larger in magnitude for family doctors. This expansion increased doctor visits by 4.3 percent and prenatal care by physicians by 10 percent. Yet despite these improvements in physician supply and utilization of doctors, we find little evidence that the program led to better infant health, measured by low birth weight, prematurity and infant mortality.

Keywords: primary care physicians; doctor utilization; infant health; policy evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I18 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.york.ac.uk/media/economics/documents/hedg/workingpapers/1729.pdf Main text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:yor:hectdg:17/29

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers from HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York HEDG/HERC, Department of Economics and Related Studies, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, United Kingdom. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jane Rawlings ().