Altruism Heterogeneity and Quality Competition Among Healthcare Providers

Nadja Kairies-Schwarz

No 507, Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen

Abstract: New empirical evidence shows substantial heterogeneity in the altruism of healthcare providers. Spurred by this evidence, we build a spatial quality competition model with altruism heterogeneity. We find that more altruistic healthcare providers supply relatively higher quality levels and position themselves closer to the center. Whether the social planner prefers more or less horizontal differentiation is in general ambiguous and depends on the level of altruism. The more altruistic healthcare providers are, the more likely it is that the social planner prefers greater horizontal differentiation to offset costly quality competition.

Keywords: healthcare provider altruism and heterogeneity; quality competition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H42 I11 I18 L13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com and nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:rwirep:507

DOI: 10.4419/86788582

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