Altruism heterogeneity, quality competition and horizontal differentiation among healthcare providers

Nadja Kairies-Schwarz ()
Additional contact information
Nadja Kairies-Schwarz: Institute for Health Services Research and Health Economics, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf

Economics Bulletin, 2023, vol. 43, issue 2, 1143 - 1154

Abstract: Recent empirical evidence shows substantial altruism heterogeneity among healthcare providers. Spurred by this evidence, we build a quality competition model with altruism heterogeneity among healthcare providers that also endogenously determine the degree of horizontal differentiation within the healthcare provision market. We find that relatively more altruistic healthcare providers treat more patients and provide higher quality per patient. In addition, we show that when healthcare providers endogenously choose their location, the more altruistic provider locates more centrally. In terms of specialization this indicates that more altruistic providers can afford to engage in less horizontal differentiation.

Keywords: healthcare provider; quality competition; altruism heterogeneity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D4 I1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-06-30
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2023/Volume43/EB-23-V43-I2-P95.pdf (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:ebl:ecbull:eb-22-00526

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economics Bulletin from AccessEcon
Bibliographic data for series maintained by John P. Conley ().