Geographic variation in commercial medical-care expenditures: A framework for decomposing price and utilization

Abe Dunn, Adam Shapiro and Eli Liebman

Journal of Health Economics, 2013, vol. 32, issue 6, 1153-1165

Abstract: This study introduces a new framework for measuring and analyzing medical-care expenditures. The framework focuses on expenditures at the disease level that are decomposed between price and utilization. We find that both price and utilization differences are important contributors to expenditure differences across commercial markets. Further examination shows that for some diseases utilization drives variation while for others price is more important. Finally, when disease-specific measures are aggregated across diseases, much of the important disease-specific variation is masked, leading to much smaller measures of aggregate variation.

Keywords: Price indexes; Productivity; Geographic variation in health care spending; Regional price indexes; Health care spending variation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C43 O47 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:32:y:2013:i:6:p:1153-1165

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2013.09.006

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