EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Political cycles in physician employment: A case of Japanese local public hospitals

Reo Takaku and Shun-ichiro Bessho

Social Science & Medicine, 2018, vol. 216, issue C, 97-106

Abstract: A shortage of physicians in local public hospitals is often a heated political issue. When local politicians have the authority to intervene in the management of a public hospital, they may increase the employment of physicians during election years in order to alleviate the shortage. We test this hypothesis empirically using a census of city hospitals in Japan from 2002 to 2011 (N = 4583). Our results support the hypothesis that the number of physicians increases in election years. This effect is stronger in cities with a greater population of elderly residents. We also find that physicians tend to come from university hospitals in the same region. Overall, this paper provides direct evidence of political intervention on physician employment.

Keywords: Japan; Hospital; Physician employment; Political budget cycle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953618305239
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:socmed:v:216:y:2018:i:c:p:97-106

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.09.034

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:216:y:2018:i:c:p:97-106