Health Care Reform and the Number of Doctor Visits - An Econometric Analysis

Rainer Winkelmann

No 317, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The paper evaluates the German health care reform of 1997, using the individual number of doctor visits as outcome measure. A new econometric model, the Probit-Poisson-log-normal model with correlated errors, describes the data better than existing count data models. Moreover, it has an attractive structural interpretation, as it allows the reforms to have a different effect at different parts of the distribution. The overall effect of the reform was a 10 percent reduction in the number of doctor visits. The effect was much larger in the lower part of the distribution than in the upper part.

Keywords: count data; moral hazard; Co-payment; probit-Poisson-log-normal model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 I11 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2001-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published in: Journal of Applied Econometrics, 2004, 19 (4), 455-472

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Related works:
Journal Article: Health care reform and the number of doctor visits-an econometric analysis (2004)
Working Paper: Health Care Reform and the Number of Doctor Visits - An Econometric Analysis (2001)
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