Productivity Dispersion in Medicine and Manufacturing
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Finkelstein_Productivity dispersion.pdf
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Author(s)
Syverson, Chad
Chandrashekhar, Amitabh
Finkelstein, Amy
Sacarny, Adam Jon
Date Issued
May 2016
Journal
American Economic Review
Publisher
American Economic Association
Citation
Chandra, Amitabh; Finkelstein, Amy; Sacarny, Adam and Syverson, Chad. “Productivity Dispersion in Medicine and Manufacturing.” American Economic Review 106, no. 5 (May 2016): 99–103 © 2016 American Economic Association
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The conventional wisdom in health economics is that large differences in average productivity across US hospitals are the result of idiosyncratic features of the healthcare sector which dull the role of market forces. Strikingly, however, we find that productivity dispersion in heart attack treatment across hospitals is, if anything, smaller than in narrowly defined manufacturing industries such as ready-mixed concrete. While this fact admits multiple interpretations, it suggests that healthcare may have more in common with "traditional" sectors than is often assumed, and relatedly, that insights from research on productivity and allocation in other sectors may enrich analysis of healthcare.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
Sloan School of Management
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.p20161024
