Research connects people from all over the world. We see the importance to maintain scientific contacts and exchange with universities and scientific institutions in Ukraine in these devastating times. We invite researchers of Ukrainian universities or research institutes working in the broader field of health and labour economics to join CINCH for a research fellowship. Fellows are given the opportunity to execute a research project within the remit of CINCH or continue their ongoing projects in a safe working environment.
Benefits to Applicant:
Visit of a major German health economics research unit
Collaboration with CINCH researchers and partner institutions such as the RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research and Leibniz Science Campus Ruhr
Abstract: Cost-control interventions that target physicians’ clinical discretion are common in healthcare, but evidence on their efficacy is scarce; in particular for “soft” policies when liability is unlikely to be enforced by the regulator. We study the effectiveness of preferred drug policies (minimum prescription quotas of specific “preferred” drugs) in altering physicians practice styles within the high volume drug class of HMG-CoA-reductase inhibitors (statins) in the German statutory health insurance system. Using a nationally representative panel of ambulatory care physicians between 2011 and 2014, we exploit the decentralized institutional setting to estimate physician responses to variation in preferred drug policies across regional physician associations over time in a generalized difference-in-differences design. Results show that although the cost-control mechanism increases average policy adherence, this effect is mainly driven by physicians with initially high use rates of preferred drugs. We argue that such misdirection may limit the policy’s usefulness in reducing inappropriate practice variation among healthcare providers.
Abstract: Fertility has a strong biological component generally ignored by economists. Using the UK Biobank, we analyze the extent to which genes, proxied by polygenic scores, and the environment, proxied by early exposure to the contraceptive pill diffusion, affect age at first sexual intercourse, age at first birth, completed family size, and childlessness. Both genes and environment exert substantial influences on all outcomes. The anticipation of sexual debut and the postponement of motherhood led by the diffusion of the pill are magnified by gene-environment interactions, while the decline in family size and the rise in childlessness associated with female emancipation are attenuated by gene-environment effects. The nature-nurture interplay becomes stronger in more egalitarian environments that empower women, allowing genes to express themselves more fully. These conclusions are confirmed by heterogeneous effects across the distributions of genetic susceptibilities and exposure to environmental risks, sister fixed effects models, mother-daughter comparisons, and counterfactual simulations.
