This paper examines the implications of regulatory change for the input mix and technology choices of regulated industries. We present a simple neoclassical framework that emphasizes the change in relative factor prices associated with the regulatory change from full cost to partial cost reimbursement, and investigate how this a%uFB00ects firms%u2019 technology choices through substitution of (capital embodied) technologies for tasks previously performed by labor. We examine these implications empirically by studying the change from full cost to partial cost reimbursement under the Medicare Prospective Payment System (PPS) reform, which increased the relative price of labor faced by U.S. hospitals. Using the interaction of hospitals%u2019 pre-PPS Medicare share of patient days with the introduction of these regulatory changes, we document a substantial increase in capital-labor ratios and a large decline in labor inputs associated with PPS. Most interestingly, we find that the PPS reform seems to have encouraged the adoption of a range of new medical technologies. We also show that the reform was associated with an increase in the skill composition of these hospitals, which is consistent with technology-skill or capital-skill complementarities.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
12254.
Length: Date of creation: May 2006 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12254
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Find related papers by JEL classification: H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health L50 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - General L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation O31 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives O33 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
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Cutler, David M. & Zeckhauser, Richard J., 2000.
"The anatomy of health insurance,"
Handbook of Health Economics,
in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 563-643
Elsevier.
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