IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v107y2017i5p491-95.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is American Pet Health Care (Also) Uniquely Inefficient?

Author

Listed:
  • Liran Einav
  • Amy Finkelstein
  • Atul Gupta

Abstract

We document four similarities between American human healthcare and American pet care: (i) rapid growth in spending as a share of GDP over the last two decades; (ii) strong income-spending gradient; (iii) rapid growth in the employment of healthcare providers; and (iv) similar propensity for high spending at the end of life. We speculate about possible implications of these similar patterns in two sectors that share many common features but differ markedly in institutional features, such as the prevalence of insurance and of public sector involvement.

Suggested Citation

  • Liran Einav & Amy Finkelstein & Atul Gupta, 2017. "Is American Pet Health Care (Also) Uniquely Inefficient?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 491-495, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:107:y:2017:i:5:p:491-95
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20171087
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.p20171087
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=Ei7bHXWL3j6dxewbL9_OkpTESngKnD8j
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=1ZLxDLrvl_HjL30oskTTHjg3wjs-iP5s
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=thBgH9mxnARIC0D1TVJhlfaQMwjgv-Df
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Amitabh Chandra & Amy Finkelstein & Adam Sacarny & Chad Syverson, 2016. "Health Care Exceptionalism? Performance and Allocation in the US Health Care Sector," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(8), pages 2110-2144, August.
    2. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 2007. "The Value of Life and the Rise in Health Spending," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 39-72.
    3. Weisbrod, Burton A, 1991. "The Health Care Quadrilemma: An Essay on Technological Change, Insurance, Quality of Care, and Cost Containment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(2), pages 523-552, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Abigail Ferguson & Nellie Lew & Michael Lipsitz & Devesh Raval, 2023. "Economics at the FTC: Spatial Demand, Veterinary Hospital Mergers, Rulemaking, and Noncompete Agreements," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 63(4), pages 435-465, December.
    2. Neill, Clinton & Zhang, Peilu, . "Payment Plans and Veterinary Services: Do They Reduce the Pain of Pet Owner Payment?," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 49(1).
    3. Clancy, Matthew S. & Sneeringer, Stacy E., 2018. "Eating the Seed Corn? The Impact of Generic Drug Entry on Innovation in Animal Health," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274379, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frankovic, Ivan & Kuhn, Michael, 2023. "Health insurance, endogenous medical progress, health expenditure growth, and welfare," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    2. Frankovic, Ivan & Kuhn, Michael, 2018. "Health insurance, endogenous medical progress, and health expenditure growth," ECON WPS - Working Papers in Economic Theory and Policy 01/2018, TU Wien, Institute of Statistics and Mathematical Methods in Economics, Economics Research Unit.
    3. Böhm, Sebastian & Grossmann, Volker & Strulik, Holger, 2021. "R&D-driven medical progress, health care costs, and the future of human longevity," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 18(C).
    4. Borger, Christine & Rutherford, Thomas F. & Won, Gregory Y., 2008. "Projecting long term medical spending growth," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 69-88, January.
    5. Elisabet Rodriguez Llorian & Janelle Mann, 2022. "Exploring the technology–healthcare expenditure nexus: a panel error correction approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(6), pages 3061-3086, June.
    6. Ari Bronsoler & Joseph J. Doyle Jr. & John Van Reenen, 2021. "The Impact of Healthcare IT on Clinical Quality, Productivity and Workers," NBER Working Papers 29218, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Chakroun, Mohamed, 2009. "Health care expenditure and GDP: An international panel smooth transition approach," MPRA Paper 14322, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Charles I. Jones, 2016. "Life and Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(2), pages 539-578.
    9. Abe Dunn & Anne Hall & Seidu Dauda, 2022. "Are Medical Care Prices Still Declining? A Re‐Examination Based on Cost‐Effectiveness Studies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(2), pages 859-886, March.
    10. Kristopher J. Hult & Sonia Jaffe & Tomas J. Philipson, 2018. "How Does Technological Change Affect Quality-Adjusted Prices in Health Care? Systematic Evidence from Thousands of Innovations," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 4(4), pages 433-453, Fall.
    11. Cox, James C. & Sadiraj, Vjollca & Schnier, Kurt E. & Sweeney, John F., 2016. "Higher quality and lower cost from improving hospital discharge decision making," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 131(PB), pages 1-16.
    12. Frankovic, Ivan & Kuhn, Michael & Wrzaczek, Stefan, 2020. "Medical innovation and its diffusion: Implications for economic performance and welfare," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    13. Böhm, Sebastian & Grossmann, Volker & Strulik, Holger, 2017. "The Future of Human Health, Longevity, and Health Costs," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168288, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    14. Amitabh Chandra & Jonathan S. Skinner, 2011. "Technology Growth and Expenditure Growth in Health Care," NBER Working Papers 16953, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Murthy, Vasudeva N.R. & Okunade, Albert A., 2016. "Determinants of U.S. health expenditure: Evidence from autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 67-73.
    16. Katherine Baicker & Amitabh Chandra, 2011. "Aspirin, angioplasty and proton beam therapy: the economics of smarter health-care spending," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 197-235.
    17. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7972 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Daniel Bauer & Darius Lakdawalla & Julian Reif, 2018. "Mortality Risk, Insurance, and the Value of Life," NBER Working Papers 25055, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Dauda, Seidu & Dunn, Abe & Hall, Anne, 2022. "A systematic examination of quality-adjusted price index alternatives for medical care using claims data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    20. McGuire Thomas G., 2014. "A Note on Income Effects and Health Care Cost Growth in Medicare," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 17(1), pages 1-12, January.
    21. Roel van Elk & Esther Mot & P.H. Franses, 2009. "Modelling health care expenditures; overview of the literature and evidence from a panel time series model," CPB Discussion Paper 121, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • J44 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Professional Labor Markets and Occupations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:107:y:2017:i:5:p:491-95. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.