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Hospital Allocation and Racial Disparities in Health Care

Author

Listed:
  • Amitabh Chandra

    (Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Business School, and NBER)

  • Pragya Kakani

    (Harvard University and NBER)

  • Adam Sacarny

    (Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and NBER)

Abstract

We develop a framework to measure the role of hospital allocation in racial disparities in health care and use it to study Black and white heart attack patients. Black patients receive care at lower-performing hospitals than white patients. However, over two decades, the performance gap between hospitals treating Black and white patients shrank by over two-thirds. This progress is due to more rapid performance improvement at hospitals that tended to treat Black patients rather than reallocation of patients. Hospital improvement is correlated with adoption of a productivity-raising input, beta blockers. Our work highlights reallocation and performance improvement as future disparity-reduction levers.

Suggested Citation

  • Amitabh Chandra & Pragya Kakani & Adam Sacarny, 2024. "Hospital Allocation and Racial Disparities in Health Care," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(4), pages 924-937, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:106:y:2024:i:4:p:924-937
    DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_01248
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    Cited by:

    1. Adriana Corredor-Waldron & Janet Currie & Molly Schnell, 2024. "Drivers of Racial Differences in C-Sections," NBER Working Papers 32891, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Letícia Perticarrara Ferezin & Rander Junior Rosa & Heriederson Sávio Dias Moura & Mônica Chiodi Toscano de Campos & Felipe Mendes Delpino & Murilo César do Nascimento & Juliana Soares Tenório de Araú, 2025. "Disparities in Healthcare Utilization Among Vulnerable Populations During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil: An Intersectional Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 22(6), pages 1-23, May.
    3. Marcella Alsan & Amitabh Chandra & Kosali Simon, 2021. "The Great Unequalizer: Initial Health Effects of COVID-19 in the United States," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(3), pages 25-46, Summer.
    4. Hoagland, Alex & Wang, Guan, 2025. "Prescribing power and equitable access to care: Evidence from pharmacists in Ontario, Canada," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    5. Jevan Cherniwchan & Nouri Najjar, 2026. "Sample Bias in Decompositions of Economic Dynamics," Department of Economics Working Papers 2026-02, McMaster University.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality

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