Working paper 03/077 - Abstract

Competition and Quality; Evidence from the NHS Internal Market 1991 - 1999 (PDF, file 140 KB) (PDF, 140kB)

Simon Burgess, Denise Gossage and Carol Propper

Payer-driven competition has been widely advocated as a means of increasing efficiency in health care markets. The 1990s reforms to the UK health service followed this path. We examine whether competition led to better outcomes for patients, as measured by death rates after treatment following heart attacks. We exploit differences in competition over time and space to identify the impact of competition. Using data on mortality as a measure of hospital quality and exploiting the policy change during the 1990s, we find that the relationship between competition and quality of care appears to be negative.

Published in The Economic Journal, 2008, vol 118, issue 525, 138-170

Note: some of the documents on this page are in PDF format. In order to view a PDF you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader