Petter Lundborg
Professor
Estimating returns to hospital volume : Evidence from advanced cancer surgery
Author
Summary, in English
High-volume hospitals typically perform better than low-volume hospitals. In this paper, we study whether such patterns reflect a causal effect of case volume on patient outcomes. To this end, we exploit closures and openings of entire cancer clinics in Swedish hospitals which provides sharp and arguably exogenous variation in case volumes. Using detailed register data on more than 100,000 treatment episodes of advanced cancer surgery, our results suggest substantial positive effects of operation volume on survival. Complementary analyses point to learning-by-doing as an important explanation.
Department/s
- Department of Economics
Publishing year
2019
Language
English
Pages
81-99
Publication/Series
Journal of Health Economics
Volume
63
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Elsevier
Topic
- Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy
Keywords
- Cancer surgery
- Causal effect
- Hospital case volume
- Learning-by-doing
- Survival
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0167-6296