Volume 31, Number 2 (Spring) 1996
Bhattacharya, Jayanta, William B. Vogt, Aki Yoshikawa, and Toshitaka Nakahara. 1996. "The Utilization of Outpatient Medical Services in Japan." Journal of Human Resources 31(2):450-476.
We
estimate the price elasticity of demand for outpatient care in Japan. We use a
nationally representative microdata set consisting of nearly 440,000 Japanese
patients. Using time between outpatient visits as a demand measure, we estimate
a Cox proportional hazards model to calculate price effects. With predicted
probabilities we simulate yearly utilization and obtain elasticity estimates.
For most diagnostic categories, we obtain inelastic, downward sloping demand
curves with price elasticities from -0.12 to -0.54. For
the anomalous category we cannot reject a zero slope. The elasticity estimates
for Japan are similar to U.S. estimates despite institutional differences.
Jay Bhattacharya is an economics Ph.D. and M.D. candidate at Stanford University. William Vogt is an economics Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University. Aki Yoshikawa is the Associate Director of the Comparative Health Care Policy Research Project at Stanford University. He is a 1995 Abe Fellow. Toshitaka Nakahara is Director of the Department of Public Health Administration at the Institute of Public Health, Japan. The Agency for Health Care Policy Research and Global Health Institute provided financial support for Bhattacharya and Vogt. Yoshikawa acknowledges support from the A be Fellowship Program of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies with funds provided by the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership. The research was also partially funded by an endowment from the Council for Better Corporate Citizens. The authors are grateful for helpful comments from Scott Kupor, Jim Hahn, Satoshi Nakanishi, Alan Garber, and two referees. The authors take responsibility for all errors.
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