Are doctors better health ministers?

Arbeitspapier

Appointing or electing professionals to be public officials is a double-edged sword. Experts can use their rich knowledge to implement reforms, but they can also favor their own profession. In this study, we compare physician-trained state health ministers to ministers of other professions in Germany during 1955-2017. German state health ministers have great power to determine hospital capacities and infrastructure. Our results show that physician-trained health ministers increase hospital capacities, capital, and funding by the statutory health insurance (SHI). This prompts hospitals to hire more physicians, but with little impact on hospital outputs. As a result, total factor productivity (TFP) growth in hospital care slows down substantially under physician-ministers. At the same time, job satisfaction of hospital doctors tends to increase. We conclude that, in particular, the medical profession benefits from medical doctors in office.

Angaben zum Objekt

• ISBN: 978-3-86788-984-1
• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: Ruhr Economic Papers ; No. 849

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior ; Analysis of Health Care Markets ; Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health ; Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence ; Capitalist Systems: Political Economy
• Thema: Hospitals ; health minister ; productivity ; TFP ; favoritism ; profession ; technocracy

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Pilny, Adam ; Rösel, Felix
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung
• (wo): Essen
• (wann): 2020

Weitere Informationen

• DOI: doi:10.4419/86788984
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/217261
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ