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 physiciantrained 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.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: ifo Working Paper ; No. 328

Classification and Topics

• Classification: 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
• Subject: hospitals ; health minister ; productivity ; TFP ; favoritism ; profession ; technocracy

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Pilny, Adam ; Rösel, Felix
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2020

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/219012
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET