京都大学 大学院経済学研究科・経済学部

SEMINAR SERIES

Applied Microeconomics Seminar

David Chan(Associate Professor, Stanford University)

Date&Time:
2024.6.14 (Fri) 10:30-12:00
Venue:
Seminar Room 108 on 1F, Faculty of Law and Faculty of Economics, East Bldg., Yoshida Campus, Kyoto University
Language:
English
Contact:
Ken Yamada

(Title)

"The productivity of professions: Evidence from the emergency department"

Abstract:
This paper studies the productivity of nurse practitioners (NPs) and physicians, two professions performing overlapping tasks but with starkly different background, training, and pay. Using quasi-experimental variation in patient assignment to NPs versus physicians in Veterans Health Administration emergency departments, we find that, on average, NPs use more resources and achieve less favorable patient outcomes than physicians. However, the NP-physician performance difference varies by case complexity and severity. Importantly, even larger productivity variation exists within each profession, leading to substantial overlap between the productivity distributions of the two professions and a large share of NPs performing even better than the average physician.