Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP15515
Authors: Eliana Barrenho; Eric Gautier; Marisa Miraldo; Carol Propper; Christiern Rose
Abstract: We examine the effect of a physician network on medical innovation using novel matched patient-physician-hospital panel data. The data include every relevant physician and all patients in the English NHS for 15 years and physicians’ workplace histories for more than 20. The dynamic network arising from physician mobility between hospitals over time allows us to separate unobserved physician and hospital heterogeneity from the effect of the network. We build on standard peer-effects models by adding cumulative peer behaviour and allow for particularly influential physicians (‘key players’), whose identities we estimate. We find positive effects of peer innovation take-up, number of peers, and proximity in the network to both pioneers of the innovation and key players. Counterfactual estimates suggest that early intervention targeting young, connected physicians with early take-up can significantly increase aggregate take-up."
Keywords: innovation; medical practice; networks; peer effects
JEL Codes: N/A
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| targeting young, well-connected physicians with early takeup (I11) | aggregate innovation takeup (C43) |
| contemporaneous peer takeup (C92) | consultant's own takeup of keyhole surgery (I11) |
| number of peers (C92) | consultant's own takeup of keyhole surgery (I11) |
| being a peer of a pioneer (C92) | consultant's own takeup of keyhole surgery (I11) |
| peer effects (C92) | innovation diffusion (O35) |
| influence of key players in the network (D85) | innovation diffusion (O35) |