Working Paper: NBER ID: w27848
Authors: David M. Cutler; Kaushik Ghosh; Kassandra Messer; Trivellore Raghunathan; Allison B. Rosen; Susan T. Stewart
Abstract: This paper develops a satellite account for the US health sector and measures productivity growth in health care for the elderly population between 1999 and 2012. We measure the change in medical spending and health outcomes for a comprehensive set of 80 conditions. Medical care has positive productivity growth over the time period, with aggregate productivity growth of 1.5% per year. However, there is significant heterogeneity in productivity growth. Care for cardiovascular disease has had very high productivity growth. In contrast, care for people with musculoskeletal conditions has been costly but has not led to improved outcomes.
Keywords: health; productivity growth; elderly population
JEL Codes: E2; I10; I11; I12; I38
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| medical care for specific conditions (I11) | prevalence of other conditions (I12) |
| non-medical factors (such as obesity) (I12) | overall health outcomes (I14) |
| overall productivity growth in medical care (O49) | net benefit (D61) |
| productivity growth in medical care (O49) | heterogeneous across different conditions (D29) |
| medical care for specific conditions (I11) | health outcomes for individuals with those conditions (I12) |
| medical care (I11) | productivity growth (O49) |
| care for cardiovascular diseases (I11) | productivity growth (O49) |
| care for musculoskeletal conditions (I11) | health outcomes (I14) |
| medical treatment changes (I12) | increase in QALE (J17) |