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Petter Lundborg. Photo.

Petter Lundborg

Professor

Petter Lundborg. Photo.

Estimating returns to hospital volume : Evidence from advanced cancer surgery

Author

  • Daniel Avdic
  • Petter Lundborg
  • Johan Vikström

Summary, in English

High-volume hospitals typically perform better than low-volume hospitals. In this paper, we study whether such patterns reflect a causal effect of case volume on patient outcomes. To this end, we exploit closures and openings of entire cancer clinics in Swedish hospitals which provides sharp and arguably exogenous variation in case volumes. Using detailed register data on more than 100,000 treatment episodes of advanced cancer surgery, our results suggest substantial positive effects of operation volume on survival. Complementary analyses point to learning-by-doing as an important explanation.

Department/s

  • Department of Economics

Publishing year

2019

Language

English

Pages

81-99

Publication/Series

Journal of Health Economics

Volume

63

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy

Keywords

  • Cancer surgery
  • Causal effect
  • Hospital case volume
  • Learning-by-doing
  • Survival

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0167-6296