Nonparametric estimation of a primary care production function in urban Brazil.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The Brazilian public health system is one of the largest health systems in the world, with a mandate to deliver medical care to more than 200 million Brazilians. The objective of this study is to estimate a production function for primary care in urban Brazil. Our goal is to use flexible estimates to identify heterogeneous returns and complementarities between medical capital and labor.

Methods

We use a large dataset from 2012 to 2016 (with more than 400 million consultations, 270 thousand physicians, and 11 thousand clinics) to nonparametrically estimate a primary care production function and calculate the elasticity of doctors' visits (output) to two inputs: capital stock (number of clinics) and labor (number of physicians). We benchmark our nonparametric estima

SUBMITTER: Wichmann B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7700717 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature