Code and Data for: "Is There Too Little Antitrust Enforcement in the US Hospital Sector?"

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Zarek Brot-Goldberg, University of Chicago; Zack Cooper, Yale University; Stuart Craig, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Lev Klarnet, Harvard University

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Code			09/20/2024 02:57:PM
Data			04/15/2024 02:15:PM
README.pdf	application/pdf	168.8 KB	09/20/2024 10:57:AM

Project Citation:

Brot-Goldberg, Zarek, Cooper, Zack, Craig, Stuart, and Klarnet, Lev. Code and Data for: “Is There Too Little Antitrust Enforcement in the US Hospital Sector?” Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2024. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-10-23. https://doi.org/10.3886/E197602V1

Project Description

Summary:

This is a repository for the code to replicate "Is There Too Little Antitrust Enforcement in the US Hospital Sector?" as published in American Economic Review: Insights.

The abstract of the paper is:

From 2002 to 2020, there were over 1,000 mergers of US hospitals. During this period, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took enforcement actions against 13 transactions. However, we find that 20% of these mergers could have been predicted, using the FTC's standard screening tools, to meaningfully lessen competition. We then show that, from 2010 to 2015, predictably anticompetitive mergers resulted in price increases over 5%. We estimate that approximately half of predictably anticompetitive mergers had to be reported to the FTC per the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. We conclude that there appears to be underenforcement of antitrust laws in the hospital sector.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: antitrust; merger; hospital; health care

JEL Classification:
      H11 Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government
      I11 Analysis of Health Care Markets
      I18 Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
      L41 Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
      L44 Antitrust Policy and Public Enterprises, Nonprofit Institutions, and Professional Organizations

Geographic Coverage: United States

Time Period(s): 2002 – 2020

Universe: Short-term general acute-care hospitals in the United States, 2002-2020; patients insured by Aetna, Humana, or UnitedHealthCare, 2008-2015

Data Type(s): administrative records data

Methodology

Data Source: Health Care Cost Institute

Unit(s) of Observation: Claim; hospital-year

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Published Versions

V1 [2024-10-23]

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Dublin Core

DDI 2.5

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