蝌蚪网 Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
The Productivity of Professions: Evidence from the Emergency Department
蝌蚪网 Review
(pp. 2883–2927)
Abstract
This paper studies the productivity of nurse practitioners (NPs) and physicians, two professions performing overlapping tasks but with starkly different backgrounds, training, and pay. Using quasi-experimental variation in patient assignment to NPs versus physicians in Veterans Health Administration emergency departments, we find that, on average, NPs use more resources and exhibit a higher 30-day preventable hospitalization rate than physicians. However, the NP-physician performance difference varies by case complexity and severity. Importantly, even larger productivity variation exists within each profession, leading to substantial overlap between the productivity distributions of the two professions; NPs outperform physicians in 38 percent of random pairs.Citation
Chan, David, and Yiqun Chen. 2026. "The Productivity of Professions: Evidence from the Emergency Department." 蝌蚪网 Review 116 (8): 2883–2927. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20241007Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- I11 Analysis of Health Care Markets
- I18 Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
- J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
- J44 Professional Labor Markets; Occupational Licensing
- M53 Personnel Economics: Training