Publications
149 results found
Propper C, Van Reenen J, 2010, Can Pay Regulation Kill? Panel Data Evidence on the Effect of Labor Markets on Hospital Performance, JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, Vol: 118, Pages: 222-273, ISSN: 0022-3808
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- Citations: 62
Propper C, Wilson D, 2010, Competition and choice: The place of markets in connecting information and performance improvement, Connecting Knowledge and Performance in Public Services: From Knowing to Doing, Pages: 74-98, ISBN: 9780521195461
Introduction The ‘invisible hand’ of competition is a common textbook mechanism for improving performance. Provided there is sufficient information, the autonomous choices of individuals will improve efficiency of provision. The competitive pressure consumer choice creates helps make private firms more efficient, and they cut costs and improve their goods or services in order to attract customers. Is the same true in the context of public services such as healthcare and education? It seems easy to transfer the logic to the provision of public services. Giving service users the ability to choose applies competitive pressure to public service providers and, analogously with private markets, they will raise their performance to attract (or retain) clients. The aim of this chapter is to subject this assumption to the scrutiny provided by both the theoretical and empirical economic evidence on choice and competition in the healthcare and education sectors. Extending competition between public service providers is currently a popular policy, in the UK and elsewhere. In the UK public sector some form of competition has been present since the quasi-market reforms of the late 1980s (Bartlett et al. 1994), which emphasised competition between service providers. More recently the policy discourse has focused more on increasing direct consumer choice (Le Grand 2007). The key question we address is whether policies that promote market-like pressures create the incentives for hospitals and schools to improve their performance and, if so, under what circumstances. What may be other, possibly less desired outcomes, and why?
Janke K, Propper C, Henderson J, 2009, DO CURRENT LEVELS OF AIR POLLUTION KILL? THE IMPACT OF AIR POLLUTION ON POPULATION MORTALITY IN ENGLAND, HEALTH ECONOMICS, Vol: 18, Pages: 1031-1055, ISSN: 1057-9230
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- Citations: 51
Atkinson A, Burgess S, Croxson B, et al., 2009, Evaluating the impact of performance-related pay for teachers in England, LABOUR ECONOMICS, Vol: 16, Pages: 251-261, ISSN: 0927-5371
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- Citations: 51
Johnston DW, Propper C, Shields MA, 2009, Comparing subjective and objective measures of health: Evidence from hypertension for the income/health gradient, JOURNAL OF HEALTH ECONOMICS, Vol: 28, Pages: 540-552, ISSN: 0167-6296
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- Citations: 152
Ayres JG, Propper C, Janke K, et al., 2009, Atmospheric pollution and mortalities in English local authority areas, JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY AND COMMUNITY HEALTH, Vol: 63, Pages: 173-173, ISSN: 0143-005X
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- Citations: 2
Halonen-Akatwijuka M, Propper C, 2008, Competition and decentralisation in government bureaucracies, JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR & ORGANIZATION, Vol: 67, Pages: 903-916, ISSN: 0167-2681
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- Citations: 3
Burgess S, Johnston R, Key T, et al., 2008, The transition of pupils from primary to secondary school in England, TRANSACTIONS OF THE INSTITUTE OF BRITISH GEOGRAPHERS, Vol: 33, Pages: 388-403, ISSN: 0020-2754
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- Citations: 10
Burgess S, Gregg P, Propper C, et al., 2008, Maternity rights and mothers' return to work, LABOUR ECON, Vol: 15, Pages: 168-201
This paper uses a cohort of 12,000 births to examine the effect of maternity rights on mothers' post-birth return to employment decisions. It uses a discrete hazard model to disentangle the effects of the terms of maternity rights entitlements from other factors that influence the timing of a mother's return to work. Mothers with rights have an underlying (but unobserved) stronger attachment to the labour market that prompts earlier return than on average. We take this into account by estimating a counterfactual distribution of return times using a sample of women who failed to qualify for maternity rights but who have similar levels of labour market attachment. Even when differential attachment is taken into account there remains a substantial impact of maternity rights on behaviour. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Propper C, Burgess S, Gossage D, 2008, Competition and quality: Evidence from the NHS internal market 1991-9, ECON J, Vol: 118, Pages: 138-170
This article exploits policy change by the UK government to identify the impact of competition on quality. It uses differences in competition over time and space to examine the impact of competition in an environment with limited quality signals in which hospitals competed mainly on price. Using AMI mortality as a measure of hospital quality we find that the relationship between competition and this measure of quality is negative. We also find that competition reduced waiting times. Our results indicate that hospitals in competitive markets reduced unmeasured and unobserved quality in order to improve measured and observed waiting times.
Propper C, Sutton M, Whitnall C, et al., 2008, Did 'targets and terror' reduce waiting times in England for hospital care?, B E JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS & POLICY, Vol: 8, ISSN: 1935-1682
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- Citations: 72
Monstad K, Propper C, Salvanes KG, 2008, Education and Fertility: Evidence from a Natural Experiment, SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Vol: 110, Pages: 827-852, ISSN: 0347-0520
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- Citations: 87
Propper C, Rigg J, Burgess S, 2007, Child health: Evidence on the roles of family income and maternal mental health from a UK birth cohort, HEALTH ECONOMICS, Vol: 16, Pages: 1245-1269, ISSN: 1057-9230
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- Citations: 74
Propper C, Damiani M, Leckie G, et al., 2007, Impact of patients' socioeconomic status on the distance travelled for hospital admission in the English National Health Service., J Health Serv Res Policy, Vol: 12, Pages: 153-159, ISSN: 1355-8196
OBJECTIVES: To compare the distances travelled for inpatient treatment in England between electoral wards prior to the introduction of a policy to extend patient choice and to consider the impact of patients' socio-economic status. METHODS: Using Hospital Episode Statistics for 2003-04, the distance from a patient's residence to a National Health Service hospital was calculated for each admission. Distances were summed to electoral ward level to give the distribution of distances travelled at ward level. These were analysed to show the distance travelled for different admission types, ages of patient, rural/urban location, and the socioeconomic deprivation of the population of the ward. RESULTS: There is considerable variation in the distances travelled for hospital admission between electoral wards. Some of this is explained by geographical location: individuals living in more rural areas travel further for elective (median 27.2 versus 15.0 km), emergency (25.3 versus 13.9 km) and maternity (25.0 versus 13.9 km) admissions. But individuals located in highly deprived wards travel less far, and this shorter distance is not explained simply by the closer location of hospitals to these wards. CONCLUSIONS: Before the introduction of more patient choice, there were considerable differences between individuals in the distances they travelled for hospital care. An increase in patient choice may disproportionately benefit people from less deprived areas.
Johnston R, Jones K, Propper C, et al., 2007, Region, local context, and voting at the 1997 general election in England, AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Vol: 51, Pages: 640-654, ISSN: 0092-5853
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- Citations: 27
Burgess S, Propper C, Wilson D, 2007, The impact of school choice in England: Implications from the economic evidence, Policy Studies, Vol: 28, Pages: 129-143, ISSN: 0144-2872
The British government has placed the extension of school choice at the centre of its education reform programme for its third term in office. Those promoting choice make an appeal to a simple economic argument. Competitive pressure helps make private firms more efficient and consumer choice acts as a major drive for efficiency. Giving parents the ability to choose applies competitive pressure to schools and, analogously with private markets, it is assumed they will raise their game to attract business. This article subjects this assumption to the scrutiny provided by the theoretical and empirical economic evidence on school choice, and then uses the evidence to examine the potential impact of current policies to extend choice being proposed by the Labour government. The key question we address is whether policies that extend choice will improve educational outcomes and, if so, under what circumstances. We reach three main conclusions. First, increasing school choice will create losers as well as winners. Second, flexibility in the supply of school places is crucial to the success of a policy to extend school choice. Third, the role of peer groups partly determines the effects of school choice.
Johnston DW, Propper C, Shields MA, 2007, Comparing Subjective and Objective Measures of Health: Evidence from Hypertension for the Income/Health Gradient, IZA Discussion Paper
Propper C, Burgess S, Bolster A, et al., 2007, The impact of neighbourhood on the income and mental health of British social renters, URBAN STUD, Vol: 44, Pages: 393-415
This paper examines the impact of neighbourhood on the income and mental health of individuals living in social housing in the UK. It exploits a dataset that is representative and longitudinal to match people to their very local neighbourhoods. Using this, the paper examines the effect of living in a neighbourhood in which the population is more disadvantaged on the levels and change, over a 10-year window, of income and mental health. It is found that social renters who live with the most disadvantaged individuals as neighbours have lower levels of household income and poorer mental health. However, neighbourhood appears to have no impact on changes in either household income or individual mental health.
Bolster A, Burgess S, Johnston R, et al., 2007, Neighbourhoods, households and income dynamics: a semi-parametric investigation of neighbourhood effects, JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, Vol: 7, Pages: 1-38, ISSN: 1468-2702
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- Citations: 62
Propper C, Wilson D, Burgess S, 2006, Extending choice in English health care: The implications of the economic evidence, JOURNAL OF SOCIAL POLICY, Vol: 35, Pages: 537-557, ISSN: 0047-2794
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- Citations: 58
PROPPER C, 2006, REGULATORY REFORM - OF THE NHS INTERNAL MARKET, HEALTH ECONOMICS, Vol: 4, Pages: 77-83, ISSN: 1057-9230
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- Citations: 7
Burgess S, Propper C, Gardiner K, 2006, School, family and county effects on adolescents' later life chances, Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Vol: 27, Pages: 155-184, ISSN: 1058-0476
This paper explores the links between family, school and area background influences during adolescence and later adult economic outcomes. The empirical analysis is based on data covering the period 1979 to 1996, drawn from the 1979 US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. For a sample of individuals aged 14-19 in 1979, we estimate the association between family, school and area characteristics when growing up, on adult earnings capacity and poverty risk. We show that including all these influences jointly, family and school quality generally have significant associations with adult outcomes, but that area influences generally do not. © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
Aassve A, Burgess S, Propper C, et al., 2006, Employment, family union and childbearing decisions in Great Britain, J ROY STAT SOC A STA, Vol: 169, Pages: 781-804, ISSN: 0964-1998
The paper investigates the life-cycle relationship of work and family life in Britain based on the British Household Panel Survey. Using hazard regression techniques we estimate a five-equation model, which includes birth events, union formation, union dissolution, employment and non-employment events. We find that transitions in and out of employment for men are relatively independent of other transitions. In contrast, there are strong links between employment of females, having children and union formation. By undertaking a detailed microsimulations analysis, we show that different levels of labour force participation by females do not necessarily lead to large changes in fertility events. Changes in union formation and fertility events, in contrast, have larger effects on employment.
Burges S, Propper C, Dickson M, 2006, The analysis of poverty data with endogenous transitions, FISCAL STUDIES, Vol: 27, Pages: 75-98, ISSN: 0143-5671
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- Citations: 1
Aassve A, Burgess SM, Dickson M, et al., 2006, Modelling Poverty by Not Modelling Poverty: An Application of a Simultaneous Hazards Approach to the UK
Propper C, Jones K, Bolster A, et al., 2005, Local neighbourhood and mental health: Evidence from the UK, SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE, Vol: 61, Pages: 2065-2083, ISSN: 0277-9536
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- Citations: 108
Propper C, 2005, Why economics is good for your health. 2004 Royal Economic Society Public Lecture, HEALTH ECONOMICS, Vol: 14, Pages: 987-997, ISSN: 1057-9230
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- Citations: 7
Burgess S, Propper C, Slater H, et al., 2005, Who wins and who loses from school accountability? The distribution of educational gain in English secondary schools
In 1988 the UK government introduced greater accountability into the English state school sector. But the information that schools are required to make public on their pupil achievement is only partial. The paper examines whether accountability measures based on a partial summary of student achievement influence the distribution of student achievement. Since school ratings only incorporate test results via pass rates, schools have incentives to improve the performance of students who are on the margin of meeting these standards, to the detriment of very low achieving or high achieving pupils. Using pupil level data for a cohort of all students in secondary public sector schools in England, we find that this policy reduces the educational gains and exam performance in high stakes exams of very low ability students.
Burgess S, Propper C, Wilson D, 2005, Extending Choice In English Health Care: The implications of the economic evidence
Extending choice in health care is currently popular amongst English, and other, politicians. Those promoting choice make an appeal to a simple economic argument. Competitive pressure helps make private firms more efficient and consumer choice acts as a major driver for efficiency. Giving service users the ability to choose applies competitive pressure to health care providers and, analogously with private markets, they will raise their game to attract business. The paper subjects this assumption to the scrutiny provided by a review of the theoretical and empirical economic evidence on choice in health care. The review considers several interlocking aspects of the current English choice policy: competition between hospitals, the responsiveness of patients to greater choice, the provision of information and the use of fixed prices. The paper concludes that there is neither strong theoretical nor empirical support for competition, but that there are cases where competition has improved outcomes. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of this literature for policies to promote competition in the English NHS.
Johnston R, Propper C, Sarker R, et al., 2005, Neighbourhood social capital and neighbourhood effects, ENVIRONMENT AND PLANNING A-ECONOMY AND SPACE, Vol: 37, Pages: 1443-1459, ISSN: 0308-518X
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- Citations: 31
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