Determinants of physicians' decisions to specialize

In this paper, we study physician specialty decisions using several unique data sets which include information on almost all Canadian physicians who practised in Canada between 1989 and 1998. Unlike previous studies, we use a truly exogenous measure of potential income across general and specialty m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health economics 2005-07, Vol.14 (7), p.721-735
Main Authors: Leger, Pierre Thomas, Gagné, Robert
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age Factors
Canada
Career Choice
Economic models
Economic theory
Economics, Medical
Fees, Medical
Female
Health economics
Humans
Income
Internship and Residency
Male
Models, Economic
physician specialty choice
Physicians
Specialization
Studies
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Summary:In this paper, we study physician specialty decisions using several unique data sets which include information on almost all Canadian physicians who practised in Canada between 1989 and 1998. Unlike previous studies, we use a truly exogenous measure of potential income across general and specialty medicine to estimate the effect of income on physicians' specialty choices. Furthermore, our estimation procedure allows us to purge the income–effect estimates of non‐pecuniary specialty attributes which may be correlated with higher paying specialties. Understanding the effect of potential income (and other variables) on choices is necessary if the desired mix across generalists and specialists as well as across specialties is to be achieved. Our results show that physicians respond to differences in income when making their specialty decisions. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ISSN:1057-9230
1099-1050
DOI:10.1002/hec.970