American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
The Gift of a Lifetime: The Hospital, Modern Medicine, and Mortality
American Economic Review
vol. 114,
no. 7, July 2024
(pp. 2201–38)
Abstract
We explore how access to modern hospitals and medicine affects mortality by leveraging efforts of the Duke Endowment to modernize hospitals in the early twentieth century. The Endowment helped communities build and expand hospitals, obtain state-of-the-art medical technology, attract qualified medical personnel, and refine management practices. We find that Duke support increased the size and quality of the medical sector, fostering growth in not-for-profit hospitals and high-quality physicians. Duke funding reduced both infant mortality—with larger effects for Black infants than White infants—and long-run mortality. Finally, we find that communities aided by Duke benefited more from medical innovations.Citation
Hollingsworth, Alex, Krzysztof Karbownik, Melissa A. Thomasson, and Anthony Wray. 2024. "The Gift of a Lifetime: The Hospital, Modern Medicine, and Mortality." American Economic Review, 114 (7): 2201–38. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20230008Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- I11 Analysis of Health Care Markets
- I12 Health Behavior
- J13 Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
- J15 Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
- L31 Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship
- N32 Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: U.S.; Canada: 1913-
- O31 Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives