Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research - Research Publications
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ItemPublic, private or both? Analyzing factors influencing the labour supply of medical specialists(WILEY, 2018-05)Abstract This paper investigates the factors influencing the allocation of time between public and private sectors by medical specialists. A discrete choice structural labour supply model is estimated, where specialists choose from a set of job packages that are characterized by the number of working hours in the public and private sectors. The results show that medical specialists respond to changes in earnings by reallocating working hours to the sector with relatively increased earnings, while leaving total working hours unchanged. The magnitudes of the own‐sector and cross‐sector hours elasticities fall in the range of 0.16–0.51. The labour supply response varies by gender, doctor’s age and medical specialty. Family circumstances such as the presence of young dependent children reduce the hours worked by female specialists but not male specialists. Résumé Public, privé ou les deux? Analyse des facteurs influençant l’offre de travail des médecins spécialistes. Ce mémoire étudie les facteurs influençant l’allocation du temps des médecins spécialistes entre le secteur privé et le secteur public. Un modèle structurel de choix discret d’offre de travail est calibré ans lequel les spécialistes choisissent entre des arrangements caractérisés par le nombre d’heures de travail dans le secteur public et le secteur privé. Les résultats montrent que les spécialistes répondent aux changements dans la nature des gains en réaménageant leurs heures de travail vers le secteur qui offre des gains relativement plus élevés, tout en gardant leurs heures totales de travail inchangées. Les magnitudes des élasticités de l’offre des heures à l’intérieur d’un secteur et entre secteurs se situent dans un intervalle entre 0.16‐0.51. La réponse de l’offre de travail varie selon le genre, l’âge et la spécialité. Le cadre familial, comme la présence de jeunes enfants à charge, tend à réduire les heures travaillées par les femmes mais pas pour les hommes.
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ItemWhat factors affect physicians' labour supply: Comparing structural discrete choice and reduced-form approaches(WILEY, 2018-02)Little is known about the response of physicians to changes in compensation: Do increases in compensation increase or decrease labour supply? In this paper, we estimate wage elasticities for physicians. We apply both a structural discrete choice approach and a reduced-form approach to examine how these different approaches affect wage elasticities at the intensive margin. Using uniquely rich data collected from a large sample of general practitioners (GPs) and specialists in Australia, we estimate 3 alternative utility specifications (quadratic, translog, and box-cox utility functions) in the structural approach, as well as a reduced-form specification, separately for men and women. Australian data is particularly suited for this analysis due to a lack of regulation of physicians' fees leading to variation in earnings. All models predict small negative wage elasticities for male and female GPs and specialists passing several sensitivity checks. For this high-income and long-working-hours population, the translog and box-cox utility functions outperform the quadratic utility function. Simulating the effects of 5% and 10% wage increases at the intensive margin slightly reduces the full-time equivalent supply of male GPs, and to a lesser extent of male specialists and female GPs.