Health Care Competition and Antibiotic Use in Taiwan
利用台湾全国代表性数据，研究发现医疗市场竞争越激烈，抗生素使用量越大；从市场集中度第75百分位降至第25百分位，抗生素使用增加6.6%。
Antibiotic resistance, a negative externality of antibiotic use, is a growing threat to public health. Health care competition may encourage antibiotic use because receiving an antibiotic is a form of ‘quality’ for many patients. This paper examines the effect of market concentration on antibiotic use in a large, nationally‐representative data set from T aiwan. Moving from the 75th percentile to the 25th percentile of market concentration is associated with 6.6 per cent greater antibiotic use. We control for leading market‐level confounds, including population density and community health. We also show that the correlation is robust using fixed effects for patients, physicians and diagnoses. We document the correlation between antibiotic use and patient retention, which suggests a mechanism for this result. Finally, we show that strict regulation of antibiotics reduces but does not eliminate the effect of competition on antibiotic use.