Why Do Previous Choices Matter for Hospital Demand? Decomposing Switching Costs from Unobserved Preferences
利用佛罗里达州产妇选择分娩医院的数据，发现约70%的产妇会重复选择同一家医院；通过面板固定效应模型分离转换成本与未观测偏好，发现转换成本解释了滞后因变量需求效应的约40%，并分析了医院退出保险网络及新医院进入的短期与长期福利影响。
Abstract Using data on women’s choice of hospital for childbirth in Florida, we find that women return to the same hospital approximately 70% of the time. We separate explanations of switching costs and unobserved preference heterogeneity using a panel data fixed effects estimator and find that switching costs account for approximately 40% of the demand effects of a lagged dependent variable. The welfare effects of excluding a hospital from a payer’s network are smaller in the short run but higher in the long run, given our estimates of switching costs, and the dynamic effects of entry on competition are significantly smaller.