Price effects of a hospital merger: Heterogeneity across health insurers, hospital products, and hospital locations
研究医院合并对价格的影响，发现价格效应在不同保险公司、医院产品和地点之间存在差异，这对事前合并审查有启示。
In most studies on hospital merger effects, the unit of observation is the merged hospital, whereas the observed price is the weighted average across hospital products and across payers. However, little is known about whether price effects vary between hospital locations, products, and payers. We expand existing bargaining models to allow for heterogeneous price effects and use a difference-in-differences model in which price changes at the merging hospitals are compared with price changes at comparison hospitals. We find evidence of heterogeneous price effects across health insurers, hospital products and hospital locations. These findings have implications for ex ante merger scrutiny.