Wage Policies for Health Personnel Essays on the Wage Impact on Hours of Work and Practice Choice

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The excess demand for health professionals persists in many countries in spite of systematic increases in the education capacity in order to meet the demand. Regulations through quotas have been widely used in countries with a national health service (NHS). With the deregulation of health markets, incentives such as the health professional’s pay and practice income play a relatively larger role in the implementation of health policies. This thesis aims to explore the short-term impact of increased wages on the working hours of health personnel and their practice choice. An additional objective is to identify existing compensating differentials in the job market for health personnel.

To analyze this question a structural labor supply model with utility maximizing individuals is applied. The utility maximization problem is solved by discretizing the budget set and choosing the optimal job package from a finite set of alternatives. The econometric framework allows for non-convex budget sets, nonlinear labor supply curves and imperfect markets with institutional constraints.

ISBN: 82-7756-137-4