医生人力资本投资和过度医疗

Physicians’Human Capital Investment and Over-Treatment

本文构建一个医生与患者的博弈模型,研究了竞争市场下医生的人力资本投资激励及其市场效率问题。研究发现,医生诊断出错必然会导致过度医疗和治疗不足问题,但是提高医生的人力资本投资水平可以加以缓解。相对于社会最优,竞争市场均衡会导致医生人力资本投资不足,市场上存在过多的低水平的医生。促进市场竞争可以提高医生的人力资本投资水平,而价格管制则会进一步降低该投资水平,造成市场扭曲和效率损失。本研究结果为理解中国医疗市场上的过度医疗问题提供了新视角,并给出了政策建议。

This paper constructs a theoretical game model between physicians and patients and studies physicians’incentive to invest in human capital and market efficiency in a competitive market for healthcare services.The model shows that misdiagnosis by physicians inevitably leads to over-and under-treatment,but this can be alleviated by increasing physicians’investment in human capital.Compared with the social optimum,the competitive market equilibrium leads to insufficient investment in human capital.There are too many low-qualified physicians.Promoting competition in the market can increase physicians’investment in human capital,while price control can further reduce this investment,causing market distortions and loss of efficiency.This study provides a new perspective,allowing us to understand the over-treatment problems in the healthcare market in China and offer some policy implications.