Pricing and location of physician services in mental health.

Puzzling results of a positive association between the number of physicians per capita and the level of fees for physician services have been reported in the literature. These results may be due to misspecification of econometric models and use of data aggregated across medical specialties. It is hypothesized that the unusual results would not persist with a carefully specified econometric model for a single medical specialty. A general model of pricing and location of physician's services is applied to the market for psychiatrist's services. The results imply that the market for psychiatrist's services operates in a manner consistent with the predictions of the competitive model.