Dalsgaard Søren, Nielsen Helena Skyt, Simonsen Marianne
National Center for Register-based Research, Aarhus University, Denmark.
Department of Economics and Business, Aarhus University, Denmark.
J Health Econ. 2014 Sep;37:137-51. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2014.05.005. Epub 2014 Jun 20.
This paper estimates effects of early ADHD medication use on key human capital outcomes for children diagnosed with ADHD while using rarely available register based data on diagnoses and prescription drug purchases. Our main identification strategy exploits plausible exogenous assignment of children to hospitals with specialist physicians, while our analysis of health outcomes also allows for an individual level panel data strategy. We find that the behavior of specialist physicians varies considerably across hospitals and that the prescribing behavior does affect the probability that a given child is treated. Results show that children diagnosed with ADHD in pharmacological treatment have fewer hospital contacts if treated and that treatment to some extent protects against criminal behavior.
本文利用关于诊断和处方药购买的极为罕见的基于登记册的数据，估计了早期使用多动症药物对被诊断患有多动症儿童的关键人力资本成果的影响。我们的主要识别策略利用了儿童被合理地外生分配到有专科医生的医院这一情况，而我们对健康结果的分析也采用了个体层面的面板数据策略。我们发现，不同医院的专科医生行为差异很大，而且开药行为确实会影响特定儿童接受治疗的概率。结果表明，接受药物治疗的多动症患儿在接受治疗后与医院的接触较少，而且治疗在一定程度上可预防犯罪行为。
