0 the way that an area of the world containing several countries becomes more economically or politically important than the particular countries within that area:
Yet regionalization would reduce the number of providers performing surgery and therefore the amount of competition in local health care markets.
In so far as we do not measure the cost benefits of regionalization, our estimates are lower bound estimates.
Thus, the multilateral process triggers the regionalization of the negotiation process and hence is complementary to the formation of preferential trading agreements.
While we believe we chose a sensible price/concentration relationship from the literature, different estimated price/concentration relationships may have different welfare implications for regionalization.
Although inpatient mortality is likely to be lower after regionalization, the procedure remains highly risky.
The second term captures the possibility that either the new price or quality of care after regionalization influences the probability of electing surgery.
Furthermore, even if we had reasonable estimates of the cost changes associated with regionalization, incorporating that information into pricing estimates is problematic.
While regionalization may improve outcomes, it also reduces market competition, which has been found to lower prices and improve health care quality.
