Diagnosing Expertise: Human Capital, Decision Making, and Performance among Physicians

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of Labor Economics
Year: 2017
Volume: 35
Issue: 1
Pages: 1 - 43

Authors (2)

Score contribution per author:

2.011 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Expert performance is often evaluated assuming that good experts have good outcomes. We examine expertise in medicine and develop a model that allows for two dimensions of physician performance: decision making and procedural skill. Better procedural skill increases the use of intensive procedures for everyone, while better decision making results in a reallocation of procedures from fewer low-risk to high-risk cases. We show that poor diagnosticians can be identified using administrative data and that improving decision making improves birth outcomes by reducing C-section rates at the bottom of the risk distribution and increasing them at the top of the distribution.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:ucp:jlabec:doi:10.1086/687848
Journal Field
Labor
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25