Joan Costa-Font  (London School of Economics)

Bed Blocking and Hospital Costs Shift After Long Term Care Subsidization (with Sergi Jiménez and Cristina Vilaplana)   

Date: March, 31st At 13,00h

Room: 24 013 (Mercè Rodoreda Builiding) NOTE: NOT USUAL ROOM! - Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona

Abstract: The expansion of long-term care (LTC) services can have important policy externalities on the health system. However, the impact of such effects are far less known and studies. We draw upon the exogenous variation of the introduction of the 2007 reform in Spain to examine the effect o an expansion of social care services on health care service use among elderly dependent individuals. We employ a difference in difference methodology. Preliminary evidence is suggestive of a reduction of bed-blocking depending on the stringency of entitlements to long term care funding. Specifically, we find a reduction in hospitalization stays both the intensive (duration) and extensive margin (probability) after the implementation of the long-term care reform. However, we find that the number of hospitalizations expanded after the reform. 

Bio: Dr Joan Costa-Font works at LSE as an Associate Professor (Reader) of Political Economy, a joint appointment between the Departments of Social Policy and the European Institute. Joan is a research associate at the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) and LSE Health as well as CESifo network research fellow. He has been Harkness fellow at Harvard University and visiting fellow at Boston College (CRR), Oxford University (IA) and the University of Munich (CES).Joan's teaching and research is on the economic analysis of social policies and social protection institutions.