Practice location of physicians: a discrete choice model approach

• Autor(a) principal: Nunes, Letícia Faria de Carvalho
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional do FGV (FGV Repositório Digital)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/10438/13827
• topic: Physician labor; Underserved areas; Discrete choice model; Multinomial logit; Economia; Modelos econométricos; Processo decisório; Oferta e procura; Probabilidades; Médicos

Economists and policymakers have long been concerned with increasing the supply of health professionals in rural and remote areas. This work seeks to understand which factors influence physicians’ choice of practice location right after completing residency. Differently from previous papers, we analyse the Brazilian missalocation and assess the particularities of developing countries. We use a discrete choice model approach with a multinomial logit specification. Two rich databases are employed containing the location and wage of formally employed physicians as well as details from their post-graduation. Our main findings are that amenities matter, physicians have a strong tendency to remain in the region they completed residency and salaries are significant in the choice of urban, but not rural, communities. We conjecture this is due to attachments built during training and infrastructure concerns.