The Harvard Writing Project's disciplinary writing guides aim to introduce students to some of the basic practices and conventions of writing and conducting research in the various academic disciplines. Understanding the way economists see the world is a necessary step on the way to good economics writing. Chapter 1 describes the keys you need to succeed as a writer of economics and offers an overview of the writing process from beginning to end. Chapter 2 describes the basic methods economists use to analyze data and communicate their ideas. Chapter 3 offers suggestions for finding and focusing your topic, including standard economic sources and techniques for doing economic research. Chapter 4 tells you how to write a term paper. Finally, Chapter 5 provides a guide to citing sources and creating a bibliography.

We investigate the role of physician agency and competition in determining health care supply and patient outcomes. A 2005 change to Medicare fees had a large, negative impact on physician profit margins for providing chemotherapy treatment. In response to these cuts, physicians increased their provision of chemotherapy and changed the mix of chemotherapy drugs they administered. The increase in treatment improved patient survival. These changes were larger in states that experienced larger decreases in physician profit margins. Finally while physician response was larger in more competitive markets, survival improvements were larger in less competitive markets.

Past work demonstrates that mandated prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) decrease opioid prescribing, but provides limited evidence on mechanisms. We analyze Kentucky's landmark PDMP mandate to disentangle the role of information versus hassle costs. PDMP mandates are meant to affect prescribing through information provision but may also unintentionally affect prescribing through the hassle cost of required record checks. On net, we find that although information clearly affected prescribing, hassle costs explain the majority of the decline in prescribing from this program. Hassle costs, however, did not deter physicians from prescribing opioids to the patients who would benefit the most.

Do urban hospital closures affect health care access or health outcomes? We study closures in Los Angeles County between 1997 and 2003, through their effect on distance to the nearest hospital. We find that increased distance to the nearest hospital shifts regular care away from emergency rooms and outpatient clinics to doctor's offices. While most residents are otherwise unaffected by closures, lower-income residents report more difficulty accessing care, working age residents are less likely to receive HIV tests, and seniors less likely to receive flu shots. We also find some evidence that increased distance raises infant mortality rates and stronger evidence that it increases deaths from unintentional injuries and heart attacks.

This study examines how the Army's Force Generation (ARFORGEN) deployment cycle affects capability and soldier health care utilization at Army military treatment facilities and how it affects family health care utilization.

Many medical marijuana patients report using marijuana to alleviate chronic pain from musculoskeletal problems and other sources. If marijuana is used as a substitute for powerful and addictive pain relievers in medical marijuana states, a potential overlooked positive impact of medical marijuana laws may be a reduction in harms associated with opioid pain relievers, a far more addictive and potentially deadly substance. To assess this issue, we study the impact of medical marijuana laws on problematic opioid use. We use two measures of problematic use: treatment admissions for opioid pain reliever addiction from the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) and state-level opioid overdose deaths in the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS). Using both standard differences-in-differences models as well as synthetic control models, we find that states permitting medical marijuana dispensaries experience a relative decrease in both opioid addictions and opioid overdose deaths compared to states that do not. We find no impact of medical marijuana laws more broadly; the mitigating effect of medical marijuana laws is specific to states that permit dispensaries. We evaluate potential mechanisms. Our findings suggest that providing broader access to medical marijuana may have the potential benefit of reducing abuse of highly addictive painkillers.

Fewer births occur on major US holidays than would otherwise be expected. We use California data to study the nature and health implications of this birth date manipulation. We document 18% fewer births on the day of and just after a holiday. Cesarean sections account for roughly half of the decline. Using insights from the tax bunching and test score manipulation literature, we show that "missing” holiday births are displaced to a window of time 11 days before the holiday through 16 days after the holiday. Delivery type does not change over this window, consistent with a pure retiming of births rather than an increase in the use of procedures such as cesarean sections. Despite the change in timing, we find little evidence of any adverse health consequences for babies born around a holiday. Even among high-risk pregnancies, which are more likely to be retimed, we find a minimal impact of holiday-related birth timing manipulation on infant health. Finally, while some of the retiming seems to be driven by patients' preferences, provider incentives appear to play a crucial role in holiday-related birth retiming. At Kaiser Permanente hospitals, where systemwide financial incentives discourage providers from electively timing births, the dip in births on holidays is less than for hospitals overall. This suggests that holiday retiming occurs more frequently among providers who face less of a disincentive to electively schedule births.

Can financial incentives, public health messages and other behavioral nudges -approaches deployed by state and local governments, employers, and health systems - increase SARS-CoV-2 vaccination rates among the vaccine hesitant in the US? In mid-2021, we randomly assigned unvaccinated members of a Medicaid managed care health plan to $10 or $50 financial incentives, different public health messages, a simple appointment scheduler, or control to assess impacts on SARS-CoV-2 vaccination intentions and vaccine uptake within 30 days of intervention. While messages increased vaccination intentions, none of the treatments increased overall vaccination rates. Consistent with backlash concerns, financial incentives and negative messages decreased vaccination rates for some subgroups. Financial incentives and other behavioral nudges do not meaningfully increase SARS-CoV-2 vaccination rates amongst the vaccine hesitant.

Abstract: Between 1973 and 2003, abortion providers in the United States were the targets of over 300 acts of extreme violence. Using unique data on attacks and on abortions, abortion providers, and births, we examine how anti-abortion violence has affected providers' decisions to perform abortions and women's decisions about whether and where to terminate a pregnancy. We find that clinic violence reduces abortion services in targeted areas. Once travel is taken into account, however, the overall effect of the violence is much smaller

We estimate the current impact of Medicare on medical expenditure risk and financial strain. At age 65, out-of-pocket expenditures drop by 33% at the mean and 53% among the top 5% of spenders. The fraction of the population with out- of-pocket medical expenditures above income drops by more than half. Medical- related financial strain, such as problems paying bills, is dramatically reduced. Using a stylized expected utility framework, the gain from reducing out-of-pocket expenditures alone accounts for 18% of the social costs of financing Medicare. This calculation ignores the benefits of reduced financial strain and direct health improvements due to Medicare.