Medical Care Output and Productivity.

• Position: Review

Medical Care Output and Productivity, edited by David M. Cutler and Ernst R. Berndt, is now available from the University of Chicago Press for $80.00.

This NBER conference volume takes aim at the problem of how to measure the productivity of the medical care service industry. Much of this analysis focuses on the capacity to measure the value of technological change and other health care innovations. A key finding suggests that growth in health care spending has coincided with an increase in products and services that together reduce mortality rates and promote additional...