NBER Publications by Swati Mukerjee

Treatment is highly cost-effective in reducing an individual’s substance abuse (SA) and associated harms. However, data from Treatment Episodes (TEDS) indicate that per capita treatment admissions substantially lagged behind increases in heavy drug use from 1992-2007. Only ten percent of individuals with clinical SA disorders receive any treatment, and almost half who forgo treatment point to accessibility and cost constraints as barriers to care. This study investigates the impact of state mental health and SA parity legislation on treatment admission flows and cost-sharing. Fixed effects specifications indicate that mandating comprehensive parity for mental health and SA disorders raises the probability that a treatment admission is privately insured, lowering costs for the individua...

In this paper, we develop time series estimates of the output and quality of output for day care centers in the U.S. for the 1970s and 1980s. As far as we are aware this is the first time that a time series for day care output and quality has been published. Our results using both physical and dollar measures of output show very rapid growth in output, particularly during the 1980s. We find that both the real price of care in centers and the staff/child ratio in day care centers declined between 1974 and 1988. These declines may reflect either improved productivity or a decline in the quality of care provided by day care centers. Clearly, these declines merit further investigation. We illustrate a method that may be used to adjust physical measures of output for changes in quality when, as...

This paper estimates cost functions for day care centers in Massachusetts. The production technology assumed is the generalized homothetic Cobb-Douglas production function. The cost function dual to this production function is estimated separately for profit-making (P1Os) and not-for-profit (NPOs) organizations. The results are discussed in the context of current NPO literature. NPOs are found to be operating at higher average coats than PMOs for most output levels as predicted by the literature. However, the provision of more staff per child hour, our measure of quality, increases coats by similar amounts in PMOs and NPOs. Further, present forms of subsidies do not help either PMOs or NPOs, and in fact, promote 'shirking' in NPOs. PMOs are not optimizing with reference to the amount of ed...