TY  - JOUR
AU  - Ho,Katherine
AU  - Neidell,Matthew
TI  - Equilibrium effects of public goods: The impact of community water fluoridation on dentists
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15056
PY  - 2009
Y2  - June 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15056
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15056.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Katherine Ho
Columbia University
Department of Economics
1037 International Affairs Building
420 West 118th Street
New York, NY 10027
Tel: 212/854-7605
Fax: 212/854-8059
E-Mail: kh2214@columbia.edu

Matthew J. Neidell
Department of Health Policy and Management
Columbia University
600 W 168th Street, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10032
Tel: 212/342-4522
Fax: 212/305-3405
E-Mail: mn2191@columbia.edu
AB  - In this paper we consider how the dental industry responded to the addition of fluoride to public drinking water.  We take advantage of the staggered introduction of fluoridation throughout the country to analyze the changes in numbers of within-county dentists relative to physicians in the years surrounding the change in fluoridation status.  We find a significant decrease in the number of dental establishments and an even larger reduction in the number of employees per firm following fluoridation. We also find that fluoridation in neighboring markets was associated with an increase in own-market dental supply, suggesting that dentists responded to the demand shock by moving from fluoridated areas to close-by markets.  Further analysis suggests that some dentists may have retrained as specialists rather than moving geographically.  Our estimates imply that the 8 percentage point change in exposure to water fluoridation from 1974 to 1992 may have led to the loss of as many as 0.6 percent of dental establishments and 2.1 percent of dental employees, suggesting a substantial net impact of this public good on the dental profession since its inception.
ER  -