一生之礼：医院、现代医学与死亡率

中文摘要

我们利用杜克基金会在20世纪初推动医院现代化的举措，探究现代医院与医疗服务的可及性如何影响死亡率。该基金会帮助各社区新建和扩建医院、购置最先进的医疗技术、吸引合格的医务人员并改进管理实践。我们发现，杜克基金会的支持扩大了医疗部门的规模并提升了其质量，促进了非营利性医院和高素质医生队伍的发展。杜克基金会的资助既降低了婴儿死亡率——对黑人婴儿的影响大于对白人婴儿的影响——也降低了长期死亡率。最后，我们发现，获得杜克基金会援助的社区从医疗创新中获益更多。（JEL I11、I12、J13、J15、L31、N32、O31）

Abstract

We explore how access to modern hospitals and medicine affects mortality by leveraging efforts of the Duke Endowment to modernize hospitals in the early twentieth century. The Endowment helped communities build and expand hospitals, obtain state-of-the-art medical technology, attract qualified medical personnel, and refine management practices. We find that Duke support increased the size and quality of the medical sector, fostering growth in not-for-profit hospitals and high-quality physicians. Duke funding reduced both infant mortality—with larger effects for Black infants than White infants—and long-run mortality. Finally, we find that communities aided by Duke benefited more from medical innovations. (JEL I11, I12, J13, J15, L31, N32, O31)