Urban Institute

About: Urban Institute is a nonprofit organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Medicaid & Population. The organization has 927 authors who have published 2330 publications receiving 86426 citations.

The Growing Power Of Some Providers To Win Steep Payment Increases From Insurers Suggests Policy Remedies May Be Needed

Abstract: In the constant attention paid to what drives health care costs, only recently has scrutiny been applied to the power that some health care providers, particularly dominant hospital systems, wield to negotiate higher payment rates from insurers. Interviews in twelve US communities indicated that so-called must-have hospital systems and large physician groups—providers that health plans must include in their networks so that they are attractive to employers and consumers—can exert considerable market power to obtain steep payment rates from insurers. Other factors, such as offering an important, unique service or access in a particular geographic area, can contribute to provider leverage as well. Even in markets with dominant health plans, insurers generally have not been aggressive in constraining rate increases, perhaps because the insurers can simply pass along the costs to employers and their workers. Although government intervention—through rate setting or antitrust enforcement—has its place, our find...

Municipal Real Property Asset Management: An Overview of World Experience, Trends and Financial Implications

Abstract: Executive Summary. In nearly all countries, municipalities own or control substantial amounts of real estate, but few municipal governments think of their holdings as a “portfolio” whose compositio...

The Response of Hours of Work to Increases in the Minimum Wage

Abstract: This paper examines the effect of minimum wage increases on the hours of work of teenagers (ages 16 to 19) using monthly data from the Current Population Survey. Our findings are consistent with the prediction from neoclassical theory that minimum wage increases have a negative effect on labor demand. However, the estimates we provide here for the elasticity of hours of teen labor demanded with respect to the minimum wage suggest that alternative estimates based on aggregate employment consistently understate the total impact of minimum wage increases on teenage labor utilization.

Out-of-Field Teachers and Student Achievement: Evidence from Matched-Pairs Comparisons

Abstract: This study examines whether subject-specific teacher certification and academic degrees are related to teacher quality. The research design exploits contemporaneous, within-student comparisons made possible by a unique feature of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88). Specifically, NELS:88 contains subject-specific outcomes for eighth-grade students in two subjects as well as data on their teachers for those subjects. The analysis of these data indicates that assignment to a subject-certified teacher is associated with higher test scores. However, these gains appear to be concentrated in social studies and mathematics. Furthermore, the authors also find that subject-certified teachers are not more effective at promoting the intellectual engagement of their students but are more likely to have negative opinions of a given student's performance.

The Education of Black People: Ten Critiques, 1906-1960

Abstract: (1974). The Education of Black People: Ten Critiques, 1906-1960. The Journal of Higher Education: Vol. 45, No. 4, pp. 305-308.