American Economic Review Vol. 116 No. 9 2026
Defying Distance? The Provision of Medical Services in the Digital Age
Abstract
Digital platforms reduce geographic frictions, enabling better matching between service providers and users. I quantify reallocation gains in Swedish online health care, using nationwide time-conditional random assignment between patients and physicians. Matching high-risk patients with doctors effective at reducing Emergency Room visits lowers such visits by 4.4 percent (SE 1.3); reallocations also reduce Counter-Guideline antibiotics by 3.1 percent (1.4). I find limited trade-offs in matching; horizontal differentiation among doctors and varied patient needs allow improvement in multiple outcomes simultaneously. Efficiency-enhancing reallocations also affect equity. The findings highlight the potential for care reorganization aligning provider heterogeneity with patient needs when geographic constraints are lifted.
- DOI
- 10.1257/aer.20240756
- Volume
- 116
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 3464-3509
- Language
- en
- Sources
- crossref openalex