Erin Johnson

Johnson’s paper with M. Marit Rehavi, titled “Physicians Treating Physicians: Information and Incentives in Childbirth,” provides new evidence on how financial incentives and patient information affect physician treatment decisions. Using rich micro-data on millions of childbirths, the paper compares the treatment of physicians when they are patients with that of non-physicians. Physician-patients are 10 percent less likely to get a Cesarean Section than non-physician patients, and the effect is reversed in an environment where there is a financial incentive for vaginal birth rather than Cesarean section. While financial incentives affect the treatment of non-physicians, physician-patients are largely unaffected, suggesting information is an effective counterweight to provider incentives.

Recently, Johnson has studied how the physician-patient relationship affects treatment as well as how providers respond to diagnostic labels, evidence-based treatment guidelines, and guidelines that are not evidence-based.

Before joining WCW in 2016, Johnson was an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and an A.B. from Princeton University. She previously worked as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group.

Johnson has studied how physicians respond to quality information when referring patients to specialists, how physicians respond to financial incentives, how the physician-patient relationship affects treatment, and the impact of treatment decisions on patient health.

Physicians Treating Physicians: Information and Incentives in Childbirth (with M. Marit Rehavi). American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (February 2016)

Physician-Induced Demand, Encyclopedia of Health Economics (2014), pp. 77-82.

American Economic Association

American Society of Health Economists