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We investigate whether and how physicians' prescriptions of a new drug are influenced by their colleagues in the same hospital during shared working time. We use longitudinal data of physicians who prescribed antipsychotic drugs for schizophrenia patients in Taiwan between 1997 and 2010. We find that peer effects are small, but stronger among physicians of similar age and among those sharing a longer, larger, or more stable group. Peer effects are also stronger when drugs are newly introduced. We also find that peer effects are more likely to be overestimated using fixed-effect models than using first-difference models. (JEL D01, D83, I10), I. INTRODUCTION Is there a peer effect among physicians? The answer may not be so obvious as people commonly believe. Take the existence of two conflicting practices as an example. [...]

I. INTRODUCTION In the past two decades, the landscape of the hospital industry worldwide has undergone a dramatic transformation. In the United States, the number of acute hospital beds fell [...], This article examines whether market competition affects treatment expenditure and health outcomes of stroke and cardiac treatment in Taiwan. Our measure of treatment expenditure is the hospital expenditure paid at the index admission (short term) and the sum of inpatient and outpatient expenditures paid in the subsequent year (long term). Our measure of health outcome is the probability of death in 1 and 12 months after the hospital's discharge. Our measure of competition follows the method developed by Kessler and McClellan that calculates the Herfindal index based on the predicted patient flows using exogenous variables (e.g., traveling distance to hospitals). Using data of patients hospitalized for new stroke and cardiac treatment between 1997 and 2001 in Taiwan, we find that an increase of market competition results in an insignificant impact on a patient's mortality. In terms of treatment expenditure, our results indicate that hospitals facing more competition incur higher expenditures, either the short- or long-term expenditure. Finally, we find evidence showing that an increase of treatment expenditure at admission is due to a raise of length of stay and treatment intensity per day as well as the usage of expensive equipment. (JEL I11, L13, L41)