https://macropaperwarehouse.com/authors/yiqun-chen/Yiqun ChenHugo -- gohugo.ioen-ushttps://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/the-productivity-of-professions-evidence-from-the-emergency-department/https://macropaperwarehouse.com/papers/the-productivity-of-professions-evidence-from-the-emergency-department/<p>This paper studies the productivity of nurse practitioners (NPs) versus physicians performing overlapping tasks in Veterans Health Administration (VHA) emergency departments (EDs), exploiting a quasi-experiment created by the VHA&rsquo;s December 2016 grant of full practice authority to NPs. The identification strategy instruments patient assignment to NPs versus physicians using quasi-random variation in the number of NPs on duty on a given ED-day, conditional on ED-by-time-category fixed effects. The sample covers 1.1 million ED visits across 44 VHA EDs from January 2017 to January 2020, seen by 1,348 physicians and 156 NPs. The instrument is validated by demonstrating balance in patient observable characteristics across values of the instrument, stability of IV estimates across 256 combinations of patient covariate controls, and absence of spillover effects from NP presence onto physician performance.</p>