Shirley Cai

Shirley Cai

they/them, she/her

PhD Candidate

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portfolio

publications

Medical School Environments and Physician Treatment Styles

Ian McCarthy and Shirley Cai

We examine the role of medical school environments in shaping physicians’ later treatment decisions, focusing on a specific subset of cardiology in which physician discretion is particularly salient and separate from patient need.

Formation of Physician Referral Networks: Drivers and Potential Consequences

Ian McCarthy, Shirley Cai, Pablo Estrada, and Jillian Wilkins

Focusing on PCPs who enter or relocate to a new market, we study the determinants of initial PCP–specialist networks using the universe of 2010–2018 Medicare fee-for-service claims across three distinct specialty areas: orthopedic surgery, cardiology, and dermatology. A network-formation model with two-sided fixed effects shows that sharing a common practice is the dominant factor in forming initial referral links across all three specialties, followed by geographic proximity and relatively minor effects from homophily across various demographic characteristics.

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