Willingness to Pay for Hospital Access in Areas with High Concentrations of Blacks

摘要

We estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) of individuals to have increased spatial access to hospitals using a spatial hedonic price model. Employing a dataset of 6,093 observations at the census block group level, we find that the WTP of individuals to live one mile closer to a hospital is positive if the hospital is a designated public hospital, lower for private hospitals, and insignificant for nonprofit hospitals. Areas comprised of a relatively large population of black residents value spatial access significantly more and, for higher concentrations, exhibit a positive WTP for all hospital types. This is likely due to increased transportation costs of individuals in minority areas.