The Impact of CEOs in the Public Sector: Evidence from the English NHS

Carol Propper, Katharina Janke () and Raffaella Sadun

No 13726, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We investigate whether top managers affect the performance of large and complex public sector organizations, using as a case study CEOs of English public hospitals (large, complex organizations with multi-million turnover). We study the extent to which CEOs are differentiated in terms of their pay, as well as a wide range of hospital production measures including inputs, intermediate operational outcomes and clinical outcomes. Pay differentials suggest that the market perceives CEOs to be differentiated. However, we find little evidence of CEOs’ impact on hospital production. These results question the effectiveness of leadership changes to improve performance in the public sector.

Keywords: Ceos; Public sector; Style; Nhs; Hospitals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H51 I11 L32 M12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-eur, nep-hea, nep-hrm and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

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