Economic rents at the end of life: for-profit eldercare and the myth of corporate accountability

Cameron Graham, Darlene Himick and Pier-Luc Nappert

Chapter 29 in Handbook of Accounting in Society, 2024, pp 415-428 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Privatization of healthcare has created lucrative opportunities for corporations to earn economic rents on the care of the elderly. This exposed the elderly to severe health risks during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Canada, deaths from COVID at for-profit eldercare facilities far exceeded the rate normally expected in this age group, and far exceeded the rate of COVID deaths at non-profit and publicly owned eldercare facilities. This chapter examines the institutional mechanisms that were supposed to hold for-profit eldercare corporations in Canada to account, focusing on the two most important systems, healthcare regulation and financial regulation. Corporate accountability failed because of a misrecognition of the “corporate imaginary” as an accountable entity, which enabled these systems of governance to put on a public performance of accountability without imposing significant negative consequences on the corporations responsible for these many deaths.

Keywords: Business and Management; Economics and Finance; Environment; Sociology and Social Policy; Sustainable Development Goals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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