 The Regional Organization of Hospital Care in Italy: The Effects of Asymmetry of Information and Soft Budget Constraint RulesChapter Chapter 11 in Italian Institutional Reforms: A Public Choice Perspective, 2008, pp 197-219 from Springer Abstract: In Italy, as in many other western countries, a substantial proportion of health care is financed by the public sector. The health care system has been widely reformed and a separation between purchasing and delivering the service has been enforced to mimic the structure of a competitive market in order to improve efficiency. The organization of the internal market can, however, vary among Regions. The aim of this paper is to assess the relative merits of the different forms of organization for secondary care in a context of information asymmetry. We show that both private and public hospitals can pursue objectives that are not compatible with cost minimization. In this environment the role of the purchaser and the Region is fundamental: unless they enforce hard budget constraint rules, the system might end up being a source of deficit which will ultimately undermine the reform and its long-run sustainability. Key words: Internal markets, asymmetry of information, hospital care, privatization, Italy. Keywords: Hospital Care; Internal Market; Public Hospital; Information Asymmetry; Market Structure (search for similar items in EconPapers) There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-0-387-72141-5_11 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-72141-5_11 Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Springer Books from Springer |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.