Does Higher Cost Inefficiency Imply Higher Profit Inefficiency? - Evidence on Inefficiency and Ownership of German Hospitals

Annika Herr, Hendrik Schmitz and Boris Augurzky

No 132, Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen

Abstract: This paper investigates cost and profit efficiency of German hospitals. More specifically, it deals with the question how hospital efficiency varies with ownership, patient structure,and other exogenous factors, which are neither inputs nor outputs of the production process. We conduct a Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) on a multifaceted administrative German dataset combined with the balance sheets of 374 hospitals for the years 2002 to 2005.The results indicate that private (for-profit) and (private) non-profit hospitals are on average less cost efficient but more profit efficient than publicly owned hospitals.

Keywords: Hospital efficiency; ownership; stochastic frontier analysis; profit function (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C13 I11 L33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:rwirep:132

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