Soft budget constraints and ownership: Empirical evidence from US hospitals
Abstract
Consistent with the property rights theory of ownership incorporating soft budget constraints (SBCs), we find
that controlling for SBCs, for-profit hospitals drop safety-net services more often and exhibit higher mortality
rates, suggesting aggressive cost control that damages non-contractible quality.
Description
The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2010.09.016