How inefficient are U.S. hospitals? What changes can lead to improvement?

Marcella

We use U.S. hospital data from 2004 to 2011 to estimate a cost function using a Bayesisan semi-nonparametric method that allows for a heteroskedastic inefficiency. Moreover, we evaluate what is the impact of variables, such as region and hospital size, on cost estimating both the size and robustness of the variables in terms of reducing cost for hospitals.

Posted in Ongoing work.