Back
Texte intégral
Preprint

An analysis of efficiency and productivity in Swiss hospitals

  • Farsi, Mehdi Istituto microeconomia e economia pubblica (MecoP), Facoltà di scienze economiche, Università della Svizzera italiana, Svizzera
  • Filippini, Massimo Istituto microeconomia e economia pubblica (MecoP), Facoltà di scienze economiche, Università della Svizzera italiana, Svizzera
    2005

30 p

Stochastic frontier
Cost efficiency
General hospitals
English This paper examines the productive efficiency of the hospital sector in Switzerland. A panel data of 214 general hospitals over the four-year period between 1998 and 2001 has been analyzed. A descriptive analysis of the data casts some light on differences across hospital types especially regarding case mix severity and length of hospitalizations. The final sample used for the cost frontier analysis consists of 459 observations from 156 hospitals that is, an unbalanced panel with an average length of three years. The adopted methodology is based on a stochastic total cost frontier with a Cobb-Douglas functional form. Given the limited number of periods and the sample’s low within variation, a pooled cross-sectional model has been used. Several specifications have been considered. The main outputs are measured by the DRG-adjusted number of hospitalizations and the hospital’s outpatient revenues. Services of capital, physicians and other employees are considered as input factors. The cost frontier analysis suggests a significant potential for improving efficiency. The results also point to unexploited scale economies in the majority of the sample. An analysis of inefficiency estimates indicates that the differences among various ownership subsidization types are not statistically significant.
Language
  • English
Classification
Economics
License
License undefined
Identifiers
  • RERO DOC 5191
  • ARK ark:/12658/srd1317972
Persistent URL
https://n2t.net/ark:/12658/srd1317972
Statistics
Document views: 82 File downloads:
  • 1_wp0501.pdf: 154