American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Managers and Public Hospital Performance
American Economic Review
(pp. 4040–74)
Abstract
We study whether the quality of managers can affect public service provision in the context of public health. Using novel data from public hospitals in Chile, we show how the introduction of a competitive recruitment system and better pay for public hospital CEOs reduced hospital mortality by 8 percent. The effect is not explained by a change in patient composition. We find that the policy changed the pool of CEOs by displacing doctors with no management training in favor of CEOs who had studied management. Productivity improvements were driven by hospitals that recruited higher quality CEOs.Citation
Muñoz, Pablo, and Cristóbal Otero. 2025. "Managers and Public Hospital Performance." American Economic Review 115 (11): 4040–74. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20240615Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D24 Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
- G34 Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Voting; Proxy Contests; Corporate Governance
- I11 Analysis of Health Care Markets
- I18 Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
- J45 Public Sector Labor Markets
- M54 Personnel Economics: Labor Management
- O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration