RURAL HOSPITAL PERFORMANCE AND ITS CORRELATES

The cost, technical, allocative and scale efficiencies of a sample of rural U.S. hospitals are calculated via linear programming models. Tob it analysis is used to assess possible correlates of each of the effic iency measures. A large amount of dispersion in operating efficiency i s found within our data set; the majority of the dispersion is due to technical inefficiency In general, for-profit hospitals are found to o utperform not-for-profit and public hospitals. Demand characteristics, quality of care, and the mix of services offered are also found to in fluence performance.