Can Nonprofits Save Lives Under Financial Stress? Evidence from the Hospital Industry
Janet Gao, Tim Liu, Sara Malik, Merih Sevilir
SSRN Working Paper,
No. 4946064,
2025
Abstract
We compare the effects of external financing shocks on patient mortality at nonprofit and for-profit hospitals. Using confidential patient-level data, we find that patient mortality increases to a lesser extent at nonprofit hospitals than at for-profit ones facing exogenous, negative shocks to debt capacity. Such an effect is not driven by patient characteristics or their choices of hospitals. It is concentrated among patients without private insurance and patients with higher-risk diagnoses. Potential economic mechanisms include nonprofit hospitals' having deeper cash reserves and greater ability to maintain spending on medical staff and equipment, even at the expense of lower profitability. Overall, our evidence suggests that nonprofit organizations can better serve social interests during financially challenging times.
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Declining Free Lunch: State Capacity and Foregone Public Spending
Sarah Fritz, Lorenzo Incoronato, Catherine van der List
RFBerlin Discussion Paper,
No. 67,
2025
Abstract
This paper documents substantial fiscal waste in the context of one the world’s largest regional development programs – the EU Cohesion Policy. We study Italy, and find that 20% of funding commitments are never paid out and funneled into unfinished or never-started projects. In our setting, this happens for reasons unrelated to fiscal constraints – municipalities appear to simply leave money on the table. Foregone spending is more prevalent in Southern regions, but there is also stark variation across municipalities within regions. We show that such under-utilization of available funds is strongly associated with limited administrative capacity of local governments.
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Output
EU Initiative TSI ProdTool 2025-2028 Find all recent project updates, reports, and event details below: ProdTool Common Report 2026 › To support evidence-based policymaking and…
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Privacy
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IWH-CompNet 1st ProdTool Workshop
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Overview
About the project Project Information: ProdTool – NPB 2.0: Micro-Data Analysis Tool 2.0 for comparative productivity studies at National Productivity Boards (Project acronym:…
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East Germany
The Nasty Gap 30 years after unification: Why East Germany is still 20% poorer than the West Dossier In a nutshell The East German economic convergence process is hardly…
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