In first two chapters of this dissertation, I examine the effects of Certificate-of-Need (CON) regulation on technological investment and prices, and also examine decisions about service provision in hospitals and other non-profit services. CON regulation provides state authority to restrict major capital investments as a way of reducing costs. CON regulation was initially implemented at the federal level in 1972, and while falling out of favor in 1981, 34 states including Florida have a state-wide CON program in place as of 2017. The purpose of CON regulation is to address this surplus of equipment by requiring that new purchases of equipment and providing new services be subject to prior approval from CON authorities, automatically for some key types of operations and for others if the costs exceed the capital threshold. Hospitals must demonstrate to the CON board that the equipment serves a community need or unmet demand; if successful, they may be granted a Certificate of Need to purchase the new equipment. It is reasonable to believe that services that are subject to CON regulation are offered less often than unregulated services. I examine how this process affects the supply of technology in the first chapter. One major argument against CON laws is that they restrict competition and keep prices high. In the second chapter, I examine whether the technology restrictions of CON regulation result in higher prices and market power. In the third chapter of the dissertation, I look at another issue affecting non-profit firms; the issue of overhead expenses. Overhead expenses are defined as any expense that does not count as directly contributing to the program. There is evidence that many potential donors dislike paying for overhead costs, even though they are vital to the operational abilities of a nonprofit. I empirically test how overhead expenses affect a nonprofit's financial success as well as its survival rate. For the first chapter of the dissertation, the chapter is co-authored with Gary Fournier. Our collaboration involved a great deal of joint effort at every phase of research. Gary Fournier supervised in the design of the project, discussing sampling issues, identifying data sources and limitations, and helped suggest empirical strategies. My contribution was to carry out the empirical analysis and the full written report. For the third chapter of the dissertation, the chapter is co-authored with Joseph Stinn. His contributions to the project are the motivation, the literature review, the idea to analyze survival rates of nonprofits, and the idea to use liabilities as an instrument. My main contributions are the theoretical model, and the empirical strategies. We jointly carried out the data collection, empirical analysis and the written report. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Economics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2018. / July 6, 2018. / Health Services, Hospital Prices, Non-Profits, Overhead Expenses, Technology / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert Mark Isaac, Professor Directing Dissertation; Jens Großer, University Representative; Gary M. Fournier, Committee Member; Svetlana Pevnitskaya, Committee Member; Anastasia Semykina, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_647220 |
| Contributors | Duff, Joseph A. (author), Isaac, R. Mark, 1954- (professor directing dissertation), Großer, Jens W. (university representative), Fournier, Gary M. (committee member), Pevnitskaya, Svetlana A (committee member), Semykina, Anastasia (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Social Sciences and Public Policy (degree granting college), Department of Economics (degree granting departmentdgg) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text, doctoral thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (79 pages), computer, application/pdf |
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