An Econometric Analysis of Costs and Scale Economies in the Nursing Home Industry
估计了1983年德克萨斯州养老院的成本函数，发现存在规模经济，表明提高入住率或采用固定费率报销可降低总成本，对医疗补助政策制定有参考价值。
This paper examines costs in the nursing home industry, an issue of concern to policymakers because Medicaid pays about half of the expenditures on nursing home care. The paper estimates two cost functions for a sample of Texas nursing homes in 1983: one assumes that all homes provide the same quality of care, the other considers quality differences. The results indicate that there are economies of scale in the production of nursing home care. This suggests that many states could serve the same number of Medicaid patients at a lower total cost if occupancy rates were higher, and that a fixed rate reimbursement policy could lower costs.