This paper investigates whether managers who fail to exploit regulatory loopholes are vulnerable to replacement. We use the U.S. hospital industry in 1985-1996 as a case study. A 1988 change in Medicare rules widened a pre-existing loophole in the Medicare payment system, presenting hospitals with an opportunity to increase operating margins by five or more percentage points simply by “upcoding” patients to more lucrative codes. We find that “room to upcode” is a statistically and economically significant predictor of whether a hospital replaces its management with a new team of for-profit managers. We also find that hospitals replacing their management subsequently upcode more than a sample of similar hospitals that did not, as identified by propensity scores.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
12438.
Length: Date of creation: Aug 2006 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12438
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Find related papers by JEL classification: G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance H51 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Health I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
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Edward L. Glaeser & David I. Laibson & José A. Scheinkman & Christine L. Soutter, 2000.
"Measuring Trust,"
The Quarterly Journal of Economics,
MIT Press, vol. 115(3), pages 811-846, August.
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Brian J. Hall & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2000.
"The Taxation of Executive Compensation,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 14, pages 1-44
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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