Publication

This paper analyzes the cost efficiency of the public and private hospitals in Karnataka State in India. This is estimated through the parametric and nonparametric methods by using the Hospitals Facility Survey (2004) in Karnataka State. The analysis infers that (a) hospitals (including both public and private) are cost inefficient in Karnataka, due to the technical and allocative system of resources of the hospitals; (b) private hospitals appear relatively less inefficient than public hospitals; and (c) the main determinants of the technical and allocative inefficiencies of public hospitals are due to inappropriate interventions of inpatient daily care, share of medical personnel, bed capacity, quality indices, and choice of the locations; while in the case of private hospitals, it relates only to bed capacity and quality indices.