TY  - JOUR
AU  - Frank,Richard G.
AU  - Salkever,David S.
TI  - Altruism, Rivalry and Crowding-Out in the Nonprofit Firm's Supply of Charity Services:  The Case of Hospitals
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 2753
PY  - 1991
Y2  - November 1991
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2753
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2753.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Richard Frank
Department of Health Care Policy
Harvard Medical School
180 Longwood Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
Tel: 617/432-0178
Fax: 617/432-1219
E-Mail: frank@hcp.med.harvard.edu

David S. Salkever
UMBC
Department of Public Policy
1000 Hilltop Circle, Public Policy 418
Baltimore, MD  21250
Tel: 410/455-8459
Fax: 410-455-8066
E-Mail: salkever@umbc.edu
AB  - This paper extends previous research on Individuals' supply of charitable donations to the behavior of nonprofit firms. Specifically, we study provision of charity care by private, nonprofit hospitals. We demonstrate that In the absence of large positive income effects on charity care supply, convex preferences for the nonprofit hospital imply crowding out by other private or government hospitals. Extending our model to include patient heterogeneity and impure altruism (rivalry) provides a possible explanation for the previously reported empirical result that both crowding out and income effects on indigent care supply are often weak or insignificant. Empirical analysis of data for hospitals in Maryland provides strong evidence of rivalry on the supply of outpatient plus inpatient charity care, but not when the analysis is confined to inpatient care.
ER  -