The main objective of this article is to evaluate to which extent the set of national and regional cost control policies implemented in recent years in Italy have affected hospital activity. Our contribution is mainly empirical as we focus our attention on the impact that policies like hospital...

We derive optimal rules for paying hospitals in a public health care system in which providers can choose quality and random patient demand is rationed by waiting time. Since waiting time imposes real costs on patients hospital payment rules should take account of their effect on waiting time as...