Beginning with Anderson, Banker, and Janakiraman (2003), a rapidly growing literature attributes the short-run asymmetric cost response to activity changes (i.e., sticky costs) as resulting from short-run managerial choices. In this paper, we are agnostic on the theory of sticky costs. Rather,...

We examine the interaction between two forms of hospital regulation and their effect on hospital behavior. Because reimbursement under federal Medicare regulation is a fixed fee per diagnosis, hospitals are encouraged to behave more like cost centers and reduce cost through shorter average...