Massive structural change is occurring in health care provision in the United States, significantly reducing the number of not-for-profit suppliers. This trend is fueled in part by government policies. To evaluate these policies one must know about the motives of not-for-profit health care providers. The theory of not-for-profit hospitals suggests buyers may prefer dealing with sellers who are ...

Many factors including incentive-pay, powerful shareholders, and takeover threats push for-profits managers towards maximizing shareholder value. One of the most striking factors about non-profit firms is that they have no comparable governance institutions, and the only check on managers are boards that are themselves rarely responsible to anyone outside the firm. This essay discusses the impl...

The trend towards dynamic on-demand service provisioning requires the collaboration of a high number of specialized service providers. One challenge of service composition with numerous service providers is the rising uncertainty of service delivery, which depends inter alia on the providers’ effort. Penalties for defecting from agreed service level objectives serve to reduce the uncertainty of...

INTRODUCTION HIV testing and counseling is a critical component of the overall response to the HIV epidemic in low and middle income countries. To date, little attention has been paid to the role of private for-profit providers in HIV testing. METHODS We use data from Demographic and Health Surveys and AIDS Indicators Surveys to explore the extent to which this sector provides HIV testing in ...

BACKGROUND In many low and middle income countries, the private sector is increasingly becoming an important source of health care, filling gaps where no or little public health care is available. However, knowledge on the private sector providers is limited The objective of this study was to determine the type and number of different types of health care providers, and the quality, cost and ut...