Managerial rewards and the behavior of for-profit, governmental, and nonprofit organizations: Evidence from the hospital industry

Jeffrey P. Ballou, Burton A. Weisbrod*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

95 Scopus citations

Abstract

Studies of mixed industries frequently focus on differential behavior between for-profit and either nonprofit or governmental producers. Substantially less is known about differences among governmental, religious nonprofit, and secular nonprofit organizations. We examine the compensation of hospital CEOs to assess the extent to which these three organizational forms pursue similar objectives. Compensation levels, the use of salaries versus bonuses as proxies for weak versus strong incentives, and the criteria organizations use to determine bonuses are analyzed. We conclude that the CEO incentive contracts at religious nonprofit, secular nonprofit, and governmental hospitals imply substantive differences in the behavior of these organizations.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1895-1920
Number of pages26
JournalJournal of Public Economics
Volume87
Issue number9-10
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 1 2003

Funding

We thank Kate Antonovics, Christoph Badelt, Kathleen Carroll, Richard Carson, David Cutler, Burcay Erus, Edward Glaeser, Alphonse Holtman, Richard Kronick, Paul Oyer, James Poterba, Maxim Sinitsyn, Al Slivinski, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. Ballou gratefully acknowledges support from the Aspen Institute. Weisbrod thanks the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Northwestern University Institute for Policy Research for support of his research on the nonprofit sector. He also thanks Thomas Flannery and The Hay Group for making available data from their survey of managerial compensation.

Keywords

  • Comparative institutional form
  • Incentives
  • Nonprofit
  • Organization behavior

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Finance
  • Economics and Econometrics

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