Seminarios

Abstract: We study the extent to which managers can increase government productivity in the context of public health provision. Using an event-study framework we evaluate a reform that introduced a competitive recruitment system to appoint CEOs in public hospitals in Chile. We find that the policy reduced death rates by 11%, an effect that persisted after 3 years. This finding is not explained by a change in patient composition and is robust to several alternative explanations. We show that the policy changed the pool of CEOs by displacing older physicians in favor of younger managers with a background in business and administration. We discuss several mechanisms through which managers impact their organization’s performance, and show that impacts on death rates are larger in hospitals where the CEOs hold greater autonomy.