This paper studies the relationship between technology and productivity in Dutch hospitals. In most studies technical change is measured by a proxy, namely a time trend. In practice however, innovations slowly spread over all hospitals and so different hospitals are operating under different...

Dutch public transport provision has been competitively tendered out increasingly since 2001. Except for the Amsterdam city bus services, all bus transport in the country is carried out under a competitively tendered contact. Several evaluations have been carried out on the effects of...

The health care industry, in particular the hospital industry, is under an increasing degree of pressure, by an ageing population, advancing expensive medical technology a shrinking labor. The pressure on hospitals is further increased by the planned budget cuts in public spending by many...

In many public service industries, firms are assumed to maximize certain public goals and are not allowed to make any profits. These public service firms are financed by fixed and variable subsidies and fees-for-services paid by users. Standard economic models, such as the profit maximization...

Ukraine's history has given it a split personality (e.g. divergent cultural influences on economic and managerial behavior), as was observed in the recent political developments both prior to and following the December 2004 elections. Eastern regions were heavily influenced by Russo-Soviet rule,...