While standard economic theory posits that privately owned hospitals are more efficient than their public counterparts, no clear conclusion can yet be drawn for Austria in this regard. As previous Austrian efficiency studies rely on data from the 1990s only and are based on small hospital...

This paper provides the first taxonomy of hospital efficiency studies that uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) and related techniques. We provide a systematic review of 79 such studies published from 1984-2004 that represent 12 countries. Only studies written in English are considered. A...