We analyse the effect of competition on quality in hospital market with regulated prices, considering both the effect of free patient choice (monopoly versus competition) and increased competition through lower transportation costs (increased substitutability). With partially altruistic...

We study the effects of a hospital merger using a spatial competition framework with semialtruistic hospitals that invest in quality and expend cost-containment effort facing regulated prices. We find that the merging hospitals always reduce quality, whereas non-merging hospitals respond by...