Table 1.
Variable description and sources
| Category | Variable | Description | Data sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hospital cost | Expenses (E) | Annual total operating costs of hospitals (logged) | Medicare cost report |
| Transparency | APCD (A1) | An indicator of whether states have adopted APCDs (adopted = 1, otherwise = 0) | The APCD Councils |
| Competition | HHI (C) | The sum of squared market shares of hospitals in a Hospital Referral Region (HRR) | AHA |
| Hospital characteristics | Size (S) | The number of staffed beds | |
| Urban (U) |
Location of hospital (Urban = 1, otherwise = 0) |
||
| Nonprofit (O) | Ownership of hospital (nonprofit = 1, otherwise = 0) | ||
| Teaching (T1) | The hospital is affiliated with medical schools (Teaching = 1, otherwise = 0) | ||
| Adjusted admission (A2) | All patient care activities, including inpatient and outpatient services, undertaken in a hospital | ||
| State characteristics | Lobbying (L) | The total amount of money that AHA subsidiaries spent on lobbying efforts in a state (logged) | The center for responsive politics |