Table 1 Variable description and 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