AbstractThis paper employs data envelopment analysis to generate efficiency indices for individual nursing homes relative to a best‐practice frontier. Further analysis then shows that these ‘unadjusted’ indices represent factors other than efficiency. Regression analysis purges the indices of these confounding influences. The resulting ‘adjusted’ efficiency indices demonstrate that for‐profit homes have higher mean levels of efficiency and a more efficient production frontier than non‐profit homes. These results support the property rights hypothesis that forprofit homes are inherently more efficient than non‐profit ones.