There have been many tests of the descriptive validity of the axioms of expected utility theory (EU) using money outcomes. Such tests are relatively uncommon with respect to health outcomes. This is unfortunate, because the standard gamble - considered by many health economists to be the gold...

This article reports a study that tests whether the internal consistency of the standard gamble can be improved upon by incorporating loss weighting and probability transformation parameters in the standard gamble valuation procedure. Five alternatives to the standard EU formulation are...

There is a burgeoning literature in health economic evaluation, with this form of analysis becoming increasingly influential at the health policy making level in a number of countries. However, a search of the literature reveals that in Japan, the world's second largest health care market, very...

In recent years, a few health economists have begun to question the ethical underpinnings of the standard practice of QALY maximisation as a ubiquitous decision rule in the allocation of health care resources. Prominent among these is Erik Nord, who conjectures that QALY maximisation...