We consider resource allocation within an organisation when agents have a preference for autonomy and show how delegation bears on moral hazard and adverse selection. Agents may care about autonomy for reasons of job-satisfaction, status or greater reputation of perform-ance under autonomy....

We study effects of direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) in a mar- ket with two pharmaceutical firms providing horizontally dierentiated (branded) drugs. Patients varying in their susceptability to medication are a prioriuninformed of available medication. Physicians making the prescription...

According to the business literature a firm's competitive position is determined by the nature of the market. In a 'premium' market, profit leadership falls to firms of- fering high quality, whereas in a 'value' market, it falls to low quality providers, which on grounds of a cost advantage...

We present a model of optimal contracting between a purchaser and a provider of health services when quality has two dimensions. We assume that one dimension of quality is contractible (dimension 1) and one dimension is not contractible (dimension 2). We show that the optimal incentive scheme...

Using a sample of 137 hospitals over the period 1998-2002 in the English National Health Service, we estimate the elasticity of hospital costs with respect to waiting times. Our cross-sectional and panel-data results suggest that at the sample mean (103 days), waiting times have no significant...

We present a model of optimal contracting between a purchaser (a principal) and a provider (an agent). We assume that: a) providers differ in efficiency and there are two types of provider; b) efficiency is private information (adverse selection); c) providers are partially altruistic or...

Rationing by waiting time is commonly used in health care systems with zero or low money prices. Some systems prioritise particular types of patient and offer them lower waiting times. We investigate whether prioritisation is welfare improving when the benefit from treatment is the sum of two...

We model and compare the bargaining process between a purchaser of health services, such as a health authority, and a provider (the hospital) in three plausible scenarios: a) the purchaser sets the price, and activity is bargained between the purchaser and the provider: activity bargaining; b)...

In many public health care systems treatment is rationed by waiting time. We examine the optimal allocation of a .xed supply of a treatment between di¤erent groups of patients. Even in the absence of any distributional aims welfare is increased by third degree waiting time discrimination....

The optimal allocation of a public health care budget across treatments must take account of the way in which care is rationed within treatments since this will affect their marginal value. We investigate the optimal allocation rules for health care systems where user charges are fixed and care...