Does medical insurance affect health care demand and in the end contribute to improvements in the health status? Evidence for China for the year 2004, by means of the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), shows that health insurance does not affect health care demand in a significant manner....

Physicians are supposed to serve patients' interests, but some are more inclined to do so than others. This paper studies how the system of health care provision affects the allocation of patients to physicians when physicians differ in altruism. We show that allowing for private provision of...

Purpose: This paper aims to quantify inequalities of opportunities in health in Europe and to assess whether the way the correlation between effort towards health and circumstances empirically matters for the magnitude of inequalities of opportunities. Methodology: This paper considers two...

La France, comme les autres pays européens, affiche de larges inégalités sociales face à la mort et en matière de santé. Les plus instruits, les catégories de professions les plus qualifiées et les ménages les plus aisés bénéficient d’une espérance de vie plus longue et se...

The aims of this study were (1) to analyse whether informal care, provided by children or grandchildren to their elderly parents, and formal care are substitutes or complements, and (2) whether this relationship differs across Europe. The analyses were based on the newly developed SHARE (Survey...

One of the reasons why regulators are hesitant about permitting price competition in healthcare markets is that it may damage quality when information is poor. Evidence on whether this fear is well-founded is scarce. We provide evidence using a reform that permitted Dutch health insurers and...

Comparisons among countries can help to identify opportunities for the reduction of inequalities in health. We compared the magnitude of inequalities in mortality and self-assessed health among 22 countries in all parts of Europe.

We examine the effect of publicly provided health care on welfare by combining local level data on public health care, and individual level data on life satisfaction. It is shown that relatively high expenditures in health care have a positive effect on individuals' life satisfaction in our...