Heterogeneity in time and risk preferences has been proposed as one of the mechanisms involved in the educational gradient in smoking, but this mechanism has scarcely been explored empirically. Subjective scales were introduced in the 2008 French National Health, Health Care and Insurance Survey...

The prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome (amniocentesis) presents parents with a complex dilemma which requires comparing the risk of giving birth to an affected child and the risk of losing an unaffected child through amniocentesis-related miscarriage. Building on the specific features of the...

Although chronically ill individuals need protection against high medical expenses, they often have difficulty obtaining adequate insurance coverage due to medical underwriting practices used to classify and price risks and to define and limit coverage for individuals and groups. Using data from...

This paper analyzes the effect of Medicaid eligibility expansions on the health insurance coverage of women giving birth and on the use of prenatal care and infant health, controlling for year and state effects and state-specific trends that may be correlated with expansions in Medicaid...

End-stage renal disease (ESRD), or kidney failure, is a debilitating, costly, and increasingly common medical condition. Little is known about how different financing approaches affect ESRD outcomes and delivery of care. This paper presents results from a comparative review of 12 countries with...

The purpose of the study is to investigate technical efficiency and productivity change of a sample of Greek Hospitals over the period 1998 - 2005. Efficiency and productivity measurement became a crucial issue in Greece after the launching of health reforms in 2001, with the legislative Act No....

In this paper we use Data Envelopment Analysis and the Malmquist Productivity Index and its decompositions to assess the productive efficiency and productivity of the in-patient clinics of a large Greek University General Hospital. Clinics are represented by means of a simple model whereby they...

Every minute, at least one woman dies from pregnancy and childbirth complications; a further 20 suffer injury, infection or disease. Despite medical advances, and years of policy declarations, this tragic situation remains particularly severe in developing countries, violating a fundamental...