Taxes and other fiscal measures on health-related commodities are in widespread use. Alcoholic beverages and tobacco products have been subjected to taxation for a long time in most countries. Several OECD governments have passed legislation to increase existing taxes or to introduce new taxes...

The economic crisis that started in 2008 has had a profound impact on the lives of citizens. Millions of people lost their job, saw their life-savings disappear and experienced prolonged financial hardship. The economic crisis has also led a number of OECD governments to introduce austerity...

There is much interest in the Japanese health care system from the perspective of other OECD countries. The Japanese health care system appears to perform well. What explains this apparently good performance? This paper aims both to provide a description of how the Japanese health system works...

There is a considerable interest in some OECD countries in understanding how greater choice in health markets can be combined with the equity and efficiency goals of health systems. This paper reviews the system of free choice of insurer in basic mandatory health insurance that was introduced...

The OECD Social Expenditure data base (SOCX) allows the monitoring of trends in aggregate social expenditure and changes in its composition. But aggregate social expenditure may sometimes fail to reflect the true ‘effort’ of a country in providing social support. Account needs to be taken of...

<OL><LI>Economic growth is, ultimately, the result of the myriad of transactions which take place in a market economy. Similarly, the distribution of income depends on who has ownership of factors of production, how much they can sell them for, and whether the resultant income is redistributed or not....</li></ol>

<OL><LI>Health systems in OECD countries are under pressure to improve their performance. Against that background, this paper has three main aims: <OL><LI>To compare concepts of the ‘performance’ of health care systems developed by the WHO and by the OECD, with ‘performance frameworks’ adopted in...</li></ol></li></ol>

<OL><LI>Governments often look to private health insurance (PHI) as a possible means of addressing some health system challenges. For example, they may consider enhancing its role as an alternative source of health financing and a way to increase system capacity, or promoting it as a tool to further...</li></ol>

<OL><LI>Waiting times for elective surgery are a significant health policy concern in approximately half of all OECD countries. The main objectives of the OECD Waiting Times project were to: <I>i)</I> review policy initiatives to reduce waiting times in 12 OECD countries; and <I>ii)</I> to investigate the causes of...</i></i></li></ol>

This paper provides an overview of past and projected future trends in adult overweight and obesity in OECD countries. Using individual-level data from repeated cross-sectional national surveys, some of the main determinants and pathways underlying the current obesity epidemic are explored, and...