This series from the NBER presents new research by leading economists on current health care policy issues. The papers … in this seventh volume, originally presented at the annual Frontiers in Health Policy Research conference held in … Washington D.C. in the summer of 2003, reflect the economic challenges faced by policymakers and health care professionals in an …

health debates in the United States for some time. Compression of morbidity would lead to longer life but less rapid medical … Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, we examine how health is changing by time period until death. We show that functional … measures of health are improving, and more so the farther away from death the person is surveyed. Disease rates are relatively …

health improvements, which we estimate at 1.82 years of quality-adjusted life. However, these were roughly offset by … health by way of behavioral improvements and public health are possible. …

This article describes the anatomy of health insurance. It begins by considering the optimal design of health insurance ….The analysis then turns to the operation of health insurance markets. Economists generally favor choice in health insurance for the … encourages plans to provide services efficiently. But choice in health insurance is a mixed blessing because of adverse selection …

transactions enter national economic accounts, including inter-industry flows and national health accounts, as well as aggregate …

birth weight babies increased by roughly $40,000 per birth between 1950 and 1990. The health improvements resulting from …

in future health care costs, the rate of decline in smoking, the proportion of smoking that should be attributed to the …

cost differences for 8 conditions representing over 10 percent of total health expenditures. They are: heart attacks …

In this review we synthesize what is known about the relationship between education and health. A large number of … studies from both rich and poor countries show that education is associated with better health. While previous work has … with better health differ depending on the level of development. We illustrate this approach by comparing the effects of …