This paper reviews the public sector role in the provision of health care. A first role of the government is to use tax policy to correct externalities associated with individual behaviors. Estimates suggest that the external effects of many `sins' such as alcohol consumption are greater than...

Estimating medical care productivity is a central economic challenge. This paper develops a satellite account for the US health sector that appropriately measures health care productivity and applies that to the elderly population between 1999 and 2012. The central output of the satellite...

Mortality rates in the US fell more rapidly during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries than any other period in American history. This decline coincided with an epidemiological transition and the disappearance of a mortality "penalty" associated with living in urban areas. There is little...

Using two hundred years of national and Massachusetts data on medical care and health, we examine how central medical care is to life expectancy gains. While common theories about medical care cost growth stress growing demand, our analysis highlights the importance of supply side factors,...