The person tradeoff (PTO) is commonly used in health economic applications. However, to date it has no theoretical basis. The purpose of this paper is to provide this basis from a set of assumptions that together justify the most common applications of the PTO method. Our analysis identifies the...

A common assumption in health policy studies is QALY-maximization: Policies yielding greater QALYs are preferred to those yielding fewer QALYs. However, most empirical studies report aversion to inequality, or the desire to sacrifice some QALYs to obtain a more equal distribution of health in...