Since the seminal work of Oates (1972) on scal federalism, a central question of public finance has been which level of a federation should be as- signed the provision of public goods. In this paper we study the problem of a government that is to choose the optimal...

In this note we explore the welfare properties of access restrictions to health care based on cost effectiveness. We show that such instrument can improve the average effectiveness of health care, but it is optimal only under specific assumptions relating to the shape of the welfare function and...

In this note we explore the welfare properties of the cost effectiveness criterion as an instrument to improve the appropriateness of health care. We show that such instrument is optimal only under specific assumptions relating to the shape of the welfare function and the utility of health care.

Public service provision has undergone a significant process of reform through the reduction of vertical integration in its supply and the introduction of competition. The aim of these reforms is to increase efficiency and ultimately to improve welfare, but these goals can be reached only if the...

This article examines the resource allocation process in the internal market for health care and argue that the observed allocation is the result of the maximisation procedure of different agents, whose behaviour might not be fully detected by the system and whose preferences might not even...