The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate on population aging and growth in health expenditures. The Red Herring hypothesis, i.e., that hospital expenditures are driven by the occurrence of mortal illnesses, and not patients’ age, forms the basis of the study. The data applied in...

The purpose of this text is to describe a procedure that can be used to construct a Herfindahl-Hirschman index of market concentration based on the following two pieces of information: <p> <p> a) An output measure of individual producers located in areas identified with a postal code. <p> b) A matrix...</p></p></p>

Based on Norwegian register data we show that having a lone parent in the terminal phase of life significantly affects the offspring’s labor market activity. The employment propen-sity declines by around 1 percentage point among sons and 2 percentage points among daughters during the years...

In this paper we test the 'red herring' hypothesis for expenditures on long-term care. The main contribution of this paper is that we assess the 'red herring' hypothesis using an aggregated measure that allows us to control for entering the final period of life on the individual level. In...

Empirical studies show that years of schooling are positively correlated with good health, and that education is better correlated with health than with variables like occupation and income. This can be explained in different ways as the implication may go from education to health, from health...

The purpose of this paper is to gain more knowledge concerning individuals’ preferences for alternative GPs within a municipality. We have data on the population’s first, second and third choice of GPs. The data stem from the entry form the inhabitant filled in as a result of the...

In the present paper we examine how different sets of beliefs about the health effects of smoking would influence a rational smoker. By embedding the rational addiction theory in a Grossman model of health investment modified to take account of psychological adaptation effects, we present a...

We study the interaction between patient shortage and patients' waiting time to get an appointment. From a theoretical model we predict that physicians experiencing a shortage of patients offer their patients a shorter waiting time than their unconstrained colleagues. This happens because a...

A good health is important for having a good life. This is supported by surveys on happiness. However, at least after a certain age, the health state deteriorates naturally over time due to ageing. Nevertheless, research reports show that old people in average are satisfied with their health...

This article examines the extent to which differences in life-expectancy are associated with shifts in average hospital costs for different age groups. The size of the shift is important because it makes a large difference to the importance of demographic factors when projecting future health...