This paper analyses the dramatic spread of education and healthcare in Asia and also the large variations in that spread across and within countries over 50 years. Apart from differences in initial conditions and income levels, the nature of the state has also been an important determinant of...

A project aimed at presenting initial results from the implementation of the System of Health Accounts has been carried by the Health Policy Unit at the OECD and experts from thirteen member countries. The results are presented in the form of a comparative study (OECD Health Working Papers No....

The effect of government spending on population’s health has received attention over the past decades. This study re-examines the link between government health expenditures and health outcomes to establish whether government intervention in the health sector improves outcomes. The study uses...

South Africa has an incomplete social protection system without a mandatory pension savings scheme. Designing a universal insurance pension system would allow to reduce the important government funded pension grant system and ensure that the old-age population has decent income. Only 40% of...

We estimate the health costs of supply-side barriers to accessing medical care. The setting is Colombia, where citizens have a constitutional right to health care, but insurance companies that manage delivery impose restrictions on access. We use administrative data on judicial claims for health...

Exploiting unique administrative longitudinal data sets on medical services provided to mothers before- and after- delivery, we estimate the causal effects of two major distinct parental leave reforms on maternal health outcomes, over a period of 5 years postpartum. The health outcomes are...

Billions of dollars have been spent on pilot programs searching for ways to reduce healthcare costs. I study one such program, where hospitals pay doctors bonuses for reducing the total hospital costs of admitted Medicare patients (a “bundled payment�). Doctors respond to the...