The article analyzes to which extent residential proximity from an emergency hospital affects the probability of surviving an acute myocardial infarction (AMI). The critical time aspect in AMI treatment provides an ideal application for evaluating this proximity-outcome hypothesis. Previous...

The incentive structures produced by different institutional arrangements in health systems are important determinants of their performance, and can explain some of the differences in cross-country performance patterns. This paper proposes an approach and quantitative method to investigate how...

Free patient mobility among autonomous providers has been often considered an effective stimulus for enhancing healthcare. However, some jurisdictions may underperform due to the existence of economies of scale and spatial spillovers. Where regions assume the costs of providing care to...

The problem of low access to health care services in Africa remains challenging to policy makers whave thus far not sufficiently contemplated polices on the demand-side factors. To assist ipolicymaking, the present study identifies the key determinants of access to healthcare in Africa...

In the last decades, demographic change coupled with new and expensive medical innovations have put most health care systems in developed countries under financial pressure. Therefore, ensuring efficient service provision is essential for a sustainable health care system. This paper investigates...

A recent debate in the medical literature has arisen around the mortality effects of obesity. Whereas it has been argued that the obese die younger, the data that have become available do not immediately support this. This potentially undermines the hypothesis that modern life with its physical...

The introduction of antibiotics as a medical treatment after World War II helped to dramatically increase life expectancy in the industrialized world. As a consequence of over-prescription the last decades ave however seen a sharp increase in prevalence of multi-resistant bacteria, disarming...

Several European countries have followed the United States in introducing prospective payment for hospitals with the expectation of achieving cost efficiency gains. This article examines whether theoretical expectations of cost efficiency gains can be empirically confirmed. In contrast to...

If specialisation is supposed to reduce costs why is reimbursement often more generous for specialist than non-specialist hospitals? Specialist hospitals claim that gains from specialism are offset because they attract patients with more complex care requirements. We assess the foundation for...