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...

Health economists have studied the determinants of the expected value of health status as a function of medical and nonmedical inputs, often finding small marginal effects of the former. This paper argues that both types of input have an additional benefit, viz. a reduced variability of health...

We present a generalized solution to Grossman's model of health capital (1972), relaxing the widely used assumption that individuals can adjust their health stock instantaneously to an "optimalʺ level without adjustment costs. The Grossman model then predicts the existence of a health threshold...

We study an enhanced fee-for-service model for primary care physicians in the Family Health Groups (FHG) in Ontario, Canada. In contrast to the traditional fee-for-service (FFS) model, the FHG model includes targeted fee increases, extended hours, performance-based initiatives, and patient...

Internationale Vergleiche der öffentlichen Gesundheitsausgaben und der gesundheitlichen Wirkungsziele (Outcomes) geben Hinweise auf Ineffizienzen bzw. eine bestehende Überversorgung im deutschen Gesundheitssystem. Im Interesse einer wirtschaftlichen Versorgung wären diese abzubauen. Der Abbau...

We use a calibrated stochastic life-cycle model of endogenous health spending, asset accumulation and retirement to investigate the causes behind the increase in health spending and life expectancy over the period 1965-2005. We estimate that technological change along with the increase in the...

The epidemiological transition, which has already passed the developed world, is still progressing in many developing countries. A particular problem associated with this transition is the under-diagnosis and lack of treatment of chronic diseases, and these may exhibit SES gradients and...

Self-selection into healthcare options biases estimates of the effects of healthcare on health outcomes. We exploit exogenous variation in the cost of formal-sector care to show that the use of such care improves short-term health outcomes for acutely ill children in Tanzania. Better...

Background: Physician-induced demand (PID) is an important theory to test given the longstanding controversy surrounding it. Empirical health economists have been challenged to find natural experiments to test the theory because PID is tantamount to strong income effects. The data requirements...