Background: Countries with limited resources in economic downturns often reduce government expenditures, of which spending on preventive healthcare with no apparent immediate health impact might be cut down first. This research aims to find the optimum share of preventive health expenditure to...

This dissertation involves two set of papers. The first chapter contains a brief introduction of the issues covered in this thesis. In the first set of papers (chapters 2 and 3) I investigate the use of product standards in international trade. Product standards relate to restrictions on the...