Verlagsinfo: "A health-economics textbook for the rest of us. The economics of healthcare are messy. For most consumers, there's minimal control around costs or services. Sometimes doctors get paid a lot; other times they don't get paid at all. Insurance and drug companies are bad, except when...

Using case studies from Germany, Britain, the United States and Japan, this text traces cross-national differences in contemporary training regimes back to the political settlement achieved among employers in skill-intensive industries, artisans and early trade unions in the 19th century