This paper examines the efficiency of the German hospital sector over time and the relative efficiency of public, welfare (both nonprofit) and private (for-profit) hospital sectors using data from the Federal Statistics Office of German hospitals. Efficiency scores were computed using Data...

The article shows the relationships between the COVID and non‑COVID deaths during the first year of the pandemic, compared with the stringency of restrictions imposed and the compulsory spending on healthcare. We compare these relationships among European countries, analysing weekly data and...

The recent economic crisis has provided a stress test for the vulnerability of social institutions. This paper assesses the vulnerability of social institutions in light of the current crisis, and surveys past episodes, when social institutions faced similar challenges. Public pay-as-you-go...

This paper investigates the impact of policies and institutions on health expenditures for a large panel of OECD countries for the period 2000-10. We use a set of 20 policy and institutional indicators developed by the OECD characterising the main supply-side, demand-side, and public management,...

I review the key issues that arise in financing health care delivery. I begin by documenting the key features of health care markets that make financing so central in this sector, such as the skewed and unpredictable nature of health care spending and market failures in health care delivery. I...

This paper compares health care systems. It looks beyond normal academic, political, or journalistic rhetoric, by exactly sticking to facts, i.e. empirical data (in particular data provided by the WHO) and comprehensive case study analyses. The paper finds that a number of myths and common...

It is generally accepted that satisfaction with health care is multidimensional and includes many factors removed from the direct delivery of medical services. The analysis seeks to determine if patient satisfaction with health care varies by type of insurance coverage held and whether overall...

Millions of people in the developing world lack access to curative drugs. Thomas Pogge identifies the cause for this problem in a lack of redistribution across borders. By contrast, this article shows that institutional shortcomings within developing countries are the main issue. The different...

What factors determine a country's spending on health; And what factors determine the share of spending financed by the public sector; Taking these factors into account, is post-communist health spending unusual; For the OECD economies, we find that per capita health spending is strongly related...