A popularly-held tenet in health economics is that, as a consequence of the presence of insurance subsidies for treatment costs, health care markets differ so significantly from hypothetical 'perfect competition' that competition and antitrust laws possibly should not be enforced in health care...

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Foreword -- Preface -- Kenneth Arrow and the Changing Economics of Health Care: ‘‘Why Arrow? Why Now?’’ -- Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care (American Economic Review, 1963) -- PART I Supply, Demand, and Health Care Competition -- General...

In many countries hospital regulation undergoes fundamental change. In reaction to steadily increasing costs, authorities switch from cost of service regulation to prospective payment systems (PPS). While it seems clear that this new scheme sets strong cost saving incentives, this is not so...

This short essay surveys recent literature on the competitive saving motive and its broader economic implications. The competitive saving motive is defined as saving to improve one's status relative to other competitors for dating and marriage partners. Here are some of the key results of the...

A version of the Becker-Lancaster characteristics model featuring quality-quantity trade offs reveals a number of surprising market behaviors that can result from price regulations that are imposed on competitive markets for products that have adjustable non-price attributes. Quality need not...

Der vorliegende Sammelband enthält ausgewählte Beiträge des sechsten Duisburg-Ilmenau-Bayreuther Oberseminars zur Gesundheitsökonomie und Sozialpolitik (DIBOGS). Dieser Workshop hat vom 29. bis 31. Oktober 2009 in Berlin stattgefunden. Ein Schwerpunkt des vierten Bandes dieser Schriftenreihe...