Section I of this chapter briefly reviews the literature on medical spending, which suggests that health expenditures began small but steadily increased throughout history (from 1 percent to 4 percent of GDP), then began to increase rapidly among wealthier developed countries after 1950. Section...

This dissertation is a collection of four essays dealing with topics of the production of health and health care finance. In almost all industrialized countries public health care expenditure continues to increase at a faster pace than GDP. Thus, debate on health policy often focuses on limiting...