Health surveys often include a general question on self-assessed health (SAH), usually measured on an ordinal scale with three to five response categories, from 'very poor' or 'poor' to 'very good' or 'excellent'. This paper assesses the scaling of responses on the SAH question. It compares...

The existence of nonlinear interaction in the spread of various infectious diseases is extensively discussed in mathematical biology literature. Since these models are predominantly based on the studies of biological objects with almost no reference to the complexity of social structures, the...

Econometric analysis of convergence processes across countries or regions usually refers to a transition period between an arbitrary chosen starting year and a fictitious steady state. Panel unit root tests and panel cointegration techniques have proved to belong to powerful econometric tools if...

The robustness of the results coming from an econometric application depends to a great extent on the quality of the sampling information. This statement is a general rule that becomes especially relevant in a spatial context where data usually have lots of irregularities. The purpose of our...

In recent times, there has been a renewed interest in cluster policies for supporting industrial and regional development. Prominent economics like Porter and Krugman emphasise the role of clusters in regional competition and show in which way clusters can positively affect competition by...

Traditional measures of spatial industry concentration are restricted to given areal units. They do not make allowance for the fact that concentration may be differently pronounced at various geographical levels. Methods of spatial point pattern analysis allow to measure industry concentration...

In EU countries, knowledge on spatial disparities in overall price level is extremely scarce. When interregional price disparities are large, however, nominal income measures fail to assess prosperity and the catch-up processes of regions. Despite its importance for regional policy, no official...

The TECH research network collected patient-level data on three procedures for treatment of heart attack patients, (catheterization, coronary artery by-pass grafts and percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty), for seventeen countries over an eighteen year period to examine the impact of...

Understanding socioeconomic inequalities in health care is critical for achieving health equity. The aim of this paper is threefold: 1) to quantify inequality in diabetes health care service utilization; 2) to understand determinants of these inequalities in relation to socio-demographic and...

To our knowledge, the present study provides a first time assessment of the contributions of socioeconomic determinants of immunization coverage in India using the recent National Family Health Survey data. Measurement of socioeconomic inequalities in health and health care, and understanding...