A separation of provider and purchaser roles - together with performance-based reimbursement - were recently introduced in several county councils, which are the local governments that provide and fund almost all health care in Sweden. These changes have been motivated by efficiency and consumer...

This chapter by Emile Tompa provides a comprehensive review of the theoretical underpinnings and empirical evidence of the health-productivity relationship with an emphasis on the public policy implications. This relationship goes well beyond the obvious effect of health on capacity to work both...

In order to achieve an ‘optimal health system’ health policies should not only be focused on the supply of health care, but also take cognisance of the demand for health care. Studies of health care demand in South Africa are scarce due to considerable data limitations. This analysis...

Supply-side solutions to health-care provision dominate the South African debate about health care. These solutions are often premised on views that health resources are too concentrated in the private health sector – which supposedly serves only a small minority of the population – and thus...

Based on a survey given to a random sample of Swedish 20-40 year old females, this paper investigates through which channels women receive information about the general risk levels of age-related female infertility and how the different channels affect women’s perceptions of the risk. We find...

In many health care systems primary care physicians act as 'gatekeepers' to secondary care. We investigates the impact of the UK fundholding scheme under which general practices could elect to hold a budget to meet the costs of elective surgery for their patients. We use a differences in...

Why is Europe's employment rate almost 10 percent lower than that of the United States? This "jobs gap" has typically been blamed on the rigidity of European labor markets. But in <i>Services and Employment</i>, an international group of leading labor economists suggests quite a different explanation....

The heart of the model is this: to quote Pogo, "We have met the enemy and it is us." We doctors are the problem, not because wqe are venal or self-serving or insulated from reality. Far from it. Most of us are hard-working, dedicated professionals. We are the problem, though, because of the way...

There's limited information available about measuring the quality of medical care that is targeted to the needs of older patients. And there's very limited pressure on the system to provide high quality geriatric care. Why is that? Because the quality measures haven't been adequately developed...

The Planning Commission constituted a high level committee for comprehensively examining the different aspects influencing the performance of the services sector and suggest short-term and long-term policy measures to improve and sustain its competitiveness in the coming years.