The appropriate technique for econometric analysis of WTP (willingness to pay) data is an issue which has not been addressed in many studies of WTP for health and health care. This paper argues that, whether an open-ended question or a payment scale approach is adopted, the way in which WTP is...

Recently, for many health economics researchers, empirical estimation of the monetary valuation of a quality-adjusted life year (QALY) has become an important endeavour. Different philosophical and practical approaches to this have emerged. On the one hand, there is a view that, with health-care...

The notion that consumerist behaviour is, or should be, prevalent amongst individuals seeking health care has underlain recent United States and British governmental policy directives. Consumer groups make similar assumptions when exhorting individuals to treat health care like any other...

Due to resource scarcity, every health system worldwide must decide what services to fund, and conversely, what services not to fund. In order to institute and refine a macro-level priority setting framework within a large, urban health authority in Alberta, Canada, researchers and decision...

The application of Sen's notion of capabilities to problems of the allocation of resources to health in the form of an extra-welfarist framework underlies the justification of quality adjusted life years (QALYs) as the method for valuing the benefits of health care. In this paper we critically...

Introduction: The health care budget in the UK is finite and, as such, decisions must be made about how best to allocate scarce resources. Cost effectiveness analysis, and its overall summary measure of cost per quality adjusted life year (QALY) gained from an intervention, is used as part of...