The use of formulae has become widespread in recent years across most developed countries. In the UK, a conservative estimate is that annually £150 billion of public service expenditure is distributed using formulae, in services such as health care, local government, social security and higher...

Long waiting times for inpatient treatment in the UK National Health Service have been a source of popular and political concern, and therefore a target for policy initiatives. In the London Patient Choice Project, patients at risk of breaching inpatient waiting time targets were offered the...

In consumer theory, the principles of Lancaster's characteristics approach and hedonic pricing appear to offer the most promising insight into choice when qualitative aspects are important. The paper reconciles these principles with the family of non-parametric frontier estimation methods known...