Argentinien machte 2002 weltweit Schlagzeilen aufgrund eines plötzlichen wirtschaftlichen Zusammenbruchs und der daraus folgenden größten Staatsverschuldung in der Geschichte des Landes. In dieser Studie konzentrieren wir uns auf andere Konsequenzen der Krise, die weniger offensichtlich sind,...

In the last decades, demographic change coupled with new and expensive medical innovations have put most health care systems in developed countries under financial pressure. Therefore, ensuring efficient service provision is essential for a sustainable health care system. This paper investigates...

We estimate the marginal cost of life using age- and gender-specific health care expenditures and mortality rates of the 26 Swiss cantons for the period 1997 to 2006. We show triple the marginal cost of saving a life for women as compared to men, reflecting a lower marginal elasticity of medical...

Medicare has recently experienced the largest expansion of benefits since its in- ception: the inclusion of prescription drug coverage under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003. The policy debate has mainly focused on estimating the cost of implementing the...

Good health is a determinant of economic growth and a component of well-being. This paper discusses and synthesizes economic models of individual and household behavior, showing how they may be used to illuminate health policy making in low-income countries. The models could help address...

Good health is a determinant of economic growth and a component of well-being. This paper discusses and synthesizes economic models of individual and household behavior, showing how they may be used to illuminate health policy making in low-income countries. The models could help address...

The paper investigates birth weight and its correlates in Kenya using nationally representative data collected by the government in the early 1990s. I find that immunization of the mother against tetanus during pregnancy is strongly associated with improvements in birth weight. Other factors...

The inefficiency of health care provision presents a major health policy concern in Germany. In order to address the issue of efficiency comprehensively - i.e. at the level of the entire system of health care provision rather than individual service providers - empirical analyses are often based...

This paper estimates the health returns to education, using data on identical twins. I adopt a twin-differences strategy in order to obtain estimates that are not biased by unobserved family background and genetic traits that may affect both education and health. I further investigate to what...

It has been established in the medical literature that self-medicating with imperfect information about either the use of a genuine or counterfeit drug or based on wrong self-diagnosis of ailment, which is predominant especially in developing countries, is a risky investment in health capital....