We use a sample of OECD countries in order to better understand why the US health care expenditure as a percentage of its Gross Domestic Product («health care effort») is so far above any other. To this end we employ a descriptive cross-country methodology based partially on econometric...

The paper analyses the inter and intragenerational redistribution effects of the public pensions system in Spain. This is achieved by first comparing the expected present value of life-time income transfers (PVT) and internal rates of return (IRR) of different population cohorts. Secondly, we...

This paper uses a combination of the 2006 Catalan Health and Health & Examination Surveys to compute the size of weight and height self-reporting biases. The underlying determinants of these self-reporting biases are also analysed, placing special emphasis on examining the role played by social...

Wide cross-country variation in obesity rates has been reported between European Union member states. Although the existing cross-country differences have not been analyzed in depth, they contain important information on health production determinants. In this paper we apply a methodology for...

The extent to which equality in the access to and the financing of health care reduces inequalities in health is a key question for health-care reform policy-making. Cross-country studies, when they exist suffer from marked comparability limitations due to data heterogeneity and differences...

Wide cross-country variation in obesity rates have been reported within European Union member states. However, health production determinants for these differences have been largely overlooked in the health economics literature. In this paper we propose a methodology for conducting standardized...

This paper computes first the internal rates of return of different population cohorts. Secondly, we study the intragenerational aspects by calculating the returns over life-time contributions for workers of different categories, grouped by earnings, gender and marital status. Under a set of...

The need for long-term fiscal projections is self evident. Of these projections, pension expenditure is one of the most important since firstly it represents a large share of total expenditure, and secondly because of the positive correlation between this variable and demographic ageing. In this...