Aims-We describe differences in in-hospital mortality between Scotland and England and test whether these differences are robust to controlling for the case-mix of patients. In spite of Scotland and England having much in common in regard to their hospital systems and populations we observe...

The aim of The Elgar Companion to Health Economics is to take an audience of advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers to the frontier of research in health economics, by providing them with short and easily readable introductions to key topics. The volume brings together 50...

This paper examines the profitability of horizontal merger in an open economy with Cournot competition. We find that duopoly is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for domestic merger to be profitable. A cross-border merger, however, can be profitable from any market structure. <br><br> Keywords;...

This comprehensive collection brings together more than 50 contributions from some of the most influential researchers in health economics. It authoritatively covers theoretical and empirical issues in health economics, with a balanced range of material on equity and efficiency in health care...

Following major reforms of the British National Health Service (NHS) in 1990, the roles of purchasing and providing health services were separated, with the relationship between purchasers and providers governed by contracts. Using a mixed multinomial logit analysis, we show how this policy...

The extent to which remuneration systems affect the behaviour of health care professionals is of considerable importance in the administration of publicly funded heath care systems. Using data across two jurisdictions in the United Kingdom, in only one of which remuneration was changed, we...

This paper uses a unique individual level administrative data set to analyse the participation of health professionals in the NHS after training. The data set contains information on over 1,000 dentists who received Dental Vocational Training in Scotland between 1995 and 2006. Using a dynamic...

In both the British National Health Service (NHS) and U.S. Medicare, recent emphasis has been on contracts with payment based only on the number of patients treated. It is shown that, without direct monitoring of quality or effort to reduce costs, such contracts are efficient only when it is...