The German statutory health insurance market was exposed to competition in 1996. To avoid adverse selection, a prospective risk compensation scheme was introduced in 1994. Due to their low contribution rates, company-based sickness funds were able to attract a lot of new members. We analyze –...

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...

Due to regional competition and patient migration, the efficiency of healthcare provision at the regional level is subject to spatial dependence. We address this issue by applying a spatial autoregressive model to longitudinal data from Germany at the district (`Kreis') level. The empirical...

Background: This paper contributes to the evidence-base on prices and alcohol use by presenting meta-analytic summaries of price and income elasticities for alcohol beverages. The analysis improves on previous meta-analyses by correcting for outliers and publication bias. Methods: Adjusting for...

Argentina hit world news headlines in 2002 due to the largest debt-default in history and a sudden economic collapse reminiscent of economic statistics from the Great Depression. In this article, we focus on other consequences of the crisis that are not so obvious, but that may linger for...

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...

In this paper, we analyse the role of knowledge in an individual's production of health. We investigate the importance of various factors which potentially influence an individual's decision to seek health related knowledge, and then estimate what impact such knowledge has on individual health....