October 19, 2005
Health and Economic Growth: Findings and Policy Implications
Editors: Guillem López-Casasnovas, Berta Rivera and Luis Currais
ISBN: 0-262-12276-6
Publisher: The MIT Press
Price: $45.00/£29.95 (CLOTH)
August 2005, 6 x 9, 400 pp., 30 illus.
Book listing at MIT Press website
Guillem López-Casasnovas is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center of Research in Economics and Health at Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona.
Berta Rivera is Associate Professor of Economics at the University A Coruña in Spain and Research Associate at the Center of Research in Economics and Health at Pompeu Fabra University.
Luis Currais is Associate Professor of Economics at the University A Coruña in Spain and Research Associate at the Center of Research in Economics and Health at Pompeu Fabra University.
Contributors: Harold Alderman, Suchit Arora, Jere R. Behrman, David Bloom, Luis Currais, John Hoddinott, Peter Howitt, Dean T. Jamison, Lawrence J. Lau, Guillem López-Casasnovas, David Mayer-Foulkes, Edward Miguel, Olivier Morand, Joan Muysken, Tomas J. Philipson, Berta Rivera, Xavier Sala-i-Martín, T. Paul Schultz, Jaypee Sevilla, Rodrigo R. Soares, Jia Wang, Adriaan van Zon
Contents
- Introduction: The Role Health Plays in Economic Growth
Guillem López-Casasnovas, Berta Rivera and Luis Currais - Health, Human Capital, and Economic Growth: A Schumpeterian Perspective
Peter Howitt - Health as Principal Determinant of Economic Growth
Adriaan van Zon and Joan Muysken - Health’s Contribution to Economic Growth in an Environment of Partially Endogenous Technical Progress
Dean T. Jamison, Lawrence J. Lau and Jia Wang - On the Health-Poverty Trap
Xavier Sala-i-Martin - Human Development Traps and Economic Growth
David Mayer-Foulkes - Health, Education, and Economic Development
Edward Miguel - Nutrition, Malnutrition, and Economic Growth
Harold Alderman, Jere R. Behrman and John Hoddinott - On Epidemiologic and Economic Transitions: A Historical View
Suchit Arora - Economic Growth, Health, and Longevity in the Very Long Term: Facts and Mechanisms
Olivier F. Morand - Productivity, Labor Markets, and Health
- Productive Benefits of Health: Evidence from Low-Income Countries
T. Paul Schultz - Individual Returns to Health in Brazil: A Quantile Regression Analysis
Berta Rivera and Luis Currais - Quantity of Life and the Welfare Costs of AIDS
- The Economic Cost of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Reassessment
Tomas J. Philipson and Rodrigo R. Soares
Scope: While human capital is a clear determinant of economic growth, only recently has health’s role in this process become a focus of serious academic inquiry. By marrying the separate fields of health economics and growth theory, this groundbreaking book explores the explicit mechanisms by which a population’s individual and collective health status affects a nation’s economic development and performance. International leaders from both fields have contributed original essays that employ theoretical and empirical perspectives on the relationship between health and economic growth, including the relevant interconnections with investment in education, family planning, and productivity.
Each of the book’s five sections deals with a different aspect of this dynamic. These include the channels through which health human capital generates both higher income and individual well-being; the impact of health on long-run development, economic growth, and poverty reduction; the link between human capital levels and fertility and mortality rates, with models that analyze demographic and epidemiological transitions; the quantitative effect of better health on labor productivity and wages; and, finally, the devastating effects of AIDS — in underdeveloped countries the most deadly, most economically adverse, and the surest barrier to growth — on individual well-being and populations, and the prospects for incentives for developing new treatments. A concluding chapter integrates the different microeconomic and macrodynamic analyses and draws some policy conclusions for future study.
November 01, 2002
The Economics of Health Reconsidered: 2nd Edition
Author: Thomas Rice
ISBN: 1-56793-193-6
Publisher: Health Administration Press
This book challenges the field of health economics as it is taught and practiced. As controversial and thought provoking as the first edition, this new edition continues to question the prevailing belief that a competitive healthcare marketplace results in the best outcomes.
This second edition includes a substantial new chapter that provides a much-requested comparison between market and government involvement theories. The author includes information on the health systems of developed nations, and uses this data as evidence to support various conclusions about the role of the markets and the government in healthcare. This edition also includes new material on how the distribution of income affects health, and the application of defined contribution insurance products, Medicare premium support proposals, and medical savings accounts.
The second edition also comes with an online Instructor's Manual and sample course syllabi to aid professors who are using this book in the classroom.
For more information, to order, or to request a review copy, visit Health Administration Press
The Theory of Demand for Health Insurance
Author: John A. Nyman
ISBN: 0-8047-4488-2
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Why do people buy health insurance? Conventional theory holds that people purchase insurance because they prefer the certainty of paying a small premium to the risk of getting sick and paying a large medical bill. Conventional theory also holds that any additional health care that consumers purchase because they have insurance is not worth the cost of producing it. Therefore, economists have promoted policies (copayments and managed care) to reduce consumption of this additional, seemingly low-value care.
This book presents a new theory of consumer demand for health insurance. It holds that people purchase insurance to obtain additional income when they become ill. In effect, insurance companies act to transfer insurance premiums from those who remain healthy to those who become ill. This additional income generates purchases of additional high-value care, often allowing sick persons to obtain life-saving care that they could not otherwise afford.
Regarding risk, the new theory relies on empirical studies showing that consumers actually prefer the risk of a large loss to incurring a smaller loss with certainty. Therefore, if consumers purchase insurance, it is not because they desire to avoid risk. Instead, the new theory suggests consumers simply pay a premium when healthy in exchange for a claim on additional income (effected when insurance pays for the medical care) if they become ill.
Health insurance is substantially more valuable to the consumer under the new theory. The new theory moreover implies that copayments and managed care--central health policies of the last 30 years--were directed at solving problems that largely did not exist. Because these policies either reduced the amount of income transferred to ill persons or limited access to valuable health care, they may have done more harm than good. The new theory also provides a solid theoretical justification for insuring the uninsured and for implementing national health insurance.
To order contact Stanford University Press
October 31, 2002
Distributing Health Care: Economic and Ethical Issues
Authors: Paul Dolan, Jan Abel Olsen
ISBN: 0-19-263253-1
Publisher: Oxford University Press
'The book succeeds in explaining how health economics can be useful and how a better understanding of the depth of the problems that society faces in the distribution of health care can help us address problems in a systematic and incremental fashion... it is a remarkably comprehensive yet accessible text and should prove to be a valuable addition to [the] bookshelf.' - International Journal of Epidemiology
'... interesting, easy to read, and enlightening about economic theory and its application to healthcare... The subjects are presented in a logical, easy to follow sequence, each chapter building appropriately on those that precede it.' - Doody's Journal
This is a new health economics textbook with a difference. It is based firmly in the discipline of economics and, as such, it fills a gap in the health economics market. But, unlike other texts in the area, it is very explicit about the distributive implications of economic models and it provides clear rationale for public involvement in the market for health care. It separates the efficiency reasons for public involvement (based on notions of 'market failure') from the equity reasons (based on the views of society that health care should be distributed according to the notion of health needs rather than according to ability to pay).
The book illustrates the distributional aspects of money flows in the financing and provision of health care, and discusses who are the gainers and who are the losers under different financing arrangements. A central part of the book contains a discussion of those techniques that are increasingly being used to aid decisions about how to distribute health care. Beyond the parameters included in economic evaluation techniques such as cost- benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis, the book discusses some key ethical issues that are relevant for decision-makers when setting health care priorities.
- Focuses on health care as a unique economic commodity
- Sets out key economic and ethical issues underlying distribution of health care
- Relevant to wide audience of economists and non-economists
- Compact, clear and focussed
- Logical
- Non-mathematical
- Timely - distributing health care is currently a hot topic
Readership: University students on health economics and public health courses, health economists, academics and teachers of public health, community health, prevention and promotion courses.
Price: £27.95 (Paperback)
Publication date: 31 October 2002
168 pages, numerous figures, 216mm x 138mm
A sample of this book is available in PDF format.
Order from OUP
Contents
- Health care and health
- Economics and efficiency
- Justice and fairness
- Efficiency-motivated responses to market failures
- Equity-motivated responses to market failures
- Providing health care: finance and regulation
- Economic evaluation techniques
- The ethics of economic evaluation in priority setting
- Towards a new health economics?
September 01, 2002
Pricing the Priceless: A Health Care Conundrum
Author: Joseph P. Newhouse
ISBN: 0-262-14079-9
Publisher: MIT Press
The health care industry differs from most other industries in that medical pricing is primarily administered by the government and private insurers and in that it uses several types of contracts. Providers may receive a fixed sum for all necessary services within a given period of time, for the necessary services to treat a given condition, or for each specific service. The industry is changing dramatically, offering many natural experiments to aid understanding of the economics of pricing for health care.
In Pricing the Priceless, Joseph Newhouse explains the different pricing systems and how they affect resource allocation and efficiency, focusing on the efficiency of pricing. He also discusses larger issues of equity, fair distribution of burden, and social justice. Although most of the examples are American-based, the same issues arise in all medical care financing and delivery systems, and the theories and models are general enough to apply to many institutional contexts. The topics include Medicare, managed care, the contemporary integration of health insurance and medical care, the management of moral hazard and stinting, uncertainty and risk aversion, the demand for health insurance, agency relationships, information disparities, regulation, and supply-side and demand-side selection.
For more information or to order: MIT Press
November 29, 2001
Economic Evaluation of Health Care: Merging Theory with Practice
Editors: Michael Drummond, Alistair McGuire
ISBN: 0-19-263176-4
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Following on from, and complementing, the hugely successful Methods for Economic Evaluation of Health Care Programmes 2e, this book is a thorough and rigorous discussion of the methodological principles and recent advances in the rapidly advancing field of theory and practice of economic evaluation in health care. Written by an internationally acclaimed group of authors, it provides an in-depth discussion of the latest theoretical advances and gives comprehensive reviews of the available literature. All the main areas of economic evaluation are covered, including the methods for measuring costs and outcomes, the collection of data alongside clinical studies, way of handling uncertainty, discounting and issues relating to the transferability of economic data.
Economic Evaluation in Health Care will be ideal for those studying economic evaluation on postgraduate or professional courses in health economics or public health. Published in 2001.
For more information or to order visit OUP
January 01, 2000
Handbook of Health Economics
Editors: Anthony J. Culyer, Joseph P. Newhouse
ISBN: 0-444-82290-9
Publisher: Elsevier
The most comprehensive available collection of essays on contemporary health economics. A must for the bookshelves of all serious health economists.
Two vols. 1A, pp. xxiii + 890; 1B, pp. xxvi + 1,190, plus indices.
For more information contact Elsevier
January 01, 1997
Being Reasonable About the Economics of Health: Selected Essays by Alan Williams
Editors/Compilers: Anthony J. Culyer, Alan K. Maynard
ISBN: 1-85898-648-6
Publisher: Edward Elgar
This book gathers together, for the first time, a selection of the most important works of one of the world's most distinguished health economists - Alan Williams. It covers an extensive range of subjects in which Alan Williams has been decisively influential, and combines a moral approach to health economics with theoretical clarity and careful empirical application. Another must for all health economists' bookshelves.
pp. xvi + 371.
For more information contact Edward Elgar
January 01, 1996
Competition and Monopoly in Medical Care
Author: H.E. Frech III
ISBN: 0-8447-3884-0
Publisher: AEI Press
Competition has become more important in health care in recent years, both in fact and in theory. The study of competition is itself a growth industry. The literature is large, but diffuse and poorly connected.
This book is designed to survey synthesize the literature, to explain what is known from the research literature about how competition and monopoly operate in the health sector. The main topics include competition among hospitals, physicians and health care plans. Adverse selection and supply-induced-demand also get chapter length treatments.
Available from AEI Press
Phone: 800-343-4499
January 01, 1992
The Political Economy of Social Policy
Author: Anthony J. Culyer
ISBN: 0751200255
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing Limited
For more information contact Ashgate
January 01, 1991
The Economics of Health
Editor: Anthony J. Culyer
ISBN: 1-85278-176-9
Publisher: Edward Elgar
This book is number 12 in the "The International Library of Critical Writings in Economics series" series.
This important collection of 44 articles, dating from 1967 to 1987 represents a careful selection of the best articles and is classified according to eight fields within health economics. It thus provides a comprehensive cross-section of the large and disparate literature on the subject. It forms, in a real sense, a book which will be invaluable for teachers and researchers who wish to have these frequently cited articles easily to hand. It will be essential for the many economists who will have difficulty in gaining access to the very diverse sources from which the material has been drawn.
pp. 840.
For more information contact Edward Elgar