Handbook of Health EconomicsA J. Culyer, J.P. Newhouse The Handbook of Health Economics provide an up-to-date survey of the burgeoning literature in health economics. As a relatively recent subdiscipline of economics, health economics has been remarkably successful. It has made or stimulated numerous contributions to various areas of the main discipline: the theory of human capital; the economics of insurance; principal-agent theory; asymmetric information; econometrics; the theory of incomplete markets; and the foundations of welfare economics, among others. Perhaps it has had an even greater effect outside the field of economics, introducing terms such as opportunity cost, elasticity, the margin, and the production function into medical parlance. Indeed, health economists are likely to be as heavily cited in the clinical as in the economics literature. Partly because of the large share of public resources that health care commands in almost every developed country, health policy is often a contentious and visible issue; elections have sometimes turned on issues of health policy. Showing the versatility of economic theory, health economics and health economists have usually been part of policy debates, despite the vast differences in medical care institutions across countries. The publication of the first Handbook of Health Economics marks another step in the evolution of health economics. |
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adverse selection allocation alternative analysis approach average benefits capital coinsurance competition consumer consumption contract copayment cost sharing cream skimming Culyer demand for health discussed doctors Econometrics effect efficiency elasticity empirical employees enrollees Equation estimates example function Gerdtham gross investment health care Health Economics health expenditure health insurance health plans health services health status hospital incentives income income effect increase individual induce demand inputs insurance plans intervention J.P. Newhouse Journal of Health labor literature managed care managed care plans marginal cost McGuire measures Medicaid Medicare moral hazard optimal outcomes patients Pauly percent period physician predicted preferences premium price index problem production programs providers purchaser QALYs quantity reduced regression reimbursement Review risk adjustment risk sharing sample Section sector stock of health studies subsidy supplier tion treatment utility variables variation wage welfare economics