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Printhealth economics
From The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, Second Edition, 2008
Edited by
Steven
N.
Durlauf
and
Lawrence
E.
Blume
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Abstract
Health care expenditures form an ever-increasing burden in most developed countries, especially the United States, where they accounted for 16.0 per cent of GDP in 2004, up from 5.1 per cent of GDP in 1960. These cost increases alone suggest that health economics is a dynamic field of economic research, but the importance and the interest of the field are driven by broader considerations. This article delineates important market failures and research issues in health and health care, the relationship between income and health, methodological issues in the measurement of health, and quality issues in the measurement of health care.
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Keywords
absolute deprivation–health hypothesis; income–health hypotheses; adverse selection; asymmetric information; crowding out; deadweight loss; diffusion of technology; disability, economics of; gradient effects; health capital; health economics; health insurance; health maintenance organizations (HMOs); hospital economics; managed competition; market failures in health care; Medicaid (USA); medical practice licensing; Medicare (USA); moral hazard; mortality; non-profit organizations; nutrition; payroll tax; pharmaceutical industry; RAND Health Insurance Experiment; tax expenditures; well-beingBack to top
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See Also
Thanks to Rashi Fein, Robert Haveman, John Mullahy, Nathan Tefft and Jason Fletcher for helpful suggestions.
How to cite this article
Wolfe, Barbara. "health economics." The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Second Edition. Eds. Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics Online. Palgrave Macmillan. 02 September 2010 <http://www.dictionaryofeconomics.com/article?id=pde2008_H000031> doi:10.1057/9780230226203.0713
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