Health Economics is the most complete text available on the economics of health behavior and health care delivery. Appropriate both for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students of economics, this text provides key analytical tools required for understanding current research, presenting empirical evidence on each issue and summarizing results for easy comprehension. Issues discussed include the "cost explosion" in health care, the power of medical associations, the search for remuneration systems with favorable incentives, and technological change in medicine. Without neglecting ethical concerns, modern microeconomic theory is applied to formulate theoretical implications and predictions, and key arguments are summarized to facilitate follow-up, review, and documentation. Rather than simplifying the issues facing today's healthcare systems, the book models existing complexities as they are, adapting economics to reflect the views of the average person.

Readers will know the issues and future challenges confronting healthcare systems, have the tools used in the international literature for analyzing these issues and challenges and be acquainted with the crucial stylized facts and pieces of econometric evidence Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Autorentext

Peter Zweifel is emeritus professor from the University of Zürich and is a specialist for microeconomic theory and its applications. Aaron Praktiknjo is an Assistant Professor of Energy Resource and Innovation Economics at RWTH Aachen University and is, among others, a specialist for energy security. Georg Erdmann is Professor for Energy Systems at the Berlin University of Technology and member of the independent expert group who assess the German energy transformation in Germany on behalf of the federal government.

Inhalt
Economic Valuation of Life and Health.- Individuals as Producers of Their Health.- Empirical Studies of the Production of Health.- Health Goods, Market Failure and Justice.- Optimal Health Insurance Contracts.- Risk Selection in Health Insurance Markets.- Physicians as Suppliers of Medical Services.- Hospital Services and Efficiency.- Paying Providers.- Forms of Delivery of Medical Care.- The Market for Pharmaceuticals.- The Political Economy of Health Care.- Future Challenges to Health Care Systems.