The first edition of Applied Health Economics did an expert job of showing how the availability of large scale data sets and the rapid advancement of advanced econometric techniques can help health economists and health professionals make sense of information better than ever before. This second edition has been revised and updated throughout and includes a new chapter on the description and modelling of individual health care costs, thus broadening the book’s readership to those working on risk adjustment and health technology appraisal. The text also fully reflects the very latest advances in the health economics field and the key journal literature. Large-scale survey datasets, in particular complex survey designs such as panel data, provide a rich source of information for health economists. They offer the scope to control for individual heterogeneity and to model the dynamics of individual behaviour. However, the measures of outcome used in health economics are often qualitative or categorical. These create special problems for estimating econometric models. The dramatic growth in computing power over recent years has been accompanied by the development of methods that help to solve these problems. The purpose of this book is to provide a practical guide to the skills required to put these techniques into practice. Practical applications of the methods are illustrated using data on health from the British Health and Lifestyle Survey (HALS), the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), the US Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) and Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). There is a strong emphasis on applied work, illustrating the use of relevant computer software with code provided for Stata. Familiarity with the basic syntax and structure of Stata is assumed. The Stata code and extracts from the statistical output are embedded directly in the main text and explained at regular intervals. The book is built around empirical case studies, rather than general theory, and the emphasis is on learning by example. It presents a detailed dissection of methods and results of some recent research papers written by the authors and their colleagues. Relevant methods are presented alongside the Stata code that can be used to implement them and the empirical results are discussed at each stage. This text brings together the theory and application of health economics and econometrics, and will be a valuable reference for applied economists and students of health economics and applied econometrics.

Health is one of the most crucial parts of our lives. To a great degree, factors such as living conditions, income, education, age, or even relations with our environment, health-related policies and access to health services might have a potential impact on health-related outcomes. Therefore, it is important to evaluate to what extent our health is affected by such factors using econometric and quantitative techniques. The application of such methods within the scope of health-related problems provides a more robust approach to individuals along with policymakers and increases the efficiency of government policies. This book gathers selected studies addressing both quantitative economic and econometric applications within the scope of health with the intention of aiming at the graduate and post-graduate students, researchers and academics of econometrics, economics and related social sciences. The book consists of ten chapters. The last chapter is a special chapter allocated to “Young Researchers” in order to support and encourage their studies.

Health Econometrics Using Stataby Partha Deb, Edward C. Norton, and Willard G. Manning provides an excellent overview of the methods used to analyze data on healthcare expenditure and use. Aimed at researchers, graduate students, and practitioners, this book introduces readers to widely used methods, shows them how to perform these methods in Stata, and illustrates how to interpret the results. Each method is discussed in the context of an example using an extract from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. After the overview chapters, the book provides excellent introductions to a series of topics aimed specifically at those analyzing healthcare expenditure and use data. The basic topics of linear regression, the generalized linear model, and log and Box-Cox models are covered with a tight focus on the problems presented by these data. Using this foundation, the authors cover the more advanced topics of models for continuous outcome with mass points, count models, and models for heterogeneous effects. Finally, they discuss endogeneity and how to address inference questions using data from complex surveys. The authors use their formidable experience to guide readers toward useful methods and away from less recommended ones. Their discussion of "health econometric myths" and the chapter presenting a framework for approaching health econometric estimation problems are especially useful for this aspect. , count models, and models for heterogeneous effects. Finally, they discuss endogeneity and how to address inference questions using data from complex surveys. The authors use their formidable experience to guide readers toward useful methods and away from less recommended ones. Their discussion of "health econometric myths" and the chapter presenting a framework for approaching health econometric estimation problems are especially useful for this aspect.

The second edition of a comprehensive state-of-the-art graduate level text on microeconometric methods, substantially revised and updated. The second edition of this acclaimed graduate text provides a unified treatment of two methods used in contemporary econometric research, cross section and data panel methods. By focusing on assumptions that can be given behavioral content, the book maintains an appropriate level of rigor while emphasizing intuitive thinking. The analysis covers both linear and nonlinear models, including models with dynamics and/or individual heterogeneity. In addition to general estimation frameworks (particular methods of moments and maximum likelihood), specific linear and nonlinear methods are covered in detail, including probit and logit models and their multivariate, Tobit models, models for count data, censored and missing data schemes, causal (or treatment) effects, and duration analysis. Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data was the first graduate econometrics text to focus on microeconomic data structures, allowing assumptions to be separated into population and sampling assumptions. This second edition has been substantially updated and revised. Improvements include a broader class of models for missing data problems; more detailed treatment of cluster problems, an important topic for empirical researchers; expanded discussion of "generalized instrumental variables" (GIV) estimation; new coverage (based on the author's own recent research) of inverse probability weighting; a more complete framework for estimating treatment effects with panel data, and a firmly established link between econometric approaches to nonlinear panel data and the "generalized estimating equation" literature popular in statistics and other fields. New attention is given to explaining when particular econometric methods can be applied; the goal is not only to tell readers what does work, but why certain "obvious" procedures do not. The numerous included exercises, both theoretical and computer-based, allow the reader to extend methods covered in the text and discover new insights.

The Oxford Handbook of Health Economics provides an accessible and authoritative guide to health economics, intended for scholars and students in the field, as well as those in adjacent disciplines including health policy and clinical medicine. The chapters stress the direct impact of health economics reasoning on policy and practice, offering readers an introduction to the potential reach of the discipline. Contributions come from internationally-recognized leaders in health economics and reflect the worldwide reach of the discipline. Authoritative, but non-technical, the chapters place great emphasis on the connections between theory and policy-making, and develop the contributions of health economics to problems arising in a variety of institutional contexts, from primary care to the operations of health insurers. The volume addresses policy concerns relevant to health systems in both developed and developing countries. It takes a broad perspective, with relevance to systems with single or multi-payer health insurance arrangements, and to those relying predominantly on user charges; contributions are also included that focus both on medical care and on non-medical factors that affect health. Each chapter provides a succinct summary of the current state of economic thinking in a given area, as well as the author's unique perspective on issues that remain open to debate. The volume presents a view of health economics as a vibrant and continually advancing field, highlighting ongoing challenges and pointing to new directions for further progress.

Behavioral economics has potential to offer novel solutions to some of today's most pressing public health problems: How do we persuade people to eat healthy and lose weight? How can health professionals communicate health risks in a way that is heeded? How can food labeling be modified to inform healthy food choices? Behavioral Economics and Public Health is the first book to apply the groundbreaking insights of behavioral economics to the persisting problems of health behaviors and behavior change. In addition to providing a primer on the behavioral economics principles that are most relevant to public health, this book offers details on how these principles can be employed to mitigating the world's greatest health threats, including obesity, smoking, risky sexual behavior, and excessive drinking. With contributions from an international team of scholars from psychology, economics, marketing, public health, and medicine, this book is a trailblazing new approach to the most difficult and important problems of our time.

Addressing the challenge of covering heath care expenses—while minimizing economic risks. Moral hazard—the tendency to change behavior when the cost of that behavior will be borne by others—is a particularly tricky question when considering health care. Kenneth J. Arrow’s seminal 1963 paper on this topic (included in this volume) was one of the first to explore the implication of moral hazard for health care, and Amy Finkelstein—recognized as one of the world’s foremost experts on the topic—here examines this issue in the context of contemporary American health care policy. Drawing on research from both the original RAND Health Insurance Experiment and her own research, including a 2008 Health Insurance Experiment in Oregon, Finkelstein presents compelling evidence that health insurance does indeed affect medical spending and encourages policy solutions that acknowledge and account for this. The volume also features commentaries and insights from other renowned economists, including an introduction by Joseph P. Newhouse that provides context for the discussion, a commentary from Jonathan Gruber that considers provider-side moral hazard, and reflections from Joseph E. Stiglitz and Kenneth J. Arrow. “Reads like a fireside chat among a group of distinguished, articulate health economists.” —Choice