Health policy is a central preoccupation of many, if not all, developing countries. This book presents a selection of ten studies that illustrate the powerful tool that carefully conducted research can offer policy-makers seeking to address common health policy issues. The studies included in this book illustrate the major gains to patients and citizens that can accrue from research efforts, stimulating research capacity in developing countries. Although many of the challenges confronting health systems are universal, it is often the case that research results derived from developing countries can be misleading when applied to the low or middle-income settings. This insightful book will be a valuable research tool for academics, researchers and policy-makers in economics and health. Learn More

This Handbook provides an authoritative overview of current research in the field of cost–benefit analysis and is designed as a starting point for those interested in undertaking advanced research. The Handbook contains major contributions to the development of the field, focussing on standard microeconomic policy evaluations, the relatively neglected area of macroeconomic policy and its integration into a formal CBA framework, and dynamic considerations in CBA Learn More

Around half the world’s population live in countries where the fertility rate is far below the replacement rate and where life expectancy is increasing dramatically. Using Singapore as a case study, Social Policy in an Ageing Society explores what might happen in a dynamic and prosperous society when falling births, longer life expectancy and rising expectations put disproportionate pressure on scarce resources that have alternative uses. Learn More

The book is based on original data and field studies from Brazil, Thailand, India and Sub-Saharan Africa. Focusing on the issue of universal and free access to treatment (a goal now taken to heart by the international community), it assesses the progress made and presents a rigorous diagnosis of the obstacles that remain, especially the constraints imposed by TRIPS and the poor state of most public health systems in Southern countries. In so doing, the book renews our understanding of the political economy of HIV/AIDS in these vast regions, where it continues to spread with devastating social and economic consequences. Learn More

This three-volume set brings together the most important and interesting papers on the economics of health behaviours such as smoking, drinking, drug use, and risky sex. Volume I explores the theoretical foundations; it also includes empirical papers on the household production of health and the link between schooling and health. Volume II covers research into the prediction and explanations of health behaviours and into the labour market consequences of unhealthy behaviour. Volume III features interactions between health behaviours and the impact of related public policies. This authoritative collection will be of particular interest to economists, social scientists and health services researchers. Learn More

The author begins by examining various economic constructs as aids for achieving a fair and equitable delivery of health care services. He then assesses their level of practical application and evaluates the costs and benefits to society of pursuing the development and use of the ‘New Medicine’. The book ends with a case study of organ and tissue transplantation that illustrates the implementation of distributive justice. The author concludes that as long as clinical medicine maintains its focus on healing and alleviating suffering among patients, a point of equilibrium will be reached that advances the common good. Learn More

This volume is the first to provide a comprehensive analysis of the nine environmental and health disputes that have been adjudicated at the WTO since 1995. The investigation concludes that criticism of the WTO has been overstated and, surprisingly, nations do in fact retain sovereignty over environmental and health policy. The disputes explored suggest that the WTO has been able to balance trade, environmental and health objectives. The discussion illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of the dispute resolution process and closes with suggestions for improving it. Learn More

Health Care and Public Policy is a comprehensive and intelligible cross-disciplinary account of the objectives of health care policy (medical, social, economic) and of the policy-tools that government can employ (cost–benefit analysis, entry barriers, competition) in order to ensure that scarce resources are not wasted nor needy social groups deprived of basic and affordable care. Learn More

This book is a major contribution to regulatory theory from three members of the world-class regulatory research group based in Australia. It marks a new development in responsive regulatory theory in which a strengths-based pyramid complements the regulatory pyramid. Learn More

How involved should the government be in American healthcare? Ronald Hamowy argues that to answer this pressing question, we must understand the genesis of the five main federal agencies charged with responsibility for our health: the Public Health Service, the Food and Drug Administration, the Veterans Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and Medicare. In examining these, he traces the growth of federal influence from its tentative beginnings in 1798 through the ambitious infrastructures of today – and offers startling insights on the current debate. Learn More

Anthony Culyer has amassed a wealth of information and facts within these pages, and yet has not been reluctant to include comment on issues and ideas. This makes the Dictionary eminently readable and all the more interesting. Learn More

Modern organizations must constantly adapt to survive in today’s rapidly changing environment. A stagnant organization that cannot innovate to meet evolving conditions will eventually find itself no longer competitive in an increasingly complex and technologically sophisticated economy. Innovation and Knowledge Management focuses on three issues critical to success: knowledge management, innovation, and consortia. Learn More

By weaving together the fields of health economics, industrial organisation and industrial development, this book describes the benefits of promoting a country’s health industry as a way of stimulating its high-technology industrial capacity. The authors illustrate that the development of a country’s health industry not only improves the country’s health status, but also promotes an industry with relatively stable, high-wage employment, creates the potential for exporting goods and services, and produces scientific spillovers that will favourably impact other high-technology industries. Learn More

Innovation in the Pharmaceutical Industry traces the discovery and development of drugs in Japan and the UK both historically and sociologically. It includes sixteen case studies of major pharmaceutical developments in the twentieth century, encompassing, amongst others, beta-blockers, beta-stimulants, inhaled steroids and histamine H2-antagonists. Learn More

This book presents quantitative research on various aspects of health care reform and health policy in Asia-Pacific countries such as China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the US – nations diverse in their economic development, social demographic structure and health care expenditures. Learn More

This book extends the frontiers of research on the economics of substance use and abuse in a variety of extremely significant ways. It focuses on the determinants and consequences of the consumption of cigarettes, alcohol, betel quid, and illicit drugs in the United States, Great Britain and Taiwan. The authors use a variety of empirical techniques to examine the roles of price, advertising, risk perception, time preference and forward-looking behaviour in consumption decisions and the effects of these decisions on labour market outcomes, unintended pregnancies and criminal violence. Learn More

Reforming Health Care Systems brings together the work of leading economic scholars on the reform and development of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service and the implications of this process for health care systems worldwide. Learn More