Main description:

This 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 the key analytical tools required to understand current research. 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. 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.

Contents:

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.