Publications

Recent Journal Articles on Health Economics

Improving Value for Money in Funding HIV Services in Developing Countries — 2011

This brief summarizes options for improving value for money in HIV funding by using a case study that focuses on the two largest funders, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the Global Fund, and antiretroviral therapy.

The PROMETHEUS Bundled Payment Experiment: Slow Start Shows Problems in Implementing New Payment Models — 2011

This project evaluated PROMETHEUS, a pilot project for a bundled payment alternative to fee for service. The pilot faced implementation challenges. Three years into the project, none of the pilot sites had executed contracts or made any bundled payments.

International Comparisons in Health Economics: Evidence from Aging Studies — 2011

Provides an overview of the growing literature that uses micro-level data from multiple countries to investigate health outcomes, and their link to socioeconomic factors, at older ages.

Value for Money in Donor HIV Funding — 2011

This report examines options for improving value for money in HIV funding by using a case study that focuses on the two largest funders, the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and the Global Fund, and antiretroviral therapy.

Challenges to Value-Enhancing Innovation in Health Care Delivery: Commonalities and Contrasts with Innovation in Drugs and Devices — 2011

Discusses obstacles to steering innovation in health care toward activities that are worth their social costs and away from other innovative activities and considers drugs, devices, and delivery, with particular attention to delivery.

Why Are Many Emergency Departments in the United States Closing? — 2011

Between 1990 and 2009, the number of emergency rooms (ERs) in nonrural U.S. hospitals declined by 27 percent (from 2,446 to 1,779). Economic factors play a central role in an ER's ability to remain open.

The Increased Concentration of Health Plan Markets Can Benefit Consumers Through Lower Hospital Prices — 2011

More concentrated health plan markets can counteract the price-increasing effects of concentrated hospital markets; consumers would benefit from policies that maintained/restored competition in hospital markets.

RAND/UCLA Quality-of-Care Measures for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: Tools for Assessing Quality of Care and Appropriateness of Surgery — 2011

Offers two rigorously developed tools for assessing the quality of care received by patients with carpal tunnel syndrome and for determining whether surgery is necessary for individual patients.

Household Portfolio Choices, Health Status and Health Care Systems: A Cross-Country Analysis Based on SHARE — 2011

Sketches a theoretical framework in which household portfolio decisions are a function of both individual and systemic characteristics and tests its main implications based on SHARE data.

Food Prices and the Dynamics of Body Weight — 2011