Economic Foundations of Cost Effective Analysis
In order to address several controversies in the application of cost-effectiveness analysis, we investigate the principles underlying the technique and discuss the implications for the evaluation of medical interventions. Using a standard von Neumann-Morgenstern utility framework, we show how a cost-effectiveness criterion can be derived to guide resource allocation decisions. We investigate its relation to age, gender, income level, and risk aversion. Cost-effectiveness analysis can be a useful and powerful tool for resource allocation decisions, but in the presence of heterogeneous preferences and personal characteristics, a cost-effectiveness criterion that is applied at the population level is unlikely to yield pareto-optimal resource allocations.
Year of publication: |
1992-09
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Authors: | Garber, Alan M. ; Phelps, Charles E. |
Institutions: | National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) |
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