In this paper we analyse the observed systematic differences in costs for teaching hospitals (TH henceforth) in Spain. Concern has been voiced regarding the existence of a bias in the financing of TH s has been raised once prospective budgets are in the arena for hospital finance, and claims for...

This paper reviews the literature on reference pricing (RP) in pharmaceutical markets. The RP strategy for cost containment of expenditure on drugs is analyzed as part of the procurement mechanism. We review the existing literature and the state-of-the-art regarding RP by focusing on its...

The tendency for public welfare spending to be increasingly aimed at the elderly has been pointed out for the US and other developed countries. While population ageing is a common trend, it is not obvious why the shift in spending exceeds the trend in ageing, or why per capita spending on the...