For decades, the US public and private sectors have committed substantial resources towards cancer research, but the societal payoff has not been well-understood. We quantify the value of recent gains in cancer survival, and analyze the distribution of value among various stakeholders. Between...

We review and extend the economic analysis of risk and uncertainty as it relates to behavior mitigating health shocks. We summarize some central aspects of the vast positive and normative literature on the role of various forms of insurance that attempt to smooth consumption, which can be uneven...

Many forms of insurance are produced by groups themselves rather than purchased in the market. For example, coverage for workers compensation provided by employers is often produced by the employer, in the sense that the employer bears some or all of the financial risk associated with the...

Catastrophe bonds feature full collateralization of the underlying risk transfer, and thus abandon the insurance principle of economizing on collateral through diversification. We examine the theoretical foundations beneath this paradox, finding that fully collateralized instruments have...

This paper investigates the rationale for government intervention in the market for terrorism insurance, focusing on the externalities associated with self-protection. Self-protection by one target encourages terrorists to substitute towards less fortified targets. Investments in self-...

Infectious disease is currently the main cause of mortality in the world and has been even more important historically. This paper reviews recent research in economic epidemiology. Specifically, it discusses the occurrence of infectious diseases and the effects of public health interventions...

Lack of income convergence for the world as a whole has led to concerns about the impact of globalization of markets on world inequality. GDP per capita is usually used to proxy for the quality of life of individuals living in different countries. However, well-being is also affected by quantity...

Non-adherence in health care results when a patient does not initiate or continue care that a provider has recommended. Previous research identifies non-adherence as a major source of waste in US health care, totaling approximately 2.3% of GDP, and have proposed a plethora of interventions to...

Perhaps because health care is a local service sector, health economists have paid little attention to international linkages between domestic health care economies. However, the growth in domestic health care sectors is often attributed to medical innovations whose returns are earned worldwide....

Many national accounts of economic output and prosperity, such as gross domestic product (GDP) or net domestic product (NDP), offer an incomplete picture by ignoring, for example, the value of leisure, home production, and the value of health. Previous discussed shortcomings of such accounts...