In an earlier article, the authors outline some reasons for the disappointingly small effects of primary health care programs and identified two weak links standing between spending and increased health care. The first was the inability to translate public expenditure on health care into real...

This article presents an approach to public policy in health that comes directly from the literature on public economics. It identifies two characteristic market failures in health. The first is the existence of large externalities in the control of many infectious diseases that are mostly...

When the World Bank dreams of 'a world free of poverty,' what should it be dreaming? In measuring global income or consumption expenditure poverty, the World Bank has widely adopted the $1 a day standard as a lower bound. Because this standard is based on poverty lines in the poorest countries,...

In an earlier article, the authors outline some reasons for the disappointingly small effects of primary health care programs and identified two weak links standing between spending and increased health care. The first was the inability to translate public expenditure on health care into real...

We examine differential progress on health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) between the poor and the better off within countries. Our findings are based on an original analysis of 235 DHS and MICS surveys spanning 64 developing countries over the 1990-2011 period. We track five health status...

We examine differential progress on health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) between the poor and the better off within countries. Our findings are based on an original analysis of 235 DHS and MICS surveys spanning 64 developing countries over the 1990–2011 period. We track five health...

This paper provides an overview of research on out-of-pocket health expenditures by reviewing the various summary measures and the results of multi-country studies using these measures. The paper presents estimates for 146 countries from all World Bank income groups for all summary measures,...