It is usually unnecessary to define the output of an industry, but this is not the case with mental health services. Following Grossman's conception of health capital, the outputs of mental health care enter a household production function as a commodity vector. Considering the multiple and...

The production of specialist psychiatric services in Australia reflects the “mixed” system of public and private production of health services generally. This paper, an exercise in descriptive or positive economics, is concerned only with private production, i.e. those services provided by...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, although there are some unique features associated with mental illness, such special features do not preclude economic analysis. Design/methodology/approach – As a mechanism for understanding how individual economic studies fit into...

Purpose – Multiple connotations and conceptions of health need are currently in use. The purpose of this paper is to specify some important distinctions regarding this confusing multiplicity in a taxonomic fashion relevant to the economic problems that arise in addressing health need....

Purpose – Government policy can alleviate inequities in living standards. Disabled people often qualify for government assistance which is one way that their living standard can improve, although arbitrary systems for distributing assistance are not likely to serve equity objectives. The...

The study commences with a question that epidemiology would regard as old' viz. whether suicide rates are higher in rural areas or urban areas, and turns to applying an economic technique of analysis to studying regional suicide disparities. Several dispersion measures are applied to time series...

This paper analyses current government expenditure in Fiji using annual time series data for the period 1969-1999. Alternative theories of government expenditure are reviewed and a distinction is made between economic/apolitical determinants and institutional/political determinants. Categorising...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between economic development and income distribution for Iran. Using time series data for the period 1967‐1993, it is found that there is no significant relationship between the Gini coefficient for household expenditure and per...

Presents a brief account of the development of antibiotics so as to put such drugs in perspective. Then the issue of antibiotic resistance is considered and Tisdell’s economic analysis of the phenomenon is presented. Emphasis is placed on the inter‐generational trade‐off that is associated...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an exposition of the concepts relevant to measuring the economic effect of premature mortality and the conception of how the social loss from premature mortality can be incorporated into social welfare measurement. None of the conventional...