In National Health Systems (quot;NHSquot;) the funding and provision of health care co-exists with a developing market for private (supplementary) health insurance. In this setting, interactions between the public and private sector are important and likely to influence the demand for private...

This paper examines the financial sustainability of long-term care funding options in Spain. We employ the generational accounting (quot;GAquot;) methodology to evaluate the intertemporal impact of funding policies for long-term care services in the face of demographic change. Our findings...

The hypothesis of the reciprocal determination of obesity and depression (OD) epidemics, contrasts with the anecdotal wisdom of a person being 'jolly and fat', and calls for a better understanding of any underpinning socio-environmental determinants. This paper deals with the influence of...

A growing literature documents the existence of strategic political reactions to public expenditure in one jurisdiction on either neighboring or reference jurisdictions. The latter might give raise to downward expenditure spiral, or “race to the bottom”. However, in ascertaining the...

The economics literature has traditionally advocated that “governments compete”, and hence one should expect non-negligible fiscal interactions between and among different levels of government. This paper uses meta-regression analysis to quantify the size of inter-jurisdictional fiscal...

A large literature examines government fiscal interactions in federations. However, the empirical evidence is scattered and inconclusive, especially with respect to the size of interactions, as well as the institutional and economic determinants underpinning them. This paper uses meta-regression...

A growing literature documents the existence of strategic political reactions to public expenditure in one jurisdiction on either neighboring or reference jurisdictions. The latter might give raise to downward expenditure spiral, or “race to the bottom”. However, in ascertaining the...

A sizable empirical literature examines government fiscal interactions. However, the empirical evidence is very mixed. We apply meta-regression analysis to quantify the size of inter-jurisdictional fiscal interactions and to explain the heterogeneity in empirical estimates. Several robust...

Health care is one of the main public policy areas in which management has been decentralised at sub-state level in Europe. However, given the complexities of health care funding, economic research into the effects of such decentralisation, and particularly into vertical and horizontal...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the determinants of quality in obstetric care and particularly why caesarean sections (CS) are experiencing unprecedented increases in developed societies. Design/methodology/approach – The paper exploits a population-based database...