This paper discusses the role of private health insurance (PHI) in developing countries. Three major findings emerge from a comprehensive and systematic review of the performance of PHI in five regions of the developing world. First, PHI involving pre-payment and risk sharing currently only...

Many European countries have experienced a significant increase of unemployment in recent years. This paper reviews several theoretical models that try to explain this phenomenon. Predominantly, these models claim a link between the poor performance of European labor markets and the high level...

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development calls on countries to report on an extensive set of indicators, aimed at ensuring that no one is 'left behind', yet today, nearly halfway towards the end, most countries are struggling to produce the required data. The COVID-19 pandemic, climate...

Over the last two decades, many countries around the world have been enthusiastically embarking on the path of decentralization. Decentralization has been advocated as a powerful means to improve the provision of health care services and health outcomes in developing countries. However, due to a...

This study analyzes the effect of fiscal decentralization on health outcomes in China using a panel data set with nationwide county-level data. We find that counties in more fiscal decentralized provinces have lower infant mortality rates compared with those counties in which the provincial...

This paper analyzes the impact of trade related intellectual property rights (TRIPS) on drug prices in seven middle income countries. Applying both an econometric as well as an explorative analysis we find three key messages: First, the introduction of TRIPS in the selected countries tends to...

In 1996 the Tanzanian government initiated community health insurance schemes to improve the access to health care and to protect people against the financial cost of illness in an environment with shrinking budgets for the health sector. This study aims to evaluate the role of the community...

We empirically examine the impact of oil wealth on property rights protection for a sample of 156 countries between 1960 and 2014. We find that higher levels of oil wealth result in weaker private property rights. This result is robust to different instrumental-variable approaches and...

We empirically examine the impact of oil wealth on property rights protection for a sample of 156 countries between 1960 and 2014. We find that higher levels of oil wealth result in weaker private property rights. This result is robust to different instrumental-variable approaches and...

Scholars of public health typically focus on societal equity for explaining public health outcomes. Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a spate of studies showing a tight connection between inequitable access to healthcare, welfare services, and adverse outcomes from the pandemic. Others...