Cost sharing represents a well-established tool for the control of health care demand in many Oecd countries. However, it is used with caution and in combination with other instruments in order to avoid potential negative impacts on access to essential health care services. Waiting lists and...

In several countries, personal income tax permits tax credits for out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures. Tax credits produce two effects on taxpayers' disposable income. On the one hand, they benefit taxpayers at all income levels by reducing their net tax liability; on the other hand, they...

The past decade of austerity measures has severely hit Public Healthcare provision in Italy, entailing significant reductions in per-capita expenditure, particularly in Regions put under ‘Healthcare Budget Recovery Plans', mostly in the South of the country. Building on data on individuals...

The paper aims to analyse the extent to which the adoption of best practice policies could improve the efficiency of Italian Regional Healthcare Systems (RHSs) and reduce public healthcare expenditures. By means of a stochastic frontier model we estimate the RHSs’ technical inefficiency and...