Health care provision in the public sector is increasingly oriented towards a reduction of vertical integration through fairly heterogeneous methods as concerns the contractual rules and the actors that are allowed to compete. In this paper we model the choice of a benevolent regulator that...

Health care usually represents a so called merit good, i.e. a good whose consumption should be promoted and given that in most cases it might be essential to restore health or to stop its decay, most countries have implemented a public health care system where care is supplied to anybody needing...

We study the welfare properties of direct restrictions based on cost-effectiveness against indirect methods represented by waiting lists in a public health care system. Health care is supplied for free, but with some restrictions by the public health sector. Patients can choose to address their...

In a recent article which appeared in this journal, Hoel and Saeter propose a model showing that welfare may be improved by introducing delay in public health care. In this note we argue that their model may be used as starting point because of their stringent assumptions. We suggest that the...

The reforms that have reshaped most public health care system have often been accompained by a process of devolution. However, this process has not always produced the desired effects and the existence of widespread soft budget constraint policies at local level is well documented. In this paper...