It is still an open question whether increasing life expectancy as such is causing higher health care expenditures (HCE) in a population. According to the red herring hypothesis, the positive correlation between age and HCE is exclusively due to the fact that mortality rises with age and a large...

The empirical relationship between income and longevity has been addressed by a large number of studies, but most were confined to men. In particular, administrative data from public pension systems are less reliable for women because of the loose relationship between own earnings and household...

Abstract: In Germany, there is a lively debate on a so-called „two-class-medicine“, meaning that privately insured persons get better medical treatment than sickness fund members. As an economist, the author is not in a position to judge whether this is true. However, the co-existence of...

Zusammenfassung Die Entwicklung der Ausgaben der gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung in Deutschland in den nächsten 40 Jahren soll unter der Prämisse prognostiziert werden, daß die bestehenden Institutionen aufrechterhalten bleiben. Die bisher vorliegenden Ansätze, die auf einer Hochrechnung...

Summary There is an increasing shortage of human organ transplants in Germany. This paper aims at understanding the reasons for that shortage and discusses various ways to alleviate it by changing the rules of donation and procurement. In particular we consider creating adequate incentives for...