Heterogeneity in time and risk preferences has been proposed as one of the mechanisms involved in the educational gradient in smoking, but this mechanism has scarcely been explored empirically. Subjective scales were introduced in the 2008 French National Health, Health Care and Insurance Survey...

The prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome (amniocentesis) presents parents with a complex dilemma which requires comparing the risk of giving birth to an affected child and the risk of losing an unaffected child through amniocentesis-related miscarriage. Building on the specific features of the...

End-stage renal disease (ESRD), or kidney failure, is a debilitating, costly, and increasingly common medical condition. Little is known about how different financing approaches affect ESRD outcomes and delivery of care. This paper presents results from a comparative review of 12 countries with...

Priority setting and resource allocation across various health care functions is a critical issue in health policy and strategic decision making. As health resources are limited while there are so many health challenges to resolve, consumers and payers have to make difficult decisions about...

I find that compensation structure impacts a doctor’s decision to perform a Cesarean section (C-section). Using Medicaid reimbursement and vital statistics data, I find that fee-for-service doctors respond to an increase in the relative reimbursement for C-sections by increasing their use of...

To help inform a conference organised by the Germany Ministry of Health (BMG) and the OECD on ‘Managing Hospital Volumes’ on the 11th April 2013, the OECD Secretariat produced this paper giving an international perspective on Germany’s situation and the current policy debate. It provides a...