MEASURING BENEFITS IN HEALTH: A CLARIFICATION.

Autor:	Butler, J. R. G., Doessel, D. P.
Předmět:	MEDICAL economics COST effectiveness MEDICAL care VALUATION ELASTICITY (Economics) MARGINAL utility ECONOMIC demand CONSUMERS HEALTH status indicators
Zdroj:	Scottish Journal of Political Economy; Jun81, Vol. 28 Issue 2, p196-205, 10p, 1 Chart, 4 Graphs
Abstrakt:	A number of cost-benefit studies in health economics have adopted as a measure of benefit the saving in costs that would otherwise have been incurred if the particular project under appraisal had not been undertaken. However, the conceptually correct measure of benefit is willingness-to-pay for the output of the project or the additional consumers' surplus arising from the project. This paper examines the conditions under which the "cost-savings" and "willingness-to-pay" measures of benefit coincide. The possible combinations of price and cross elasticities of demand for two substitute commodities are identified and each case is discussed with reference to the above problem. It is argued that the two measures produce identical results only for some extreme values of the price and cross elasticity coefficients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Databáze:	Complementary Index
Externí odkaz:	Zobrazit plný text záznamu Plný text