Incentives and Choice in Health Care - Tapa dura

"Controversy over the modern medical malpractice system has raged ever since the first malpractice crisis took place in 1975, but it is only during the past few years that empirical studies have generated the data that are necessary to produce an accurate understanding of how the system works. Frank Sloan and Lindsey Chepke pull these data into a comprehensive picture in this book, and unlike many other commentators, they do so with commendable objectivity... it is a scholarly masterpiece and is easily the definitive work on its subject." New England Journal of Medicine "The monograph by Sloan and Kasper is an exhaustive review of the theory and evidence on the role of incentives in decision-making in the health-care sector suitable for a vast public including students, researchers, health-care stakeholders and decision-makers." Francesco Paolucci and Przemyslaw M. Sowa The Economic Society of America

A vast body of empirical evidence has accumulated demonstrating that incentives affect health care choices made by both consumers and suppliers of health care services. Decisions in health care are affected by many types of incentives, such as the rate of return pharmaceutical manufacturers expect on their investments in research and development, or disincentives, such as increases in copayments patients must make when they visit physicians or are admitted to hospitals. In this volume, leading scholars in health economics review these new and important results and describe their own recent research assessing the role of incentives in health care markets and decisions people make that affect their personal health. The contexts include demand decisions -- choices made by individuals about health care services they consume and the health insurance policies they purchase -- and supply decisions made by medical students, practicing physicians, hospitals, and pharmaceutical manufacturers. Researchers and students of health economics and policy makers will find this book a valuable resource, both for learning economic concepts, particularly as they apply to health care, and for reading up-to-date summaries of the empirical evidence. General readers will find the book's chapters accessible, interesting, and useful for gaining an understanding of the likely effects of alternative health care policies. ContributorsHenry J. Aaron, Ernst R. Berndt, John Cawley, Julie M. Donohue, Donna Gilleskie, Brian R. Golden, Gautam Gowrisankaran, Chee-Ruey Hsieh, Hirschel Kasper, Thomas G. McGuire, Joseph P. Newhouse, Sean Nicholson, Mark V. Pauly, Anna D. Sinaiko, Frank Sloan.