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Economics of Health and Health Care

Objectives

By attending this course, students should become aware of the special features of the healthcare sector that justify a specific discipline to study them. At the end of the course, students should be able to discuss the main policy issues in the healthcare sector and conduct economic analyses to study specific questions.

General characterization

Code

2135

Credits

3.5

Responsible teacher

Judite Gonçalves

Hours

Weekly - Available soon

Total - Available soon

Teaching language

English

Prerequisites


Bibliography

Useful textbooks:
PP Barros, Economia da Saúde – Conceitos e Comportamentos, Livraria Almedina, 3ª Edition, 2013. (Selected chapters, Portuguese)
J Newhouse and A Culyer, editors, Handbook of Health Economics – Vol 1A, North- Holland, 2000. (Selected chapters, English)
J Newhouse and A Culyer, editors, Handbook of Health Economics – Vol 1B, North- Holland, 2000. (Selected chapters, English)
M Pauly, T McGuire and PP Barros, editors, Handbook of Health Economics – Vol 2, North- Holland, 2012. (Selected chapters, English)
PP Barros and X Martinez-Giralt, Health Economics – an industrial organization approach, Routledge, 2011. (English)
Folland, Goodman and Stano, The Economics of Health and Health Care, 5th edition, Pearson, 2007. (English)


Teaching method

During classes, each topic will first be motivated and contextualized. Then, both the background economic theory and available empirical evidence will be discussed. Students will be invited to read relevant papers prior to classes in order to be able to participate actively in class discussions (approx. one paper per class/topic). Students should write a short critique of at least three of the proposed papers throughout the trimester, in order to develop both their understanding of the topics and their ability to read, interpret, and discuss economic research

Evaluation method

-    Final exam    55% (minimum grade for approval: 8)
-    3 article critiques    15% each

Subject matter

1.    Introduction
2.    The value of life
3.    Economic evaluation
4.    Demand for health and healthcare
5.    Health insurance
6.    Imperfect information
7.    Supplier-induced demand
8.    Production of healthcare
9.    Payment systems
10.    Equity