Given extensive use of individual level data in Health Economics, it has become increasingly important to understand the microeconometric techniques available to applied researchers. The purpose of this book is to give readers convenient access to a collection of recent contributions that contain innovative applications of microeconometric methods to data on health and health care. Contributions are selected from papers presented at the European Workshops on Econometrics and Health Economics and published in Health Economics. Topics covered include:* Latent Variables* Unobservable heterogeneity and selection problems* Count data and survival analysis* Flexible and semiparametric estimators for limited dependent variables* Classical and simulation methods for panel data* Publication marks the tenth anniversary of the Workshop series.Doctoral students and researchers in health economics and microeconomics will find this book invaluable. Researchers in related fields such as labour economics and biostatistics will also find the content of use.

Have gaps in health outcomes between the poor and better off grown? Are they larger in one country than another? Are health sector subsidies more equally distributed in some countries than others? Are health care payments more progressive in one health care financing system than another? What are catastrophic payments and how can they be measured? How far do health care payments impoverish households? Answering questions such as these requires quantitative analysis. This in turn depends on a clear understanding of how to measure key variables in the analysis, such as health outcomes, health expenditures, need, and living standards. It also requires set quantitative methods for measuring inequality and inequity, progressivity, catastrophic expenditures, poverty impact, and so on. This book provides an overview of the key issues that arise in the measurement of health variables and living standards, outlines and explains essential tools and methods for distributional analysis, and, using worked examples, shows how these tools and methods can be applied in the health sector. The book seeks to provide the reader with both a solid grasp of the principles underpinning distributional analysis, while at the same time offering hands-on guidance on how to move from principles to practice.

Like so many children, Owen O'Donnell's daughters Kristin, Keri, and Rebecca loved to have their dad read to them. This led to a minor problem: they were fixated on one particular story, "e;The Saggy, Baggy, Elephant and the Tawny, Scrawny Lion."e; He read it so many times that he could almost recite it without the book. One time, in desperation, he asked them if they would like Daddy to tell them a story. In response to their enthusiastic yes, he invented a community of little animals who had very human flaws and reactions to everyday situations in life.Much to his pleasant surprise, he discovered that situations in the stories were very, very effective ways of getting all the necessary parental messages across without evoking the usual reactions that such messages often evoke. For years, Tales from Misty Acres was unwritten. Prior to Christmas one year, he asked his oldest daughter what she wanted for Christmas. Her response was, "e;Daddy, I want you to write two stories. But one has to be a Christmas story."e; Thus, it was that Tales from Misty Acres became a physical reality.To help those who may be curious, he set the stories on a farm that was less than two miles from where he grew up.

Economists are increasingly turning their attention to the measurement and causes of health inequality. This is in response to widespread concern that health disparities reflect social injustices but is also part of the trend away from the narrow focus on inequality in income to the more encompassing analysis of inequality in wellbeing. Researchers interested in the extent and causes of variation in wellbeing cannot but turn their analytical gaze on health inequalities. This volume contains methodological and empirical contributions from leading experts in health economics and economic inequality that add further momentum to a thriving field of research. The focus is on methods for the measurement of health inequalities (income related, multidimensional and inequalities of opportunity) as well as the analysis of their causes. The collection is essential reading for researchers already working on health inequality and provides an immediate reconnaissance of the frontiers for those entering this exciting field.

Given extensive use of individual level data in Health Economics, it has become increasingly important to understand the microeconometric techniques available to applied researchers. The purpose of this book is to give readers convenient access to a collection of recent contributions that contain innovative applications of microeconometric methods to data on health and health care. Contributions are selected from papers presented at the European Workshops on Econometrics and Health Economics and published in Health Economics. Topics covered include:* Latent Variables* Unobservable heterogeneity and selection problems* Count data and survival analysis* Flexible and semiparametric estimators for limited dependent variables* Classical and simulation methods for panel data* Publication marks the tenth anniversary of the Workshop series.Doctoral students and researchers in health economics and microeconomics will find this book invaluable. Researchers in related fields such as labour economics and biostatistics will also find the content of use.

Have gaps in health outcomes between the poor and better off grown? Are they larger in one country than another? Are health sector subsidies more equally distributed in some countries than others? Are health care payments more progressive in one health care financing system than another? What are catastrophic payments and how can they be measured? How far do health care payments impoverish households? Answering questions such as these requires quantitative analysis. This in turn depends on a clear understanding of how to measure key variables in the analysis, such as health outcomes, health expenditures, need, and living standards. It also requires set quantitative methods for measuring inequality and inequity, progressivity, catastrophic expenditures, poverty impact, and so on. This book provides an overview of the key issues that arise in the measurement of health variables and living standards, outlines and explains essential tools and methods for distributional analysis, and, using worked examples, shows how these tools and methods can be applied in the health sector. The book seeks to provide the reader with both a solid grasp of the principles underpinning distributional analysis, while at the same time offering hands-on guidance on how to move from principles to practice.

Like so many children, Owen O'Donnell's daughters Kristin, Keri, and Rebecca loved to have their dad read to them. This led to a minor problem: they were fixated on one particular story, "e;The Saggy, Baggy, Elephant and the Tawny, Scrawny Lion."e; He read it so many times that he could almost recite it without the book. One time, in desperation, he asked them if they would like Daddy to tell them a story. In response to their enthusiastic yes, he invented a community of little animals who had very human flaws and reactions to everyday situations in life.Much to his pleasant surprise, he discovered that situations in the stories were very, very effective ways of getting all the necessary parental messages across without evoking the usual reactions that such messages often evoke. For years, Tales from Misty Acres was unwritten. Prior to Christmas one year, he asked his oldest daughter what she wanted for Christmas. Her response was, "e;Daddy, I want you to write two stories. But one has to be a Christmas story."e; Thus, it was that Tales from Misty Acres became a physical reality.To help those who may be curious, he set the stories on a farm that was less than two miles from where he grew up.

Economists are increasingly turning their attention to the measurement and causes of health inequality. This is in response to widespread concern that health disparities reflect social injustices but is also part of the trend away from the narrow focus on inequality in income to the more encompassing analysis of inequality in wellbeing. Researchers interested in the extent and causes of variation in wellbeing cannot but turn their analytical gaze on health inequalities. This volume contains methodological and empirical contributions from leading experts in health economics and economic inequality that add further momentum to a thriving field of research. The focus is on methods for the measurement of health inequalities (income related, multidimensional and inequalities of opportunity) as well as the analysis of their causes. The collection is essential reading for researchers already working on health inequality and provides an immediate reconnaissance of the frontiers for those entering this exciting field.