A New Paradigm for Health Economics?

Abstract

Culyer and Newhouse in their introduction to the Handbook of Health Economics1 noted that as a research program health economics seemed to be in good shape. “Moreover, its ‘hard core’ of neoclassical economics (especially welfare economics) is itself a part of the ongoing developmental agenda of the subject”. They further observed that there is something in health economics for almost all kinds of health economists: “Powerful defenders of conventional methods and aggressive challengers; pure theorists and applied economists, those who undertake academic research for its own sake and those who see it as an instrument for the improvement of societies …”. ...