Comorbidities and the willingness to pay for health improvements

• 成果类型: Article; Proceedings Paper
• 署名作者: Bleichrodt, H; Crainich, D; Eeckhoudt, L
• 署名单位: University of Mons; Universite Catholique de Lille; University Saint-Louis - Bruxelles; Erasmus University Rotterdam; Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(02)00047-6
• 发表日期: 2003
• 页码: 2399-2406
• 关键词: Willingness to pay; cost benefit analysis; risk aversion; HEALTH

摘要

We show that the willingness to pay for health improvements increases with the severity and probability of occurrence of comorbidities. This result, which is obtained under mild restrictions on the shape of the utility function, has important implications for cost benefit studies applied to health care. In particular it implies that the discrimination of the elderly, believed to be implicit in cost benefit analysis, is less of a problem than commonly thought. (C) 2002 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.