Health Economics

This course aims at introducing economic tools for understanding and analysing the health care sector. Topics that we will investigate in depth include: 1. Distinctive economic characteristics of the commodity ' health care'; 2. Grossman's model of health capital 3. Health and health care production functions 4. Adverse selection and the Rothschild-Stiglitz model 5. Moral hazard in the healthcare sector 6. Cost-effectiveness analysis 7. Cost-benefit analysis We will apply the economics tools to study some of the key players of the healthcare sector, including: Hospitals, Physicians, Health Insurance Companies, and Pharmaceutical Companies. We will study how government policies help shape the healthcare sector. We will also learn economic methods for evaluating the effects of health care policies. In addition, students in this course will participate in graduate seminars, where they study and present literature on selected topics of health economics.