Curing What Ails Us: How the Lessons of Behavioral Economics Can Improve Health Care Markets

Aging, Pensions and Long-term Care: What, Why, Who, How?; Comment on “Financing Long-term Care: Lessons From Japan”

Japan has been aging faster than other industrialized nations, and its experience offers useful lessons to others. Japan has been willing to expand its welfare state with a long-term care (LTC) insurance to finance home care and nursing home care for frail elderly. As Ikegami shows, it created new facilities and expanded specialized staffing for home care, developed a c...

Helping patients make better decisions: how to apply behavioral economics in clinical practice

Clinicians are committed to effectively educating patients and helping them to make sound decisions concerning their own health care. However, how do clinicians determine what is effective education? How do they present information clearly and in a manner that patients understand and can use to make informed decisions? Behavioral economics (BE) is a subfield of economics that can assist clinici...

Information and communications technology in U.S. health care: why is adoption so slow and is slower better?

Politicians across the political spectrum support greater investment in health care information and communications technology (ICT) and expect it to significantly decrease costs and improve health outcomes. We address three policy questions about adoption of ICT in health care: First, why is there so little adoption? Second, what policies will facilitate and accelerate adoption? Third, what is ...

Tomato Value Chain Information System in Tanzania: Lessons from Kilolo District and Dodoma Municipality, Tanzania

The major challenge for the tomato farmers is getting a fair price at the market price given that there are many actors involved in the tomato value chain. Given this situation, this project's goal was to improve communication pathways in dissemination of agricultural market information in tomato value chains in Iringa and Dodoma Regions in Tanzania. The specific objectives were to: identify an...

Can public policy fix what ails managed care?