The assumption that consumer choice cannot be used to achieve cost control in health care is invalid. It does not do so today because the tax treatment of health care leads to perverse consumer incentives that encourage cost escalation. By reforming the tax treatment of insurance and out-of-pocket medical costs, it is possible to design an efficient and universal system in which consumer choice...

this study was carried out in zarabd, bardsir and sirjan in kerman province in 2002-2003. a number of 58 green-house owners, five wholesaller and 20 retalisaller selected by systemathic sampling method. the results showed that cost marketing service was from 196 to 620 rials and marketing net benefit was 375 rials for cucumber and 230 rials for tomato. retail marketing net benefit was 204 rials...

BACKGROUND Identifying new approaches to tuberculosis treatment that are effective and put less demand to meagre health resources is important. One such approach is community based direct observed treatment (DOT). The purpose of the study was to determine the cost and cost effectiveness of health facility and community based directly observed treatment of tuberculosis in an urban setting in Tan...

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the welfare cost of inflation in Iran. We first use the long-horizon regression approach developed by Fisher and Seater (1993) to obtain an estimate of the inflation rate elasticity of money demand and then the Baily’s consumer surplus approach to calculate the welfare cost function. The results show that reducing inflation rate from 40% to 0% increases ...

BACKGROUND Health-related illnesses such as obesity and diabetes continue to increase, particularly in groups of low socioeconomic status. The increasing cost of nutritious food has been suggested as an explanation. OBJECTIVE To construct a price index describing the cost of a diet adhering to nutritional recommendations for a rational and knowledgeable consumer and, furthermore, to investiga...

This paper develops a theoretical model of optimal effort in consumer choice. The model extends previous consumer choice models in that the consumer not only chooses a product, but also decides how much effort to apply to a given choice problem. The model yields a unique optimal level of effort, which depends on the consumer’s cost of effort, the expected utility gain of a correct choice, and t...

Changes in total surplus and deadweight loss are traditional measures of economic welfare. We propose necessary and sufficient conditions for rationalizing consumer demand data with a quasilinear utility function. Under these conditions, consumer surplus is a valid measure of consumer welfare. For nonmarketed goods, we propose necessary and sufficient conditions on market data for efficient pro...

OBJECTIVE To assess the cost-effectiveness of universal screening for thyroid disease in pregnant women in Spain as compared to high risk screening and no screening. METHODOLOGY A decision-analytic model comparing the incremental cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) of universal screening versus high risk screening and versus no screening. was used for the pregnancy and postpartum perio...