Canada's publicly funded healthcare system ensures that medically necessary hospital and physician services are available without financial barriers, but not all community-based care is covered. Consequently, many patients experience financial shocks (FS) related to community-based healthcare services not funded by government, and perhaps also from lost income, a situation that may be difficult...

Background As middle-income countries become more affluent, economically sophisticated and productive, health expenditure patterns are likely to change. Other socio-demographic and political changes that accompany rapid economic growth are also likely to influence health spending and financial protection.   Methods This study investigates the relationship between growth on per-capita healthcare...

This paper assesses the importance of intellectual property (IP) protection for innovation in the context of a model of the industry dynamics in which business niches can be monopolized by the holders of valuable IP. Successfully developed innovations add to the stock of valuable IP but also detract from it by turning some older IP invaluable. IP may also turn invaluable as a result of imitatio...

Since the 1990s, community-based health insurance (CBHI) schemes have been proposed to reduce the financial consequences of illness and enhance access to healthcare in developing countries. Convincing evidence on the ability of such schemes to meet their objectives is scarce. This paper uses randomized control trials conducted in rural Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (India) to evaluate the effects of ...

According to the competence-based theory, firm competencies are derived from capabilities that are unique in marketplace and are closely knitted within various business functions across the company. This paper provides a structured framework for evaluating the competencies of a firm using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). One distinctive feature of this framework is that a multi-criterion...

We analyze the effects of European Antidumping (AD) protection on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth of import-competing domestic firms. We identified a panel of 1,793 European firms between 1993 and 2000 affected by AD cases that were initiated in 1996. Using a difference-indifference approach, we find evidence of increased TFP growth for those firms that filed for protection compared to f...

Unexpected medical care spending imposes considerable financial risk on developing country households. Based on managed care models of health insurance in wealthy countries, Colombia's Régimen Subsidiado is a publicly financed insurance program targeted to the poor, aiming both to provide risk protection and to promote allocative efficiency in the use of medical care. Using a "fuzzy" regression...

BACKGROUND Out of pocket payments are the predominant method of financing healthcare in many developing countries, which can result in impoverishment and financial catastrophe for those affected. In 2010, WHO estimated that approximately 100 million people are pushed below the poverty line each year by payments for healthcare. Micro health insurance (MHI) has been used in some countries as mean...

daniels, porteny and urrutia et al make a good case for the idea that that public decisions ought to be made not only “in the light of” evidence but also “on the basis of” budget impact, financial protection and equity. health technology assessment (hta) should, they say, be accordingly expanded to consider matters additional to safety and cost-effectiveness. they also complain that most hta re...

BACKGROUND In sub-Saharan Africa, universal health coverage (UHC) reforms have often adopted a technocratic top-down approach, with little attention being paid to the rural communities' perspective in identifying context specific gaps to inform the design of such reforms. This approach might shape reforms that are not sufficiently responsive to local needs. Our study explored how rural communit...