OBJECTIVE To determine the cost-effectiveness of arthroscopic surgery in addition to non-operative treatments compared with non-operative treatments alone in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS We conducted an economic evaluation alongside a single-centre, randomised trial among patients with symptomatic, radiographic knee OA (KL grade ≥ 2). INTERVENTION...

On the basis of a low probability insurance experiment with substantial money on the line, we demonstrate that concern is an important driver of willingness to pay (WTP) for insurance when there is ambiguity surrounding the estimate. Concern still plays an important role when probabilities are given precisely. This finding explains why some individuals pay too much and others little for insuran...

In this paper, we address the often contentious debate over state and local recycling policy by carefully estimating the social net benefit of curbside recycling. Benefits are estimated using household survey data from over 4,000 households across 40 western U.S. cities. We calibrate household willingness-to-pay for hypothetical bias using an innovative experimental design that contrasts stated...

Cost-benefit analysis was conducted to determine whether it is worthwhile to initiate a routine varicella vaccination program in Taiwan from different perspectives. Using the human capital approach, the discounted net cost for vaccination program was New Taiwan Dollars (NTD) 281 million from health care payer's perspective. Taking indirect costs into account, the net saving due to vaccination p...

Generational accounting is a relatively new method of reorganizing the government's budget data to understand how the burden of paying for government spending on goods and services is distributed among living and future generations.' To study this distribution, generational accounting estimates lifetime net tax rates facing different generations under current policies.' For a given generation, ...

The paper considers the local provision of public infrastructure when population is mobile. It shows that inflexible deficit limitation may result in too little local public investment if population is perfectly mobile in the long run. Conversely, given the existence of migration externalities, implementing Musgrave's pay as you use finance, according to which new debt should match net investme...

editorial editorial l ong ago, in a political galaxy far away, i was educated at one of the world's elite universities. neither i, nor my middle-class parents, paid a penny in upfront fees for this privilege. in fact, the state—or more precisely my local municipality—paid me a substantial 'maintenance grant' every term which covered my room in college, living expenses, books and other study ess...