Lebenserwartung, medizinischer Fortschritt und Gesundheitsausgaben: Theorie und Empirie

Stefan Felder

Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, 2006, vol. 7, issue s1, 49-73

Abstract: Abstract: Over the past 50 years Germans have spent a rising share of their income on health and enjoyed substantially longer lives as a result. The rising health share can be explained by a standard economic model: As people get richer they purchase additional years of life and less additional consumption, provided that satiation occurs more rapidly in non‐health consumption. The gains in life years increasingly occur late in the lifespan. As a result the incremental cost‐benefit ratio of health care deteriorates: marginal costs increase as the marginal productivity of medical inputs decreases in old age while marginal benefits decrease due to a rising hazard rate. On average, medical progress is worth it. Future income growth will further increase the health share, while population ageing will only marginally affect health care expenditures.

Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-6493.2006.00216.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:perwir:v:7:y:2006:i:s1:p:49-73

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1465-6493

Access Statistics for this article

Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik is currently edited by Lars P. Feld, J¸rgen von Hagen, Bernd Rudolph and Achim Wambach

More articles in Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik from Verein für Socialpolitik Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().