The Sisyphus Syndrome in Health Revisited

Peter Zweifel (), Lukas Steinmann and Patrick Eugster

International Journal of Health Economics and Management, 2005, vol. 5, issue 2, 127-145

Abstract: Health care may be similar to Sisyphus work: When the task is about to be completed, work has to start all over again. To see the analogy, consider an initial decision to allocate more resources to health. The likely consequence is an increased number of survivors, who will exert additional demand for health care. With more resources allocated to health, the cycle starts over again. The objective of this paper is to improve on earlier research that failed to find evidence of a Sisyphus syndrome in industrialized countries. This time, there are signs of such a cycle, which however seems to have faded away recently. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

Keywords: production of health; health care expenditure; dynamic feedback; Sisyphus syndrome (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (39)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10754-005-1864-6

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