A Resource-Sensitive Framework for Defining and Measuring Equality of Opportunity in Health

Antonio Abatemarco, Sergio Beraldo and Francesca Stroffolini
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Francesca Stroffolini: Università di Napoli Federico II

CSEF Working Papers from Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy

Abstract: We offer a new framework for defining and measuring disparities in the distribution of health opportunities. These are conceived as inversely related to the cost of a specified bundle of health services of given quality, computed by monetizing all the concrete impediments that must be overcome to get access. In the ex-ante perspective we adopt, what is salient is the distribution of costs across cells, where each cell is defined by a set of characteristics determining access barriers. Differently from the existing health literature, our approach allows to disentangle the opportunities individuals enjoy from the mere utilization of health services, working equally well with monetary as well as real costs of access (formal and effective equality of opportunity), where real costs accounts for socioeconomic conditions. Accordingly, an index for the measurement of equality of health opportunities is proposed and resource-conditional policy suggestions are deducted. In particular, given available resources, the design of egalitarian policies is found to depend on how chances of access and socioeconomic conditions are distributed, as well as on the level of cost borne by the individual occupying the best-off cell.

Keywords: Health; Equality of opportunity; Access costs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-04-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse
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