IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajecsc/v64y2005i1p407-425.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Health, Government, and Irving Fisher

Author

Listed:
  • Victor R. Fuchs

Abstract

This paper provides a few historical notes on government involvement in health, followed by a summary of the theoretical arguments that economists offer in its support. Irving Fisher's views and recommendations about health are examined in the light of today's perceptions concerning health, health economics, and health policy. The wide variety of roles that the U.S. and other governments currently play in health is reviewed, and the ability of economics to explain these roles is assessed. The consequences of government involvement for the health of populations, for expenditures on health care, and for political and social stability are examined. The paper concludes with an overview of new worldwide trends in health policy and some probable explanations for these trends.

Suggested Citation

  • Victor R. Fuchs, 2005. "Health, Government, and Irving Fisher," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(1), pages 407-425, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:64:y:2005:i:1:p:407-425
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1536-7150.2005.00370.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2005.00370.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2005.00370.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McClellan, Mark & Skinner, Jonathan, 2006. "The incidence of Medicare," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 257-276, January.
    2. Michael Rothschild & Joseph Stiglitz, 1976. "Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets: An Essay on the Economics of Imperfect Information," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(4), pages 629-649.
    3. Fuchs, Victor R. (ed.), 1996. "Individual and Social Responsibility," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226267869, December.
    4. Thurow, Lester C, 1974. "Cash Versus In-Kind Transfers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(2), pages 190-195, May.
    5. Victor R. Fuchs, 2018. "Economics, Values, and Health Care Reform," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Health Economics and Policy Selected Writings by Victor Fuchs, chapter 39, pages 497-531, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Paul Resnick & Christopher Avery & Richard Zeckhauser, 1999. "The Market for Evaluations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 564-584, June.
    7. Victor R. Fuchs, 1996. "Individual and Social Responsibility: Child Care, Education, Medical Care, and Long-Term Care in America," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number fuch96-1, May.
    8. James M. Poterba, 1996. "Government Intervention in the Markets for Education and Health Care: How and Why?," NBER Chapters, in: Individual and Social Responsibility: Child Care, Education, Medical Care, and Long-Term Care in America, pages 277-308, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Craig William Perry & Harvey Rosen, 2001. "Insurance and the Utilization of Medical Services Among the Self-Employed," CESifo Working Paper Series 580, CESifo.
    2. Harvey S. Rosen, 2002. "Public Finance: Essay for the Encyclopedia of Public Choice," Working Papers 122, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    3. Curott, Nicholas A. & Snow, Nicholas A., 2022. "Nudging To Prohibition? A Reassessment of Irving Firsher’s Economics of Prohibition in Light of Modern Behavioral Economics," OSF Preprints dv97k, Center for Open Science.
    4. repec:pri:cepsud:80rosen is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Henrik Egbert & Teodor Sedlarski, 2017. "Fundamentals of modern economy: Irving Fisher and intertemporal choice theory," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 1, pages 132-143.
    6. Laurence S. Moss, 2010. "The Henry George Theorem and the Entrepreneurial Process: Turning Henry George on his Head," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(1), pages 563-585, January.
    7. Harvey S. Rosen, 2002. "Public Finance: Essay for the Encyclopedia of Public Choice," Working Papers 122, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    8. Craig William Perry & Harvey S. Rosen, 2001. "The Self-Employed are Less Likely to Have Health Insurance Than Wage Earners. So What?," NBER Working Papers 8316, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Liran Einav & Amy Finkelstein & Mark R. Cullen, 2010. "Estimating Welfare in Insurance Markets Using Variation in Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 877-921.
    2. Amy Finkelstein & Robin McKnight, 2005. "What Did Medicare Do (And Was It Worth It)?," NBER Working Papers 11609, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Wuppermann, Amelie Catherine, 2011. "Empirical Essays in Health and Education Economics," Munich Dissertations in Economics 13187, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    4. Matthew Panhans, 2019. "Adverse Selection in ACA Exchange Markets: Evidence from Colorado," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 1-36, April.
    5. Finkelstein, Amy & McKnight, Robin, 2008. "What did Medicare do? The initial impact of Medicare on mortality and out of pocket medical spending," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(7), pages 1644-1668, July.
    6. Katherine Baicker & Jonathan Skinner, 2011. "Health Care Spending Growth and the Future of U.S. Tax Rates," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 39-68.
    7. Ashantha Ranasinghe & Xuejuan Su, 2023. "When social assistance meets market power: A mixed duopoly view of health insurance in the United States," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(4), pages 851-869, October.
    8. Hans J. Baumgartner & Viktor Steiner, 2004. "Enrolment into Higher Education and Changes in Repayment Obligations of Student Aid – Microeconometric Evidence for Germany," HEW 0410003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Eric A. Hanushek, 1998. "Conclusions and controversies about the effectiveness of school resources," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 4(Mar), pages 11-27.
    10. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro & Michael Sinkinson, 2014. "Competition and Ideological Diversity: Historical Evidence from US Newspapers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3073-3114, October.
    11. Hitoshi Shigeoka, 2014. "The Effect of Patient Cost Sharing on Utilization, Health, and Risk Protection," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(7), pages 2152-2184, July.
    12. Fuchs, Victor R., 2000. "The future of health economics1," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 141-157, March.
    13. Andrei Shleifer, 1998. "State versus Private Ownership," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 133-150, Fall.
    14. Bridget Terry Long, 2004. "Does the Format of a Financial Aid Program Matter? The Effect of State In-Kind Tuition Subsidies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(3), pages 767-782, August.
    15. Welsch, David M. & Winden, Matthew W. & Zimmer, David M., 2022. "The effect of flood mitigation spending on flood damage: Accounting for dynamic feedback," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    16. Hanushek, Eric A. & Leung, Charles Ka Yui & Yilmaz, Kuzey, 2003. "Redistribution through education and other transfer mechanisms," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(8), pages 1719-1750, November.
    17. Blank, Rebecca M, 2000. "When Can Public Policy Makers Rely on Private Markets? The Effective Provision of Social Services," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(462), pages 34-49, March.
    18. Hans Pitlik & Margit Schratzenstaller, 2011. "Growth Implications of Structure and Size of Public Sectors," WIFO Working Papers 404, WIFO.
    19. Tilman Klumpp & Xuejuan Su, 2019. "Price–quality competition in a mixed duopoly," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 21(3), pages 400-432, June.
    20. Liran Einav & Amy Finkelstein & Raymond Kluender & Paul Schrimpf, 2016. "Beyond Statistics: The Economic Content of Risk Scores," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(2), pages 195-224, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:64:y:2005:i:1:p:407-425. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0002-9246 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.