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The implications of equal value of life and prioritarianism for the evaluation of population health

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Abstract

We analyze the implications of several principles related to the concepts of equal, or prioritarian, entitlement to continued life. These principles, when modeled as axioms for the evaluation of health distributions, and combined with some basic structural axioms, provide several characterization results of population health evaluation functions. Our analysis implies that the scope of the concepts of equal and prioritarian entitlement to continued life needs to be limited, in order to allow for morbidity (and not just mortality) concerns in the evaluation of population health.

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  • Moreno-Terneroy , Juan D & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2015. "The implications of equal value of life and prioritarianism for the evaluation of population health," DaCHE discussion papers 2015:1, University of Southern Denmark, Dache - Danish Centre for Health Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:sduhec:2015_001
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    1. Bleichrodt, Han, 1997. "Health utility indices and equity considerations," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 65-91, February.
    2. MORENO-TERNERO, Juan & OSTERDAL, Lars P., 2014. "Normative foundations for equity-sensitive population health evaluation functions," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2014031, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    3. Hougaard, Jens Leth & Moreno-Ternero, Juan D. & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2013. "A new axiomatic approach to the evaluation of population health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 515-523.
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    10. Wagstaff, Adam, 1991. "QALYs and the equity-efficiency trade-off," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 21-41, May.
    11. Moreno-Ternero, Juan D. & Roemer, John E., 2012. "A common ground for resource and welfare egalitarianism," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 832-841.
    12. Bleichrodt, Han & Diecidue, Enrico & Quiggin, John, 2004. "Equity weights in the allocation of health care: the rank-dependent QALY model," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 157-171, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Juan D. Moreno-Ternero & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2017. "A normative foundation for equity-sensitive health evaluation: The role of relative comparisons of health gains," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 19(5), pages 1009-1025, October.
    2. MORENO-TERNERO, Juan & OSTERDAL, Lars P., 2014. "Normative foundations for equity-sensitive population health evaluation functions," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2014031, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    equal value of life; priority; population Health; axioms; morbidity; mortality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

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