Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
In this week’s Economist magazine, one article (“The invisible hand on the keyboard“) asks why economists spend valuable time blogging. Some of the more popular blogs receive thousands of visitors daily, yet why would an economist supply their output (knowledge) for free when they can receive payment from a university, the government, or private business for their work? …
The Health Care Blog has a very interesting post (“Healthcare and the Long Tail“) by Jim Walker. Mr. Walker is a lifelong Philadelphia resident who is the Director of Business Development for the social networking site called MyMedwork. He uses concepts developed in Chris Anderson’s book The Long Tail and applies them to the healthcare field. …
Amy Finkelstein is one of my favorite healthcare economists and recently BusinessWeek ran an article (“So that’s why it’s so expensive“) profiling her and her work. I have profiled Ms. Finkelstein before in my June 15th post describing her 2005 paper with McGarry. She also has a new NBER working paper (“The aggregate effects of health…
How many people in Mexico have access to the Internet in their home? What proportion of the Domincan Republic’s poorest fifth of citizens has access to sanitation service? What proporation of the richest 10% of people in El Salvador have access to electricity? In Chile, how many people own their home? [Answers below] If you…
Economists are a peculiar brand of individuals. They often think more quantitatively than researchers from other social sciences, but also are fond of never giving a straight answer. If you wonder how economists view most problems, I will give a basic framework to use. 1. Identify the parties involved 2. Identify the incentives of each…
On NPR’s Marketplace, my favorite radio program, there is an interesting interview with Muhammed Yunus. Mr. Yunus is the founder and director of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. The bank describes itself as follows: GB [Grameen Bank] provides credit to the poorest of the poor in rural Bangladesh, without any collateral. At GB, credit is a…
Charles Wheelen is a respected journalist, author and lecturer. He is currently a lecturer in public policy at the University of Chicago, but he is most famous for his best selling book “Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science.” In his blog, he cites the top ten reasons why health care costs are increasing. While the…
Alex Tabarrok of the Marginal Revolution blog, has an interesting post regarding economics, long known as the dismal science. First off, he has an entertaining excerpt from the Jon Stewart show: Jon Stewart: Uh, the way you’ve explained the tax cuts doesn’t really seem fair. John Hodgman: Fairness isn’t really the point. They don’t call…
The Mises Economics blog notes how George Mason University professors have been using blogs for the past few years. In addition to any individual gain the professors may receive from writing, the blogs give prospective graduate students a way to find out more about the professors with whom they will be colleagues in the upcoming…
The American health care system seems ill. Prices for medical services have continued to outpace inflation during recent history. What is the Healthcare Economist’s diagnosis? Simple, its a case of Baumol’s cost disease. Baumol’s cost disease is a phenomenon which appears in industries which have slow productivity growth over time (see “What ails us” in…