Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/182137 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Citation: 
[Title:] Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance [Publisher:] Oxford University Press [Place:] Oxford [Year:] 2018 [Pages:] 1-21
Publisher: 
Oxford University Press, Oxford
Abstract: 
In the last half century, the different healthcare systems of the world countries have undergone fundamental transformations in the structural designs, institutional regulations, and socio-economic and demographic dimensions. The nations have allocated a rising share of total economic resources or incomes (i.e., Gross National Product, or GDP) to the healthcare sector and are consequently enjoying substantial increases in population health status and life expectancies. There are complex and interacting linkages among escalating healthcare costs, longer life expectancies, technological progress (or “the march of science”), and sectoral productivities in the health services sectors of the advanced economies. Healthcare policy debates often concentrate on cost- containment strategies and search for improved efficient resource allocation and equitable distribution of the sector’s outputs. Consequently, this contribution is a broad review of the body of literature on technological progress, productivity, and cost: three important dimensions of the evolving modern healthcare systems. It provides a logical integration of three strands of work linking healthcare cost to technology and research evidence on sectoral productivity measurements. Finally, some important aspects of the existing study limitations are noted to motivate new research directions for future investigations to explore in the growing health sector economies.
Subjects: 
health systems
productivity
technology
cost
national health expenditures
Baumol’s 'cost disease'
JEL: 
I10
I15
Published Version’s DOI: 
Document Type: 
Book Part
Document Version: 
Accepted Manuscript (Postprint)

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