The Resource Consequences of Health Changes

Abstract

In this chapter we analyse the resource consequences due to changes in morbidity and mortality as a result of a health care programme. The resource consequences are defined as the effect on the consumption of goods and services and the effect on the consumption of leisure. We focus both on the extent to which the WTP for a health care programme can be estimated on the basis of information about the production and consumption of individuals, and the extent to which the external costs can be estimated on the basis of this information. In particular, we examine the relationship between the values produced by the human-capital approach (this approach estimates the value of health care programmes in terms of decreased health care consumption and increased production (Weisbrod 1961)) and the private WTP, and the relationship between the human-capital approach and the external costs.