IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v75y2012i10p1836-1843.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A universal preference for equality in health? Reasons to reconsider properties of applied social welfare functions

Author

Listed:
  • Mæstad, Ottar
  • Norheim, Ole Frithjof

Abstract

The literature on how to combine efficiency and equity considerations in the social valuation of health allocations has borrowed extensively from applied welfare economics, including the literature on inequality measurement. By so doing, it has adopted normative assumptions that have been applied for evaluating the allocation of welfare (or income) rather than the allocation of health, including the assumption of a monotonically declining social marginal value of welfare/income/health. At the same time, empirical studies that have elicited social preferences for allocation of health have reported results that are seemingly incompatible with this assumption. There are two ways of addressing this inconsistency; we may censor the stated preferences by arguing that they cannot be supported by normative arguments, or we may reject or modify the analytical framework in order to accommodate the stated preferences. We argue that the stated preferences can be supported by normative reasoning and therefore conclude that one should be cautious in applying the standard welfare economic framework to the allocation of health.

Suggested Citation

  • Mæstad, Ottar & Norheim, Ole Frithjof, 2012. "A universal preference for equality in health? Reasons to reconsider properties of applied social welfare functions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(10), pages 1836-1843.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:10:p:1836-1843
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.07.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953612005187
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.07.001?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tungodden, Bertil, 2003. "The Value Of Equality," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 1-44, April.
    2. Alan Williams, 1997. "Intergenerational Equity: An Exploration of the ‘Fair Innings’ Argument," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(2), pages 117-132, March.
    3. Dolan, Paul & Tsuchiya, Aki, 2009. "The social welfare function and individual responsibility: Some theoretical issues and empirical evidence," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 210-220, January.
    4. Fleurbaey, Marc, 2012. "Fairness, Responsibility, and Welfare," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199653591.
    5. Olsen, Jan Abel, 2000. "A note on eliciting distributive preferences for health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 541-550, July.
    6. Paul Dolan & Rebecca Shaw & Aki Tsuchiya & Alan Williams, 2005. "QALY maximisation and people's preferences: a methodological review of the literature," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(2), pages 197-208, February.
    7. Dolan, Paul, 1998. "The measurement of individual utility and social welfare," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 39-52, January.
    8. Sen, Amartya, 1997. "On Economic Inequality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198292975.
    9. Wagstaff, Adam, 2002. "Inequality aversion, health inequalities and health achievement," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 627-641, July.
    10. Dolan, Paul & Robinson, Angela, 2001. "The measurement of preferences over the distribution of benefits: The importance of the reference point," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(9), pages 1697-1709, October.
    11. Johannesson, Magnus & Gerdtham, Ulf-G, 1996. "A note on the estimation of the equity-efficiency trade-off for QALYs," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 359-368, June.
    12. Abasolo, Ignacio & Tsuchiya, Aki, 2004. "Exploring social welfare functions and violation of monotonicity: an example from inequalities in health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 313-329, March.
    13. Mæstad, Ottar & Norheim, Ole Frithjof, 2009. "Eliciting people's preferences for the distribution of health: A procedure for a more precise estimation of distributional weights," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 570-577, May.
    14. Jan Abel Olsen, 1994. "Persons vs years: Two ways of eliciting implicit weights," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 3(1), pages 39-46, January.
    15. Eva Rodríguez & José Luis Pinto, 2000. "The social value of health programmes: is age a relevant factor?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(7), pages 611-621, October.
    16. Paul Dolan & Aki Tsuchiya, 2011. "Determining the parameters in a social welfare function using stated preference data: an application to health," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(18), pages 2241-2250.
    17. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    18. Bleichrodt, Han & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2006. "A welfare economics foundation for health inequality measurement," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 945-957, September.
    19. Eva Rodríguez‐Míguez & José‐Luis Pinto‐Prades, 2002. "Measuring the social importance of concentration or dispersion of individual health benefits," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(1), pages 43-53, January.
    20. Wagstaff, Adam & Paci, Pierella & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 1991. "On the measurement of inequalities in health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 545-557, January.
    21. Busschbach, Jan J. V. & Hessing, Dick J. & De Charro, Frank Th., 1993. "The utility of health at different stages in life: A quantitative approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 153-158, July.
    22. Amiel,Yoram & Cowell,Frank, 1999. "Thinking about Inequality," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521466967, September.
    23. Louis Kaplow, 2010. "Concavity of utility, concavity of welfare, and redistribution of income," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 17(1), pages 25-42, February.
    24. Osterdal, Lars Peter, 2005. "Axioms for health care resource allocation," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 679-702, July.
    25. Tsuchiya, Aki & Dolan, Paul & Shaw, Rebecca, 2003. "Measuring people's preferences regarding ageism in health: some methodological issues and some fresh evidence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 57(4), pages 687-696, August.
    26. Murray, Christopher J. L. & Acharya, Arnab K., 1997. "Understanding DALYs," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 703-730, December.
    27. Cropper, Maureen L & Aydede, Sema K & Portney, Paul R, 1994. "Preferences for Life Saving Programs: How the Public Discounts Time and Age," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 243-265, May.
    28. Aki Tsuchiya, 2001. "The value of health at different ages," Working Papers 184chedp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    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. Bae, Eun-Young & Lim, Min Kyoung & Lee, Boram & Bae, Green, 2020. "Who should be given priority for public funding?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(10), pages 1108-1114.
    2. Oscar A. Martinez-Martinez & Ana-Maria Vazquez-Rodriguez & Margaret Lombe & Pablo Gaitan-Rossi, 2018. "Incorporating Public Insecurity Indicators: A New Approach to Measuring Social Welfare in Mexico," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(2), pages 453-475, April.

    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. Paul Dolan & Rebecca Shaw & Aki Tsuchiya & Alan Williams, 2005. "QALY maximisation and people's preferences: a methodological review of the literature," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(2), pages 197-208, February.
    2. Aki Tsuchiya, 2012. "Distributional Judgements in the Context of Economic Evaluation," Chapters, in: Andrew M. Jones (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Second Edition, chapter 38, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Mæstad, Ottar & Norheim, Ole Frithjof, 2009. "Eliciting people's preferences for the distribution of health: A procedure for a more precise estimation of distributional weights," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 570-577, May.
    4. Attema, Arthur E. & Brouwer, Werner B.F. & l’Haridon, Olivier & Pinto, Jose Luis, 2015. "Estimating sign-dependent societal preferences for quality of life," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 229-243.
    5. Robson, Matthew & O’Donnell, Owen & Van Ourti, Tom, 2024. "Aversion to health inequality — Pure, income-related and income-caused," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    6. Gu, Yuanyuan & Lancsar, Emily & Ghijben, Peter & Butler, James RG & Donaldson, Cam, 2015. "Attributes and weights in health care priority setting: A systematic review of what counts and to what extent," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 41-52.
    7. Richardson, Jeff & McKie, John, 2007. "Economic evaluation of services for a National Health Scheme: The case for a fairness-based framework," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 785-799, July.
    8. Robberstad, Bjarne & Norheim, Ole F., 2011. "Incorporating concerns for equal lifetime health in evaluations of public health programs," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(10), pages 1711-1716, May.
    9. Simon McNamara & John Holmes & Abigail K. Stevely & Aki Tsuchiya, 2020. "How averse are the UK general public to inequalities in health between socioeconomic groups? A systematic review," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 21(2), pages 275-285, March.
    10. Abasolo, Ignacio & Tsuchiya, Aki, 2004. "Exploring social welfare functions and violation of monotonicity: an example from inequalities in health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 313-329, March.
    11. Mira Johri & Laura J. Damschroder & Brian J. Zikmund‐Fisher & Peter A. Ubel, 2005. "The importance of age in allocating health care resources: does intervention‐type matter?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(7), pages 669-678, July.
    12. Richardson, Jeff & Sinha, Kompal & Iezzi, Angelo & Maxwell, Aimee, 2012. "Maximising health versus sharing: Measuring preferences for the allocation of the health budget," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(8), pages 1351-1361.
    13. 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).
    14. Adele Diederich & Jeannette Winkelhage & Norman Wirsik, 2011. "Age as a Criterion for Setting Priorities in Health Care? A Survey of the German Public View," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(8), pages 1-10, August.
    15. Abellán Perpiñán, José Mª & Sánchez Martínez,Fernando I. & Martínez Pérez, Jorge E., 2007. "La medición del bienestar social relacionado con la salud/The Measurement of the Health Related Social Welfare," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 25, pages 927-950, Diciembre.
    16. 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.
    17. Denburg, Avram E. & Ungar, Wendy J. & Chen, Shiyi & Hurley, Jeremiah & Abelson, Julia, 2020. "Does moral reasoning influence public values for health care priority setting?: A population-based randomized stated preference survey," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(6), pages 647-658.
    18. Øystein Ariansen Haaland & Frode Lindemark & Kjell Arne Johansson, 2019. "A flexible formula for incorporating distributive concerns into cost-effectiveness analyses: Priority weights," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(10), pages 1-12, October.
    19. Carl Lyttkens, 2003. "Time to disable DALYs?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 4(3), pages 195-202, September.
    20. Paul Allanson & Dennis Petrie, 2013. "On The Choice Of Health Inequality Measure For The Longitudinal Analysis Of Income‐Related Health Inequalities," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(3), pages 353-365, March.

    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:eee:socmed:v:75:y:2012:i:10:p:1836-1843. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    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.