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To Count or Not to Count Deaths: Reranking Effects in Health Distribution Evaluation

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  • Yves Arrighi
  • Mohammad Abu‐Zaineh
  • Bruno Ventelou

Abstract

Populations' structures and sizes can be a result of healthcare policy decisions. We use a two‐period theoretical framework and a dynamic microsimulation model to examine the consequences of this assertion on the appraisal of alternative health policy options. Results show that standard welfare‐in‐health measures are sensitive to changes in populations' sizes, in that taking into account the (virtual) existence of the dead can alter the ranking of policy options. Disregarding differences in the survivals induced by alternative policies can bias programmes' ranking in favour of less live‐saving policies. The paper alerts on the risk of policy misranking by the use of ex‐post cross‐sectional analyses, neglecting deaths occurring in the past as well as counterfactual deaths in alternative policy scenarios. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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  • Yves Arrighi & Mohammad Abu‐Zaineh & Bruno Ventelou, 2015. "To Count or Not to Count Deaths: Reranking Effects in Health Distribution Evaluation," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2), pages 193-205, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:24:y:2015:i:2:p:193-205
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.3010
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    2. Abul Naga, Ramses H. & Stapenhurst, Christopher, 2015. "Estimation of inequality indices of the cumulative distribution function," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 109-112.
    3. Ramses Abul Naga & Christopher Stapenhurst & Gaston Yalonetzky, 2020. "Asymptotic Versus Bootstrap Inference for Inequality Indices of the Cumulative Distribution Function," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-15, February.
    4. Mohammad Abu-Zaineh & Ramses H Abul Naga, 2019. "Bread and Social Justice: Measurement of Social Welfare and Inequalities Using Anthropometrics," Working Papers halshs-02356408, HAL.

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