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The implications of equal value of life and prioritarianism for the evaluation of population health

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Abstract

We analyze the implications of several principles related to the concepts of equal, or prioritarian, entitlement to continued life. These principles, when modeled as axioms for the evaluation of health distributions, and combined with some basic structural axioms, provide several characterization results of population health evaluation functions. Our analysis implies that the scope of the concepts of equal and prioritarian entitlement to continued life needs to be limited, in order to allow for morbidity (and not just mortality) concerns in the evaluation of population health.

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  • Moreno-Terneroy , Juan D & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2015. "The implications of equal value of life and prioritarianism for the evaluation of population health," DaCHE discussion papers 2015:1, University of Southern Denmark, Dache - Danish Centre for Health Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:sduhec:2015_001
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    1. 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.
    2. Moreno-Ternero, Juan D. & Roemer, John E., 2008. "The Veil Of Ignorance Violates Priority," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(2), pages 233-257, July.
    3. Osterdal, Lars Peter, 2005. "Axioms for health care resource allocation," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 679-702, July.
    4. Wagstaff, Adam, 1991. "QALYs and the equity-efficiency trade-off," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 21-41, May.
    5. Hougaard, Jens Leth & Moreno-Ternero, Juan D. & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2013. "A new axiomatic approach to the evaluation of population health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 515-523.
    6. Moreno-Ternero, Juan D. & Roemer, John E., 2012. "A common ground for resource and welfare egalitarianism," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 832-841.
    7. Erik Nord, 2001. "The desirability of a condition versus the well being and worth of a person," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(7), pages 579-581, October.
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    10. Joseph S. Pliskin & Donald S. Shepard & Milton C. Weinstein, 1980. "Utility Functions for Life Years and Health Status," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(1), pages 206-224, February.
    11. Moreno-Ternero, Juan D. & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2014. "Normative foundations for equity-sensitive population health evaluation functions," DaCHE discussion papers 2014:1, University of Southern Denmark, Dache - Danish Centre for Health Economics.
    12. Hasman, Andreas & Østerdal, Lars Peter, 2004. "Equal Value Of Life And The Pareto Principle," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 19-33, April.
    13. Charles M. Harvey & Lars Peter Østerdal, 2010. "Cardinal Scales for Health Evaluation," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 7(3), pages 256-281, September.
    14. John E. Roemer, 2004. "Eclectic distributional ethics," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 3(3), pages 267-281, October.
    15. Bleichrodt, Han & Diecidue, Enrico & Quiggin, John, 2004. "Equity weights in the allocation of health care: the rank-dependent QALY model," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 157-171, January.
    16. Abraham Mehrez & Amiram Gafni, 1989. "Quality-adjusted Life Years, Utility Theory, and Healthy-years Equivalents," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 9(2), pages 142-149, June.
    17. William Thomson, 2001. "On the axiomatic method and its recent applications to game theory and resource allocation," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 18(2), pages 327-386.
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    1. 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.
    2. 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).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    equal value of life; priority; population Health; axioms; morbidity; mortality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General

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