IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sef/csefwp/437.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Resource-Sensitive Framework for Defining and Measuring Equality of Opportunity in Health

Author

Listed:

Abstract

We offer a new framework for defining and measuring disparities in the distribution of health opportunities. These are conceived as inversely related to the cost of a specified bundle of health services of given quality, computed by monetizing all the concrete impediments that must be overcome to get access. In the ex-ante perspective we adopt, what is salient is the distribution of costs across cells, where each cell is defined by a set of characteristics determining access barriers. Differently from the existing health literature, our approach allows to disentangle the opportunities individuals enjoy from the mere utilization of health services, working equally well with monetary as well as real costs of access (formal and effective equality of opportunity), where real costs accounts for socioeconomic conditions. Accordingly, an index for the measurement of equality of health opportunities is proposed and resource-conditional policy suggestions are deducted. In particular, given available resources, the design of egalitarian policies is found to depend on how chances of access and socioeconomic conditions are distributed, as well as on the level of cost borne by the individual occupying the best-off cell.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Abatemarco & Sergio Beraldo & Francesca Stroffolini, 2016. "A Resource-Sensitive Framework for Defining and Measuring Equality of Opportunity in Health," CSEF Working Papers 437, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:437
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.csef.it/WP/wp437.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paolo Li Donni & Vito Peragine & Giuseppe Pignataro, 2014. "Ex‐Ante And Ex‐Post Measurement Of Equality Of Opportunity In Health: A Normative Decomposition," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(2), pages 182-198, February.
    2. Frank A. Cowell, 1980. "On the Structure of Additive Inequality Measures," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 47(3), pages 521-531.
    3. Sugden, Robert, 1993. "Welfare, Resources, and Capabilities: A Review [Inequality Reexamined]," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1947-1962, December.
    4. Fleurbaey, Marc & Schokkaert, Erik, 2009. "Unfair inequalities in health and health care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 73-90, January.
    5. Di Novi, C. & Piacenza, M. & Robone, S. & Turati, G., 2015. "How does fiscal decentralization affect within-regional disparities in well-being? Evidence from health inequalities in Italy," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 15/23, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    6. Frank Cowell & Udo Ebert, 2004. "Complaints and inequality," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 23(1), pages 71-89, August.
    7. Amartya Sen, 2002. "Why health equity?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(8), pages 659-666, December.
    8. Culyer, A. J. & Wagstaff, Adam, 1993. "Equity and equality in health and health care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 431-457, December.
    9. Fleurbaey, Marc, 1995. "Equality and responsibility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 683-689, April.
    10. Olsen, Edgar O. & Rogers, Diane Lim, 1991. "The welfare economics of equal access," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 91-105, June.
    11. Cylus, Jonathan & Papanicolas, Irene, 2015. "An analysis of perceived access to health care in Europe: How universal is universal coverage?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(9), pages 1133-1144.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Antonio Abatemarco & Sergio Beraldo & Francesca Stroffolini, 2020. "Equality of opportunity in health care: access and equal access revisited," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 67(1), pages 13-29, March.
    2. Antonio Abatemarco & Massimo Aria & Sergio Beraldo & Francesca Stroffolini, 2020. "Measuring Disparities in Access to Health Care: A Proposal Based on an Ex-ante Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 150(2), pages 549-568, July.
    3. Antonio Abatemarco & Massimo Aria & Sergio Beraldo & Michela Collaro, 2023. "Measuring Access and Inequality of Access to Health Care: a Policy-Oriented Decomposition," CSEF Working Papers 666, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    4. Paolo Li Donni & Vito Peragine & Giuseppe Pignataro, 2014. "Ex‐Ante And Ex‐Post Measurement Of Equality Of Opportunity In Health: A Normative Decomposition," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(2), pages 182-198, February.
    5. repec:dau:papers:123456789/13753 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Florence Jusot & Sabine Mage & Marta Menendez, 2014. "Inequality of Opportunity in Health in Indonesia," Working Papers DT/2014/06, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    7. Abatemarco, Antonio, 2016. "Doing rawls justice: Evidence from the PSID," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 10, pages 1-39.
    8. AMENDOLA, Alessandra & BOCCIA, Marinella & MELE, Gianluca & SENSINI, Luca, 2019. "Fiscal Policies and Firms' Performance:A Propensity Score Matching Analysis inDominican Republic," CELPE Discussion Papers 159, CELPE - CEnter for Labor and Political Economics, University of Salerno, Italy.
    9. repec:dau:papers:123456789/14339 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Andrew M. Jones, 2019. "Equity, opportunity and health," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 46(3), pages 413-421, August.
    11. Antonio Abatemarco, 2015. "A Gini approach to inequality of opportunity: evidence from the PSID," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(4), pages 1497-1519, December.
    12. Damien Bricard & Florence Jusot & Alain Trannoy & Sandy Tubeuf, 2017. "Inequality of Opportunity in Health and the Principle of Natural Reward: evidence from European Countries," Working Papers hal-01523949, HAL.
    13. ABATEMARCO, Antonio & BERALDO, Sergio & STROFFOLINI, Francesca, 2019. "Equality of Opportunity in Health Care: an Axiomatic Framework in a Policy Perspective," CELPE Discussion Papers 161, CELPE - CEnter for Labor and Political Economics, University of Salerno, Italy.
    14. Eric French & Elaine Kelly & Richard Cookson & Carol Propper & Miqdad Asaria & Rosalind Raine, 2016. "Socio‐Economic Inequalities in Health Care in England," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 37, pages 371-403, September.
    15. Pulok, Mohammad Habibullah & van Gool, Kees & Hall, Jane, 2020. "Horizontal inequity in the utilisation of healthcare services in Australia," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(11), pages 1263-1271.
    16. Wende, Danny & Kopetsch, Thomas & Richter, Wolfram F., 2020. "Planning health care capacities with a gravity equation," Ruhr Economic Papers 888, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    17. Pérez-Mesa, David & Marrero, Gustavo A. & Darias-Curvo, Sara, 2021. "Child health inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa," MPRA Paper 108801, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Ana Suárez Álvarez & Ana Jesús López Menéndez, 2018. "Assessing Changes Over Time in Inequality of Opportunity: The Case of Spain," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 989-1014, October.
    19. Philippe Batifoulier & John Latsis & Jacques Merchiers, 2010. "Les priorités de la prise en charge financière des soins. Une approche par la philosophie du besoin," EconomiX Working Papers 2010-2, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    20. Stolpe, Michael, 2003. "Ressourcen und Ergebnisse der globalen Gesundheitsökonomie: Einführung und Überblick," Kiel Working Papers 1177, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    21. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11716 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Florence Jusot & Sandy Tubeuf & Alain Trannoy, 2010. "Effort or Circumstances: Does the Correlation Matter for Inequality of Opportunity in Health?," Working Papers DT33, IRDES institut for research and information in health economics, revised Jul 2010.
    23. Matthias Giesecke & Sarah Okoampah, 2014. "Inequality of Opportunity in Retirement Age – The Role of Physical Job Demands," Ruhr Economic Papers 0492, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health; Equality of opportunity; Access costs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:sef:csefwp:437. 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: Dr. Maria Carannante (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cssalit.html .

    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.