Beyond path dependency: explaining health care system change.

In July 2008 Lorraine Frisina sent me a note describing a conference she and others were organizing in Bremen, Germany. The conference would bring together political scientists, economists, and other social scientists in an effort to examine and explain the deep changes that were taking place in health care systems around the industrialized world. She asked whether JHPPL might be interested in publishing a set of the papers that emerged from the conference. We were. The conference, held in early December 2008, brought together an extraordinary collection of health policy experts who together considered a range of theoretical approaches applied to an even larger range of health care systems. Following the conference, Lorraine and her colleague Mirella Cacace worked with Lawrence D. Brown and me to coedit this issue. Mirella and Lorraine then wrote the note below, which summarizes some of the themes presented and the papers written. It is an impressive collection. We even added a bonus highlight: an extremely engaging backandforth between David Wilsford and Larry Brown on the utility of pathdependence theory in explaining health system change. Enjoy.