A better understanding of the determinants of public health care expenditures is key to designing effective health policies. We integrate demand and supply-side determinants and factors from political economy into an empirical analysis of the highly decentralized Swiss health care system and control for major health care finance reforms. We compile a novel data set of the cantonal health care e...

Little is known about the extent to which public spending is targeted towards the poor in Mozambique. The objective of the present paper is to assess whether public expenditures on education and health, in particular, are successful at reaching the poorer segments of the Mozambican population. Standard non-behavioural benefit-incidence methodology is applied, combining individual client informa...

We study how conflict in contest games is influenced by rival parties being groups and by group members being able to punish each other. Our motivation stems from the analysis of socio-political conflict. The theoretical prediction is that conflict expenditures are independent of group size and of whether punishment is available or not. We find, first, that conflict expenditures of groups are s...

This article uses recently published time series data for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries to estimate income elasticities for health care expenditures. Several different models and alternative specifications are examined to determine the sensitivity and robustness of the estimated relationships. Income is the dominant-determinant of health care spending and l...