this article provides a commentary to ole norheim’ s editorial entitled “ethical perspective: five unacceptable trade-offs on the path to universal health coverage.” it reinforces its message that an inclusive, participatory process is essential for ethical decision-making and underlines the crucial importance of good governance in setting fair priorities in healthcare. solidarity on both natio...

2 Summary Economists generally argue that the level and structure of a country's own trade barriers, as well as the "quality" of its governance policies, such as regulations on foreign investment or bureaucratic "red tape" on commercial activity, will have a major influence on its economic growth and performance. However, a problem previously encountered in attempts to test these relations empi...

Market conforming institutions are a precondition for a thriving and stable economy. This is the upshot of the Washington consensus or, of somewhat earlier origin, the “Eucken hypothesis”. Another hypothesis of Eucken has it that market conforming institutions are the product of a strong state. However, more general and more important than the strong state is good governance. In this paper I re...

Governance has become a concept that includes more and more phenomena related to the steering of societal developments. The steering of developments had to be left to societal actors and had to be accomplished through networks in which hierarchy hardly played a role. The term “good governance” is abused by using so many indicators that it becomes nearly impossible to achieve good governance. At...

Good governance in health systems is an ideal which is difficult to achieve in its totality but is said to exist if overarching societal goals and values such as solidarity, equity and participation are realized. It requires a process of decision-making and effective implementation and can be judged on the basis of how government institutions conduct their public affairs, manage resources and r...