The Oxford Handbook of Health Economics

1. Overview , Peter Smith and Sherry Glied

The Organization of Health Care Systems

2. Health Systems in Industrialized Countries , Bianca K. Frogner, Peter S. Hussey, and Gerard F. Anderson

3. Health Systems in Low and Middle Income Countries , Anne Mills

4. The Political Economy of Health Care , Carolyn Tuohy and Sherry Glied

5. The Promise of Health: Evidence of the Impact of Health on Income and Well-Being , William Jack

Determinants of Health

6. Health Production , Kristian Bolin

7. Socioeconomic Status and Health: Dimensions and Mechanisms , David M. Cutler, Adriana Lleras-Muney, and Tom Vogl

8. Determinants of Health in Childhood , Michael Baker and Mark Stabile

9. Economics of Infectious Diseases , Ramanan Laxminarayan and Anup Malani

10. Economics of Health Behaviours and Addictions: Contemporary Issues and Policy Implications , Donald S. Kenkel and Jody Sindelar

11. Economic and Mental Health: An International Perspective , Richard G. Frank

Institutions of Health Care Finance

12. Public Sector Health Care Financing , Ake Blomqvist

13. Voluntary Private Health Insurance , Peter Zweifel

14. Health Care Cost Growth , Michael E. Chernew and Dustin May

15. User Charges , Erik Schokkaert and Carine Van de Voorde

Economic Problems of Health Care Finance

16. Insurance and the Demand for Medical Care , Mark V. Pauly

17. Guaranteed Access to Affordable Coverage in Individual Health Insurance Markets , Wynand P.M.M. van de Ven and Frederik T. Schut

18. Managed Care , Laurence Baker

The Institutions of Health Care Supply

19. Hospitals: Teaming Up , Pedro Pita Barros and Pau Olivella

20. Primary Care , Anthony Scott and Stephen Jan

21. The Global Health Workforce , Till Barnighausen and David E. Bloom

22. The Economics of the Biopharmaceutical Industry , Patricia M. Danzon

23. Disease Prevention, Health Care and Economics , Jane Hall

24. Long-Term Care , Jose-Luis Fernandez, Julien Forder and Martin Knapp

Economic Problems of Health Care Supply

25. Physician Agency and Payment for Primary Medical Care , Thomas G. McGuire

26. Provider Payment and Incentives , Jon B. Christianson and Douglas Conrad

27. Non-Price Rationing and Waiting Times , Tor Iversen and Luigi Siciliani

28. Increasing Competition between Providers in Health Care Markets: The Economic Evidence , Carol Propper and George Leckie

Assessing Performance

29. Measuring Organisational Performance , Jim Burgess and Andrew Street

30. Health System Productivity , Jack E. Triplett

31. The Methods of Cost-Effectiveness Analysis to Inform Decisions about the Use of Health Care Interventions and Programmes , Simon Walker, Mark Sculpher and Mike Drummond

32. Analysing Uncertainty in Cost-effectiveness for Decision Making , Susan Griffin and Karl Claxton

33. Health Utility Measurement , Donna Rowen and John Brazier

Economic Perspectives on Fairness

34. Concepts of Equity and Fairness in Health and Health Care , Jan Abel Olsen

35. Measuring Inequality and Inequity in Health and Health Care , Eddy van Doorslaer and Tom Van Ourti

36. Intergenerational Aspects of Health Care , Louise Sheiner

Economic Methodology and Health Policy

37. Econometric Evaluation of Health Policies , Andrew M. Jones and Nigel Rice

38. Health Economics and Policy: The Challenges of Proselytising , Alan K. Maynard and Karen Bloor

Wholeheartedly agree with Matt Andrews

If only all development organizations were required to provide background stories like these for the innovations they so easily reproduce everywhere. One wonders if ministers of finance in French speaking African countries would so willingly agree to Medium Term Expenditure Framework reforms if they knew where these ideas came from (select advanced Anglophone countries like Australia), what kind of process MTEFs emerged from in these settings, what kind of political context they demand, what capacities they require etc. Ditto for just about every good, better or best practice one can think of. We need more of what ISS is providing: materials to help theorize what makes a best or innovative practice best or innovative and to assist us in thinking about whether these practices fit into new contexts...or what will be required to facilitate the fit. Visit their web site at http://www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties/

Happy Birthday GAO

Accountability Is Their Middle Name

Some recent reports from GAO:
Economic Development: Efficiency and Effectiveness of Fragmented Programs Are Unclear

Climate Change Adaptation: Aligning Funding with Strategic Priorities

Financial Education and Counseling Pilot Program

Value-Added Taxes: Potential Lessons for the United States from Other Countries' Experiences

Data Center Consolidation: Agencies Need to Complete Inventories and Plans to Achieve Expected Savings

Millennium Challenge Corporation: Compacts in Cape Verde and Honduras Achieved Reduced Targets

Information Sharing Environment: Better Road Map Needed to Guide Implementation and Investments

Pakistan Assistance: Relatively Little of the $3 Billion in Requested Assistance Is Subject to State's Certification of Pakistan's Progress on Nonproliferation and Counterterrorism Issues

Drinking Water: Unreliable State Data Limit EPA's Ability to Target Enforcement Priorities and Communicate Water Systems' Performance

Information Technology: Continued Attention Needed to Accurately Report Federal Spending and Improve Management

Cost and Legal Authority for Selected Financial Literacy Programs and Activities

Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, Dating Violence, and Stalking: National Data Collection Efforts Underway to Address Some Information Gaps

The Democratic Republic of the Congo: Information on the Rate of Sexual Violence in War-Torn Eastern DRC and Adjoining Countries

Child Fatalities from Maltreatment: National Data Could Be Strengthened

NASA Needs to Better Assess Contract Termination Liability Risks and Ensure Consistency in Its Practices

Child Maltreatment: Strengthening National Data on Child Fatalities Could Aid in Prevention

Combating Terrorism: Additional Steps Needed to Enhance Foreign Partners' Capacity to Prevent Terrorist Travel

Antibiotic Resistance: Data Gaps Will Remain Despite HHS Taking Steps to Improve Monitoring

Tax Gap: Complexity and Taxpayer Compliance

Influenza Pandemic: Lessons from the H1N1 Pandemic Should Be Incorporated into Future Planning

American Samoa and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands: Employment, Earnings, and Status of Key Industries Since Minimum Wage Increases Began

Tax Administration: Information on Selected Foreign Practices That May Provide Useful Insights

On Fiscal Rules

How Intelligent Budget Rules Help Chile Prosper: Lessons for the US


How Smart Fiscal Rules Keep Sweden’s Budget in Balance

Special Announcement: Focus on Fiscal Responsibility Laws

For the next 4 weeks this blog will be focusing on Fiscal Responsibility Legislations and their international experience. Comments and views welcome.

Enjoy the following post by YangHyun Jin over at IMF's PFM blog;
Pakistan: Monitoring Implementation of the Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation Law

4.8 miles of Electric Beds

Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience

Official History Spotlights Iraq Rebuilding Blunders

The Organizational Chart for Iraq's Reconstruction


Parking Lot as Situation Room
As a socialist regime, Iraq had millions of state employees and pensioners. Rebuilding officials had no idea how much to pay them. They picked a figure out of the air over a debate in a parking lot, according to the review.

“The decision about emergency payments to Iraqi civil servants took place around a concrete pillar in the parking lot of the Kuwait Hilton. "Having read various background papers, we started talking about if we could do it at five bucks, or we could do it at 50 bucks," David Nummy remembers. "We decided that a good midpoint was 20 bucks. And that's how we established $20 emergency payments."

4.8 miles of Electric Beds
The violence greatly impeded execution, leading to confusion and unfinished projects.

“When finally finished, the waste-water treatment system—which was supposed to serve the entire population of Falluja—will serve just over a third of the city's population, will have cost three times its original price, and will have been completed three years later than originally planned. Moreover, serious questions remain about whether the Iraqis can sustain it after transfer to their control.

It turned out that the U.S. imported a lot of (hospital) beds for Iraq. A representative of the Canadian company that produced them all told (Jack) Holly, (the former logistics chief for the reconstruction effort) that he had received "4.8 miles of electric hospital beds." Over time, the embassy distributed them to various hospitals and clinics—to be operated manually in many cases because of the inadequate power supply.

Quote of the Day

“They say that the only way to get to paradise without dying is to be governor of a central bank. This has not been true in Iceland.”-David Oddsson, governor of Central Bank of Iceland

-Lessons from Iceland; Cracks in the crust

Namibia - Budget Calender

The MTEF has the following key characteristics:

• It sets out the macro-fiscal framework for the coming three years, reviews government fiscal policy objectives, and provides expenditure ceilings for the operational and development budgets by Vote.
• The allocation of resources and expenditure priorities are set in line with Namibia’s Vision 2030, and National Development Plans.
• The MTEF is supported by MTPs prepared for each Vote. The MTPs set out, for each Vote, the total resources allocated to each Program, the main activities to be carried out under each Program, and how the Programs will help to achieve the ministries’ objectives which contribute to the overall national development objectives. The expenditure plans are linked to socioeconomic variables in the PEMP.
• The MTEF covers a period of three years, but is revised every year. It thus serves the purpose of threeyear rolling budget and also an annual budget. The Votes also include statements on financial operations of some special funds and state-owned enterprises falling under the respective ministry.
• The MTEF is regarded as the main budget document, and detailed information on the budget estimates is presented in the accompanying books—Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure and the Three-Year Rolling Development Budget.

The MTEF in Namibia, in principle, could offer several major advantages:

• Its medium-term perspective enables a rationalization and improvement in the sectoral and intra-sector allocation of resources in terms of Government priorities.
• The MTEF expands the budget coverage by including donor and other extra-budgetary funds.
• It integrates the operational and development budgets and relates recurrent costs to capital expenditure.
• It puts increased emphasis on performance as programs are expected to be planned and costed with a view to produce outputs that in turn should achieve objectives.

In practice, the MTEF process is still in its early stages and falls short of its potential as a tool for rational allocation of resources, review of priorities, and decision making. In particular:

• While the MTEF is presented by Vote Programs (through the MTPs), the detailed budget estimates for each Vote continue to be shown by Divisions and Sub-divisions (economic items). The expenditures are classified and recorded by Divisions and Sub-divisions alone. Thus, there is as yet no explicit link shown between the Vote-level Programs in the MTEFs and Votes, Divisions and Sub-divisions, and thus the report on the budget implementation through the Appropriation Accounts and the Audit Report. Hence it is not possible to compare what was supposed to have been spent on programs with what was actually spent.

The MTEF process is currently largely top-down, concentrating on the aggregate expenditure amounts. The bottom process for feeding back into the MTEF ceilings is limited; this also hampers the Government’s ability to use the budget as a strategic tool for achievement of its development goals.
• Expenditure allocations still seem to follow an incremental basis; estimates for the two out years do not reflect reprioritization or genuine costing of programs, but seem to be derived by applying uniform growth factors.

Most Colorful Website for a Central Finance Agency

Ministry of Finance - Namibia

Related;
Statement by an IMF Staff Mission to Namibia;

"Against this background, a counter-cyclical fiscal stance is appropriate in the fiscal year 2008/09 (ending March 31), and sound fiscal management in recent years provides scope for some fiscal easing to allow for increased outlays in priority areas such as rural infrastructure, education, and poverty reduction. However, the magnitude of the easing implied by the 2008/09 budget-the fiscal balance would swing by some 6.5 percentage points of GDP-seems considerably larger, even given counter-cyclical considerations. Moreover, the projected large increase in expenditures raises concerns about the ability to ensure high quality of spending. It will be important to integrate the annual fiscal programs into sustainable multi-year budget expenditure plans.

"The mission shares the view that further development of the domestic financial sector would facilitate broad-based economic growth, but is concerned that the new pension fund and insurance company regulations would be difficult to implement and risk distorting capital flows at the expense of lower returns and higher risk to domestic savings. Consideration could be given to a greater focus on market-based alternatives to financial market development, including a broadening of the range of available domestic assets. More broadly, it is important to preserve the stability of the financial sector and the mission welcomes the Bank of Namibia's prompt steps to curb and control non-licensed deposit taking operations and pyramid schemes.

"The National Development Plan 3 provides a helpful framework to achieve high sustainable growth, and to reduce poverty and inequality. Continued improvement in labor productivity and private sector competitiveness will be critical in order to facilitate economic diversification and lower the high unemployment rate.

Working Papers from the Central Bank;

•Central Government Debt Sustainability
•Public Exp Management in Namibia
•Monetary Policy Transmission Mechanism in Namibia
Private Equity - Lesson for Namibia

Namibia's social safety net : issues and options for reform

Namibia - Public expenditure review

Namibia: Selected Issues and Statistical Appendix

Namibia: Report on Observance of Standards and Codes - Fiscal Transparency Module

For Discussion:What do you think of their MTEF? With 500 pages it appears too detailed to be effective? See the Fiscal ROSC for a summary of the current features of the MTEF.