Health Policy Commons^™

A Better Calculus For Regulators: From Cost-Benefit Analysis To The Social Welfare Function, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

The “social welfare function” (SWF) is a powerful tool that originates in theoretical welfare economics and has wide application in economic scholarship, for example in optimal tax theory and environmental economics. This Article provides a comprehensive introduction to the SWF framework. It then shows how the SWF framework can be used as the basis for regulatory policy analysis, and why it improves upon cost-benefit analysis (CBA).

Two types of SWFs are especially plausible: the utilitarian SWF, which sums individual well-being numbers, and the prioritarian SWF, which gives extra weight to the well-being of the worse off. Either one of these …

Fragmentation In Mental Health Benefits And Services: A Preliminary Examination Into Consumption And Outcomes, Barak D. Richman, Daniel Grossman, Frank Sloan

Faculty Scholarship

In this chapter, we examine consumption patterns and health outcomes within a health insurance system in which mental health benefits are administered under a carved-out insurance plan. Using a comprehensive dataset of health claims, including insurance claims for both mental and physical health services, we examine both heterogeneity of consumption and variation in outcomes. Consumption variation addresses the regularly overlooked question of how equal insurance and access does not translate into equitable consumption. Outcomes variation yields insights into the potential harms of disparate consumption and of uncoordinated care. We find that even when insurance and access are held constant, consumption …