COMSATS University Islamabad

COURSE CONTENTS

Course Code---ECO

Course Title----Topoics in Health Economics

Number of Credits: 03

Course Type: Elective Course

Course Objectives:

This course is designed to achieve the following objectives:

 To review economic approaches to the understanding of markets for health care and more
generally the behavior of agents involved in the provision and consumption of health
care.
 To discuss characteristics that are integral to health economics, namely information
problems, insurance, government intervention and the institutional environment
generally.
 To expose students to the widest possible range of perspectives and are encouraged to
form their own critical evaluation of the current state of health care provision in Pakistan
and other countries.
 To pay special attention to how to critically read challenging state-of-the-art empirical
papers.
Course Contents:

This course provides an economic approach to the analysis of health and medical care markets.
Topics covered include the production of health, the production and consumption of medical
care, the role of health as human capital, the relation between health and wealth, health insurance
and the problems of adverse selection and moral hazard, the health workforce and the training of
health professionals. Throughout the course reference is made to current government health
policy.

Recommended Books:

1. Folland, S., Goodman, A.C., and Stano, M. (2017). The Economics of Health and Health
Care. Pearson New International Edition, 8th Edition, Routledge.
2. Bhattacharya, J., Hyde, T., and Tu, P. (2014). Health Economics. Palgrave Macmillan.
3. Drummond, M.F., Sculpher, M.J., Claxton, K., Stoddart, G.L., and Torrance, G.W.
(2015). Methods for the Economic Evaluation of Health Care Programmes. 4th Edition,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4. Brazier, J., Ratcliffe J., Saloman, J., and Tsuchiya, A. (2016). Measuring and Valuing
Health Benefits for Economic Evaluation. 2nd Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.