Instructor: Robin D. Hanson, Asst. Professor, Economics (rhanson@gmu.edu, http://robinhanson.com)
Office Hours: Officially TT 4:30-5:30. But I'm usually in at 10A Carow Hall. Call ahead (703-993-2326) if you want to be sure.
Catalog Entry:

Econ 496, 895 Health Economics (3:3:0). Prerequisites: ECON 103. Determinants of Health. Supply, Demand, and Institutions of Health Insurance and Care. Evaluation of Market Failure Rationales for Regulation.

Sherman Folland, Allen C. Goodman, Miron Stano, Economics of Health and Health Care, 4th Edition, Prentice Hall Business Publishing, 2004, ISBN: 0-13-100067-5, Sample Price $93.

Charles E. Phelps, Health Economics, Addison Wesley Publishing, 2003, ISBN: 0-321-06898-X, Sample Price $94.

Joseph P. Newhouse And The Insurance Experiment Group, Free For All? Lessons from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment, Harvard University Press, 1993, ISBN: 0-674-31914-1, Sample Price $27.

For undergraduates: To become familiar with basic facts and issues in health economics, and to be able to make an economically-coherent defense of one's opinions on health policy questions.
For graduate students: To in addition write a coherent research paper in health economics.

• Class Participation Please contribute to class discussions.
• Quizzes Three In-Class Quizzes will given. Quizzes and the final are open book, open notes.
• Defended Opinions Three times you will turn in a written defense of your opinions on a health policy question. See a list of things to keep in mind when writing your defended opinions.
• Research Paper Those who take this class as Econ 895, a graduate class, are required to write a research paper on a health economics topic of their choosing.

1. Should we reduce medical subsidies to instead subsidize people to live where the air is cleaner: away from cities, and in better ventilated homes and offices. (Substitute Topic: Should we weigh people once a year and tax them for each pound they weigh more than a standard healthy weight for their age and gender?)
2. Should medical advertising and information services be liberalized to allow the same variety of advertising and information services that we allow for most other kinds of products? (Substitute Topic: Should people be allowed to reimport drugs from other countries, like Canada, when those drugs are identical to drugs sold here?)
3. You may choose the last topic. Here are some health policy questions you might consider.

• Quizzes: Feb 17, Mar 22, Apr 19
• Defended Opinions: Mar 29, Apr 21, May 5
• Research Paper: May 17
• Final: 1:30 - 4:15pm, May 17.

1. 496: Class Participate 5%, 13% per Quiz, 13% per Defended Opinions, 17% final.
2. 895: 1/2 of grade above items, 1/2 research paper.

Lecture Readings and Sources

On the web page, this links to a page of sources, most of which have links.

Misc Health Links