Health economics made easy: guiding the initiated and uninitiated.

Abstract

For many years it was a challenge in teaching health economics to find a textbook that exactly fits the needs of a class, not least because the needs of student are so diverse. To an extent, this remains the case despite the appearance of several new and useful contributions in the last few years. At times it seemed like cable television – lots of choices, but nothing that is quite what you want. Cullis and West (1979) worked well for many groups, but was allowed to get out of date, and went out of print for several years. McGuire et al. (1988) was a good option for people with a background in economics, and provided a comprehensive treatment of the subject, but generated antibodies in the student new to the subject. Gavin Mooney (1992) targeted several books to the interested lay reader, but these lacked the rigour needed for the more serious student. Before going further, I must declare an interest since the second edition of the textbook by Barbara McPake and me (2008) has recently been published. It competes directly with some of the other texts discussed below, but for obvious reasons is not reviewed.