Series:

The MIT Press

2 total works

Cover of Price of Smoking

What does a pack of cigarettes cost a smoker, the smoker's family, and society? This longitudinal study on the private and social costs of smoking calculates that the cost of smoking to a 24-year-old woman smoker is $86,000 over a lifetime; for a 24-year-old male smoker the cost is $183,000. The total social cost of smoking over a lifetime-including both private costs to the smoker and costs imposed on others (including second-hand smoke and costs of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security)-comes to $106,000 for a woman and $220,000 for a man. The cost per pack over a lifetime of smoking: almost $40.00. The first study to quantify the cost of smoking in this way, or in such depth, this accessible book not only adds a weapon to the arsenal of antismoking messages but also provides a framework for assessment that can be applied to other health behaviors. The findings on the effects of smoking on Medicare and Medicaid will be surprising and perhaps controversial, for the authors estimate the costs to be much lower than the damage awards being paid to 46 states as a result of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement.

Cover of Health Economics

Health Economics

by Frank A. Sloan and Chee-Ruey Hsieh

Published 23 March 2012
This book introduces students to the growing research field of health economics. Rather than offer details about health systems around the world without providing a theoretical context, Health Economics combines economic concepts with empirical evidence to enhance readers' economic understanding of how health care institutions and markets function. It views the subject in both microeconomic and macroeconomic terms, moving from the individual and firm level to the market level to a macroeconomic view of the role of health and health care within the economy as a whole. The book includes discussion of recent empirical evidence on the U.S. health system and can be used for an undergraduate course on U.S. health economics. It also contains sufficient material for an undergraduate or masters course on global health economics, or for a course on health economics aimed at health professionals. It includes a chapter on nurses as well as a chapter on the economics of hospitals and pharmaceuticals, which can be used in master's courses for students in these fields. It supplements its analysis with readings (both classic and current), extensive references, links to Web sites on policy developments and public programs, review and discussion questions, and exercises. Downloadable supplementary material for instructors, including solutions to the exercise sets, sample syllabuses, and more than 600 slides that can be used for class presentations, is available at http://mitpress.mit.edu/health_economics. A student solutions manual with answers to the odd-numbered exercises is also available.