HECON4210 ¨C Demand for Health and Health Insurance

Learning outcome

Knowledge

This course will provide knowledge about:

• The modeling of demand for health and health services within an economic framework

• Factors that influence the health production function, including the effects of early childhood influences of later life health outcomes

• The factors that impact on the demand for health insurance. Central components are the uncertainty about future health states and the consumer¡¯s attitude towards risk

The construction of optimal health insurance schemes. Important keywords are asymmetric information, adverse selection, moral hazard, behavioral biases and patient co-payments

Skills

The course aims at providing you skills to:

• Model the demand for health and health services within an economic framework

• Model the effects of early childhood influences of later life health outcomes

• Model demand for health insurance

• Model market imperfections in the insurance market and their consequences for optimal health insurance coverage from a social perspective

• Critically assess empirical evidence on the topics covered in the course, including causal claims related to the causal effect of childhood circumstance on adult health and selection and moral hazard in health insurance.

Admission to the course

This course is only available for students at the following master programmes:

Health Economics, Policy and Management (master)

European Master in Health Economics and Management (master)

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.

Recommended previous knowledge

Students should have knowledge in math corresponding to ECON2200 ¨C Matematikk 1/Mikro 1 (MM1) (discontinued). There will be organized an elective week course in math at the start of the semester.

Overlapping courses

• 5 credits overlap with HME4302 ¨C Health Economics (discontinued).

Examination

Written examination.

Examination and grading at The Faculty of Medicine.

Examination support material

No examination support material is allowed.

Language of examination

For students at Eu-HEM: English

For students at HEPAM: The problem set will be given in English. Answers can be given in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish or in English.

Grading scale

Grades are awarded on a scale from A to F, where A is the best grade

Read more about the grading system.

Resit an examination

For Eu-HEM students:

An EU-hem student cannot present her or himself for the examination in a course more than two times. There will be held re-sits for EU-hem students who have failed an exam or who have legitimate absence (usually illness) in January and August. If you are entitled to a re-sit you must contact the student advisor via email no longer than one week after the result of the exam has been published.

More about examinations at UiO

• Use of sources and citations
• Special exam arrangements due to individual needs
• Withdrawal from an exam
• Illness at exams / postponed exams
• Explanation of grades and appeals
• Resitting an exam
• Cheating/attempted cheating

You will find further guides and resources at the web page on examinations at UiO.