It is a contentious issue in philosophy whether an omission can be the cause of an event. At the very least it seems we should consider causation by omission differently from ‘ordinary’ causation. Consider Sarah McGrath’s example. Billy promised Alice to… Read More »Are we estimating the effects of health care expenditure correctly?
Social scientists, especially economists, are concerned with causal inference: understanding whether and how an event causes a certain effect. Typically, we subscribe to the view that causal relations are reducible to sets of counterfactuals, and we use ever more sophisticated… Read More »Transformative treatments: a big methodological challenge for health economics
Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of some of the most recently published peer reviewed articles from the field. We don’t cover everything, or even what’s most important – just a few papers that have interested the author. Visit our Resources… Read More »Sam Watson’s journal round-up for 9th January 2017
I stand accused. Not of a particularly heinous crime, but of something that has given me pause for thought recently. During a discussion about a piece of work involving patient outcomes, I was accused of ‘thinking like an economist’. Had… Read More »Do economists care about patients?