| Summary: | Two of the most important questions facing health policy makers in OECD countries are: whether the increasing sums of money devoted to health care are yielding commensurate value in terms of improvements in health status; and whether different ways of financing and delivering health care -and, hence, health care reformsmake a difference to health. This paper explores the effect of variations in the volume of health care and in certain characteristics of health systems on mortality across 21 OECD countries over the past 25 years, after controlling for certain other determinants of health status. It builds on previous research on the determinants of health outcomes in OECD countries (Or, 2000). In contrast to the earlier work, it concentrates on a non-monetary measure of health care supply - number of doctors - to avoid a number of measurement issues. It also uses a range of summary measures of mortality to assess the performance of health care systems and incorporates a ..
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