Research on Economics, Management and Information Technologies (REMIT), University Portucalense, Rua Dr. Bernardino de Almeida, 541-619, 4200-072, Porto, Portugal.
Research Unit in Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies (GOVCOPP), University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
Appl Health Econ Health Policy. 2018 Aug;16(4):503-513. doi: 10.1007/s40258-018-0394-6.
This article develops two inference procedures to calculate the inequality aversion and alpha parameters of a health-related social welfare function with constant elasticity (CES-HRSWF) using stated preferences. Based on the relative concept of inequality, a range of values were proposed for the trade-offs between improving total population health and reducing health inequalities.
A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from a sample of 422 college students in Portugal. Respondents faced three hypothetical allocation scenarios where they needed to decide between two health programmes that assign different health gains to two anonymous sub-groups of the population and to two sub-groups identified by socioeconomic class. Combinations of the median response to these three questions were used to estimate the parameters of the CES-HRSWF.
Findings suggest that the quantification of the efficiency-equality trade-off is not independent of the inference procedure used. Plausible values for the inequality aversion and for the alpha parameters were obtained ranging from 2.24 to 4.85 and from 0.5 to 0.58, respectively.
Respondents revealed some aversion to health inequality. However, the extent of this aversion seems to be sensitive to (1) the identification of the groups by occupation status, (2) the size of the health gain, and (3) the inference procedure used.
本文开发了两种推理程序，用于使用偏好陈述来计算具有恒定弹性（CES-HRSWF）的健康相关社会福利函数的不平等厌恶和α参数。基于不平等的相对概念，提出了一系列在改善总人口健康和减少健康不平等之间进行权衡的价值。
使用自填式问卷从葡萄牙的 422 名大学生样本中收集数据。受访者面临三种假设的分配情景，需要在两个向人口的两个匿名子群体和两个按社会经济阶层划分的子群体分配不同健康收益的卫生计划之间做出选择。这些三个问题的中位数回答的组合用于估计 CES-HRSWF 的参数。
研究结果表明，效率-平等权衡的量化并不独立于使用的推理程序。得出了不平等厌恶和α参数的合理值，范围分别为 2.24 至 4.85 和 0.5 至 0.58。
受访者对健康不平等表现出一定的厌恶。然而，这种厌恶的程度似乎取决于（1）职业地位群体的识别，（2）健康收益的大小，以及（3）使用的推理程序。
