ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides an introduction to these tools and to show ways that the same approach can inform health policy in widely differing contexts. All societies must make choices as to how to allocate whatever resources are available to the production of health services, and how to distribute those health services. Health economists have evolved different approaches to analysing and evaluating resource allocation in the health sector which reflect the plan–market dichotomy. Economic analysis in health and health care is often undertaken with a view to help governments and other agencies to better achieve the goals of their health policies. In countries with government funding of health care, some system of funding that is heavily regulated by government, it is common for there to be a system of allocating resources to take account of differences in needs in different parts of the population.
