The Nobel Prize committee summarizes their contributions as follows: Some countries become trapped in a situation with extractive institutions and low economic growth. The introduction of inclusive institutions would create long-term benefits for everyone, but extractive institutions provide short-term gains for the people in power. As long...

This year, the Nobel Prize in medicine went to Victor Ambros, currently a Professor of Natural Science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and Gary Ruvkun, a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. The two men won the award for their discovery of microRNA. One of the key questions of science is figuring how how can we have such...

That is the question considered by Wouters and Kuha (2024) in a recent Health Affairs article. The authors use IQVIA data between 1982 and 2024 on the timing of drug launches and estimate median delay times using a Kaplan Meier estimates. They find that: From the first launch globally, the median time to availability was 2.7 years for high-income...

When Interest Rates Go Low, Should Public Debt Go High?ROI for SDOH interventions.Consumption responses to sweetened beverage taxes.Do health care quality improvement policies work for all?“Provider respondents reported spending time equivalent of more than 100 000 full-time registered nurses per year on prior authorization. ”

One of the key benefits of the UK health system is that everyone has access to care. However, is care provided equally to all people? A paper by Matias et al. (2024) examines whether or not there are any inequalities in waiting times by socioeconomic status for women diagnosed with breast cancer in England and who require either a mastectomy...

Recently, the Office of Management and Budget has released new procedures to assess government regulation (Circular A-4) and economic policies (Circular A-94). What is unique about this guidance is that it weights benefits and costs of new regulations and policies based on the income of the individuals impacted. The goal is to help reduce inequality....