Program Overview

Course Information

The course AØKA08079U Health Economics is offered at the University of Copenhagen.

Description

Health economics falls within the umbrella of Public Economics, studying the interaction between healthcare providers, patients, governments, and insurers. The course covers the demand for health and healthcare, supply of healthcare, (asymmetric) information economics, economics of health innovation, health policy, and public health economics.

Learning Outcomes

After completing the course, students are expected to be able to:

• Explain, discuss, and criticize central health economic concepts and theories related to health behaviors of patients and professionals.
• Account for traits of Beveridge, Bismarkian, and US healthcare systems, identify determinants of variation in healthcare expenditure, and relate them to outcomes.
• Reflect on the identification issues in health econometric applications.
• Identify health economic trade-offs in the healthcare sector in Denmark and internationally.
• Discuss health economic issues in a fairly clear and organized way and relate them to empirical findings.
• Understand and extract relevant information from scientific papers in applied health economics.
• Analyze specific health economic issues from the perspective of an economic model.
• Launch economic concepts into policy recommendations in the healthcare sector.
• Develop research designs in health economic applications.
• Connect, combine, or adapt general ideas and concepts to specific health economic problems under consideration.

Literature

The course textbook is "Health Economics" by Jay Bhattacharya, Timothy Hyde, and Peter Tu. The syllabus also includes various research articles.

Teaching and Learning Methods

The lectures take an "active learning" approach, engaging students in activities during the lectures. The purpose is to let students reflect actively on the issues under consideration. The lectures consist of classic lecturing, short student presentations, discussions, quizzes, padlet exercises, short written assignments, and small group work.

Workload

The workload for the course is:

• Lectures: 42 hours
• Preparation: 161 hours
• Total: 206 hours

Exam

The exam is a written examination, 3 hours under invigilation. The exam assignment is given in English and must be answered in English.

Criteria for Exam Assessment

Students are assessed on the extent to which they master the learning outcomes for the course. To receive the top grade, the student must demonstrate an excellent performance displaying a high level of command of all aspects of the relevant material.

Course Details

• Language: English
• Course code: AØKA08079U
• Credit: 7.5 ECTS
• Level: Full Degree Master, Ph.D.
• Duration: 1 semester
• Placement: Autumn

Contracting Department and Faculty

• Department: Department of Economics
• Faculty: Faculty of Social Sciences

Course Coordinators and Lecturers

• Torben Heien Nielsen

Study Board

• Department of Economics, Study Council