La micro-économie des soins médicaux doit-elle nécessairement être d'inspiration néo-classique ?

Abstract

Sébastien Darbon et Alain Letourmy: Should the micro-economics of medical care necessarily be neo-classical? As far as medical care is concerned, attempts of a possible economie explanation of the conduct of its agents are prevailing today in the neo-classical pattern. A detailed study of its abilities accounting for the way the medical system is being run, shows that even in the light of its most recent developments (i.e. the theory of the demond for health born from the research made on the human capital ; considerations on the links between supply and demand resulting from the notion of induction), this pattern remains little convincing. Sébastien Darbon and Alain Letourmy are studying here the reasons of such a failure and propose to direct our thinking towards the expansion of a micro-economy of the disease and of the medical profession, which would take more into account the specific characters of the field studied.