About the project
This projects is a sub-projects of the research programme Studies in Quality and Cost for the elderly which aims at providing knowledge of future challenges in long-term care.
In the survey of long-term care from an economic perspective by Norton (2000) almost all the included literature is from the US. Economic literature that has European institutions in mind is absent. However, such studies are much needed. For instance, in NOU 1997: 17, a government appointed commission claimed that "…Secondly, the present system has unfortunate incentive effects since it is economically rewarding for the municipality to have elderly with high incomes in institutions, while for the elderly it is less costly to receive services in their own home or in community care housing. For elderly with low incomes the opposite is true. …..it is clearly inefficient to have systems with these incentive effects" (page 303, our translation). The system of transfers and user co-payments are basically the same now, and according to our knowledge no one has actually studied to what extent the potential inefficiencies can be traced in actual data.
Objectives
The project aims to hightlight three research questions:
- How does the Norwegian system of transfers and co-payments influences income and expenditures for the elderly, the relatives, the municipalities and the state?
- Given the actual system: What are the optimal choices for an elderly in need of care and for the municipality and to what extent do the optimal choices conflict?
- Do municipalities actually respond to economic incentives in assignment and composition of long-term care to the elderly?
Financing
NFR
Start - finish
2008 - 2014