Equivalent income and the economic evaluation of health care

We argue that the economic evaluation of health care (cost-benefit analysis) should respect individual preferences and should incorporate distributional consid- erations. Relying on individual preferences does not imply subjective welfarism. We propose a particular non- welfarist approach, based on the concept of equivalent income, and show how it helps to define distributional weights. We illustrate the feasibility of our approach with empirical results from a pilot survey.cost-benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, willingness-to-pay, social welfare function, equivalent income