Regulation by Incentives in Health Sector: Analytical Tools for a Very Local Approach

Abstract

In this paper I introduce a theoretical and conceptual framework to analyse the role of monetary and non-monetary incentive schemes in the field of health services and their connections to human resources for health policies. The incentives that I will consider can be divided into four categories: (1) direct financial incentives; (2) indirect financial incentives; (3), non-financial incentives; (4) broader social incentives. Specifically, I stress the relevance of configurations that articulate different kinds of incentive conjointly from a bottom up and from a top down perspective. The paper is divided into two main parts. In the first one I briefly analyse some of the main debates about regulation by incentives in local development policies. I focus on the relevance of a very local approach to configure incentives schemes. In the second part of the paper I introduce the Institutional Analysis and Development framework (IAD) to analyse the impact of a configuration of incentives on the functioning of the health care systems.

Keywords: Incentive, Economic Sociology, Health Sector, Institutional Analysis And Development

JEL Classification: H41, I18, O22, M52