CHE Seminar Series: A Fair Innings? Preferences for Prioritisation of the Less Healthy
The fair innings principle prioritises healthcare for patients who would have fewer quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) without treatment. We gauge support for different interpretations and intensities of this prioritisation in a United Kingdom general public sample (n = 230). We use a novel localised convex budget-set experiment (observations = 20,700) to estimate participant-specific parameters of social welfare functions (SWFs) representing different interpretations of the principle. There is overwhelming support for the principle, broadly defined. Prioritarian SWFs, with continuously diminishing marginal welfare from QALYs, fit the data of most participants better than SWFs that are linear in QALYs up to a fair innings threshold at which there is a downward discontinuity in marginal welfare or linear SWFs with age-weights. We use the estimated parameters to obtain welfare weights by quality-adjusted life expectancy and illustrate their policy consequences.
Speaker profile
Matthew Robson is a Research Fellow at the Erasmus School of Economics. His research focuses on inequality, social preferences, and distributive justice, drawing on insights from experimental, health, and welfare economics. He designs experiments, estimate individual preferences, and identify social value judgments to inform public policy. His work also includes applied econometric research on inequality and multidimensional poverty in the contexts of health and development. Currently, he is based at Erasmus University Rotterdam, working with Owen O’Donnell and Tom Van Ourti. Previously, he held positions at the University of York and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at the University of Oxford.
Weekly seminar series
As part of our Centre's vibrant research culture, we host a weekly seminar series. Visiting and invited researchers present current research relating to the economics of health and wellbeing, and the healthcare sector. Visitors are welcome to join these sessions where discussion and debate is encouraged.
For further information on our seminar series, please contact Trong-Anh.Trinh@monash.edu.
Event Details
- Date:
- 6 August 2025 at 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
- Venue:
- Caulfield campus, Building H, level 9, room H9.14
- Categories:
- CHE Seminar; General
Description
The fair innings principle prioritises healthcare for patients who would have fewer quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) without treatment. We gauge support for different interpretations and intensities of this prioritisation in a United Kingdom general public sample (n = 230). We use a novel localised convex budget-set experiment (observations = 20,700) to estimate participant-specific parameters of social welfare functions (SWFs) representing different interpretations of the principle. There is overwhelming support for the principle, broadly defined. Prioritarian SWFs, with continuously diminishing marginal welfare from QALYs, fit the data of most participants better than SWFs that are linear in QALYs up to a fair innings threshold at which there is a downward discontinuity in marginal welfare or linear SWFs with age-weights. We use the estimated parameters to obtain welfare weights by quality-adjusted life expectancy and illustrate their policy consequences.
Speaker profile
Matthew Robson is a Research Fellow at the Erasmus School of Economics. His research focuses on inequality, social preferences, and distributive justice, drawing on insights from experimental, health, and welfare economics. He designs experiments, estimate individual preferences, and identify social value judgments to inform public policy. His work also includes applied econometric research on inequality and multidimensional poverty in the contexts of health and development. Currently, he is based at Erasmus University Rotterdam, working with Owen O’Donnell and Tom Van Ourti. Previously, he held positions at the University of York and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at the University of Oxford.
Weekly seminar series
As part of our Centre's vibrant research culture, we host a weekly seminar series. Visiting and invited researchers present current research relating to the economics of health and wellbeing, and the healthcare sector. Visitors are welcome to join these sessions where discussion and debate is encouraged.
For further information on our seminar series, please contact Trong-Anh.Trinh@monash.edu.