http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/14081/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/38379/ 2013-01-01T00:00:00Z Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) are the most widely used measure of health in economic evaluations of health care. Within a welfarist framework QALYs are consistent with people's preferences under stringent assumptions. Several authors have argued that QALYs are a valid measure of health within an extra-welfarist framework. This paper studies the applicability of QALYs within the best-known extra-welfarist framework, Sen's capability approach. We propose a procedure to value capability sets and provide a foundation for QALYs within Sen's capability approach. We show that, under appropriate conditions, the ranking of capabilities can be represented locally by a QALY measure and that a willingness to pay for QALYs can be defined. The validity of QALYs as a general measure of health requires the same stringent conditions as in a welfarist framework. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/10993/ 2004-01-01T00:00:00Z This paper introduces the rank-dependent quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) model, a new method to aggregate QALYs in economic evaluations of health care. The rank-dependent QALY model permits the formalization of influential concepts of equity in the allocation of health care, such as the fair innings approach, and it includes as special cases many of the social welfare functions that have been proposed in the literature. An important advantage of the rank-dependent QALY model is that it offers a straightforward procedure to estimate equity weights for QALYs. We characterize the rank-dependent QALY model and argue that its central condition has normative appeal. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/11008/ 2002-02-05T00:00:00Z http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/11019/ 1999-12-01T00:00:00Z This paper studies life-cycle preferences over consumption and health status. We show that cost-effectiveness analysis is consistent with cost–benefit analysis if the lifetime utility function is additive over time, multiplicative in the utility of consumption and the utility of health status, and if the utility of consumption is constant over time. We derive the conditions under which the lifetime utility function takes this form, both under expected utility theory and under rank-dependent utility theory, which is currently the most important nonexpected utility theory. If cost-effectiveness analysis is consistent with cost–benefit analysis, it is possible to derive tractable expressions for the willingness to pay for quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). The willingness to pay for QALYs depends on wealth, remaining life expectancy, health status, and the possibilities for intertemporal substitution of consumption. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/11027/ 1997-01-01T00:00:00Z This paper provides a characterization of QALYs, the most important outcome measure in medical decision making, in the context of a general rank dependent utility model. We show that both for chronic and for nonchronic health states the characterization of QALYs depends on intuitive conditions. This facilitates the assessment of the validity of QALYs in rank dependent non-expected utility theories and a comparison with other utility based measures of health. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/23186/ 1994-12-01T00:00:00Z Quiggin (J. Econ. Behav. Organization3 (1982), 323-345) introduced anticipated ("rank-dependent") utility theory into decision making under risk. Questions have been raised about mathematical aspects of Quiggin′s analysis. This paper settles these questions and shows that a minor modification of Quiggin′s axioms leads to a useful and correct result, with features not found in other recent axiomatizations.