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Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation
Published in: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation 1/2024

Open Access 01-12-2024 | Review

Preferences as fairness judgments: a critical review of normative frameworks of preference elicitation and development of an alternative based on constitutional economics

Authors: Wolf Rogowski, Jürgen John

Published in: Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation | Issue 1/2024

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Abstract

Preference elicitation is widely used within health economic evaluations to inform coverage decisions. However, coverage decisions involve questions of social justice and it is unclear what role empirical evidence about preferences can play here. This study reviews the prevalent normative frameworks for using population-based preference elicitation and the criticisms they face, and proposes an alternative based on constitutional economics. The frameworks reviewed include a supposedly value-neutral framework of preferences as predictors of choice, preference utilitarian frameworks that aim to maximize preference satisfaction, and substantive consequentialist frameworks that aim to maximize happiness, health, or capabilities. The proposed alternative implements the idea that indices of social value are tools for conflict resolution, rather than tools for maximization. Preference elicitation is used for validating values generated by multi-criteria decision analysis results within representative processes of stakeholder deliberation.
Footnotes
1
This criterion requires that if individuals assign equal value to treating 10 people with cancer and 100 with knee damage, and to treating 10 people with knee damage and 100 with a headache, they should also assign equal value to treating 10 people with cancer and 1,000 people with a headache.
 
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Metadata
Title
Preferences as fairness judgments: a critical review of normative frameworks of preference elicitation and development of an alternative based on constitutional economics
Authors
Wolf Rogowski
Jürgen John
Publication date
01-12-2024
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation / Issue 1/2024
Electronic ISSN: 1478-7547
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12962-024-00510-x

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