Second seminar

This is the second seminar in the Scientific Seminar Series on Health Economics. 

Bringing together perspectives from public health and macroeconomics, the seminar will explore central questions in contemporary health economics, with featured speakers Professors Martin McKee and Carl-Johan Dalgaard.   

• How does health and frailty shape economic outcomes?  

• What would be the implications for prevention and treatment if health was treated primarily as a long-term investment and not seen as a short-term cost in current economic models and approaches? 

The seminar is anchored around the ongoing debate on the relationship between health and economic performance. Recently, Martin McKee has stated that health systems are fundamental economic institutions, not just a fiscal burden. Leading economists, including Carl-Johan Dalgaard, have encountered difficulties to demonstrate clear macroeconomic payoffs from welfare and health investments. Yet, as Dalgaard reminds us, the absence of clear evidence is not equivalent to evidence of no effect.  

By bringing together theoretical and applied policy perspectives, the seminar seeks to deepen the understanding of the economic role of health and the consequences of how we decide to measure and prioritise it. 

Speakers: Martin McKee and Carl-Johan Dalgaard 

Martin McKee is a leading British public health expert whose work focuses on health systems, policy and the effects of political and economic change on population health. He is a professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Research Director at the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies.   

Carl-Johan Dalgaard is a leading Danish economist specialising in macroeconomics and known for pioneering the integration of human frailty into economic analysis. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Copenhagen and Chairman of the Danish Economic Councils (Overvismand). He leads the Novo Nordisk Foundation-funded project “Incorporating Population Frailty in Macro Economic Policy Models”, which integrates frailty into the DREAM and MAKRO models to assess the economic effects of health interventions and labour market policies.