• Biosimilars
  • Drug Development/R&D
  • All Topics
OHE OHE
Newsletter SignupSubscribe

News & Insights
  • News
  • Events
  • Insights
  • Bulletin
  • News
  • Events
  • Insights
  • Bulletin

News & Insights

  • News
  • Events
  • Insights
  • Bulletin
Newsletter SignupSubscribe
  • News
  • Events
  • Insights
  • Bulletin

Close
OHE OHE
  • Research & Publications
  • News & Insights
  • Education
  • Innovation Policy Prize
  • Events
  • About Us
  • OHE Experts
  • Contact Us
Newsletter SignupSubscribe

Research & Publications

All Publications

Filter by:
  • Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)
  • Biosimilars
  • Cell and Gene Therapies
  • Chronic Diseases
  • Combination Therapies
  • COVID-19 Research
  • Digital Health
  • Drug Development/R&D
  • Emerging Markets
  • EQ-5D and PROMs
  • Health Care Systems
  • Health Data and Statistics
  • Health Technology Assessment
  • Precision Medicine
  • Real World Evidence
  • Use of Medicines
  • Value-Based Pricing
  • Vaccine Research
  • Economics of Innovation
  • Measuring and Valuing Outcomes
  • Policy, Organisation and Incentives in Health Systems
  • Value, Affordability and Decision Making

News & Insights

  • News
  • Events
  • Insights
  • Bulletin

Education

  • Education Hub
  • OHE Graduate School
  • EVIA Programme

Innovation Policy Prize

  • The Prize Fund
  • 2022 Prize Fund

Latest Research & Publications

Proposal for a General Outcome-based Value Attribution Framework for Combination Therapies

CombTher_Adobe_photoguns_portrait
Read more
© photoguns
  • Digital Health

Navigating the Landscape of Digital Health – United Kingdom

Healthcare_Adobe_elenabsl
Read more

2021 OHE Annual Report to the Charity Commission

charityreport_lina-trochez-unsplash_landscape
Read more
© Lina Trochez/Unsplash

Supporting the Era of Green Pharmaceuticals in the UK

Sustainability_AdobeStock_270582392_landscape
Read more

Quality of life and wellbeing in individuals with experience of fertility problems and assisted reproductive techniques

Quality of life assisted reproduction Cover
Read more
  • Cell and Gene Therapies
  • Value, Affordability, and…

Health Technology Assessment of Gene Therapies: Are Our Methods Fit for Purpose?

gene_therapies_national-cancer-institute-unsplash_landscape
Read more
© NCI/Unsplash
  • Drug Development/R&D
  • Economics of Innovation
  • Health Policy and Regulation

Limitations of CBO’s Simulation Model of New Drug Development as a Tool for Policymakers

CBO-US_mayer-tawfik-K4Ckc0AxgDI-unsplash_landscape
Read more
© Mayer Tawfik/Unsplash
  • Measuring and Valuing Outcomes

When Generic Measures Fail to Reflect What Matters to Patients: Three Case Studies

PROMS_unsplash_National Cancer Institute_landscape
Read more
© NCI/Unsplash
Close
OHE
  • All Publications

    Filter by:
    • Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)
    • Biosimilars
    • Cell and Gene Therapies
    • Chronic Diseases
    • Combination Therapies
    • COVID-19 Research
    • Digital Health
    • Drug Development/R&D
    • Emerging Markets
    • EQ-5D and PROMs
    • Health Care Systems
    • Health Data and Statistics
    • Health Technology Assessment
    • Precision Medicine
    • Real World Evidence
    • Use of Medicines
    • Value-Based Pricing
    • Vaccine Research
    • Economics of Innovation
    • Measuring and Valuing Outcomes
    • Policy, Organisation and Incentives in Health Systems
    • Value, Affordability and Decision Making
    • News
    • Events
    • Insights
    • Bulletin
    • Education Hub
    • OHE Graduate School
    • EVIA Programme
    • The Prize Fund
    • 2022 Prize Fund
  • Events
  • About Us
  • OHE Experts
  • Contact Us
Newsletter SignupSubscribe
Back
  • News
11 min read 24th February 2017

Vale Kenneth Arrow! Tony Culyer Writes on the Contributions of the Greatest Economist of Our Time and the Intellectual Father of Health Economics

Kenneth Arrow arguably the greatest economist of our time and the intellectual father of health economics passed away this week. He left a legacy of unrivalled contributions to economics and health economics. Tony Culyer explores the work of the great…

Share:
  •  Twitter
  •  LinkedIn
  •  Facebook
  • has-icon Email

Kenneth Arrow arguably the greatest economist of our time and the intellectual father of health economics passed away this week. He left a legacy of unrivalled contributions to economics and health economics. Tony Culyer explores the work of the great man and challenges us to revisit his seminal 1963 paper.

In this obituary Tony Culyer, the Humble Economist, writes: “The definitive appreciation of Ken Arrow’s bequest to humankind will not be written by a health economist. Most of us (I’m one), being merely moderately competent second-raters in a sub-discipline, stand in awe of him. But being awestruck is not a good emotional platform for assaying worth. Or perhaps, au contraire, to strike awe is a measure of the highest worth a person can have. In any event, the perspective of a health economist is impossibly narrow for the definitive appreciation of the genius we all know as Ken Arrow, the greatest economist of our time and the intellectual father of health economics.”

Tony goes on to describe why we as health economists should be grateful to Kenneth Arrow.  He is an economist’s economist, a great paradigm shifter who taught us not only what to think but how to think it. He created some wonderful intellectual constructs we call models and taught us to avoid thinking that a model and reality are one and the same. He also created so many of the building blocks of our sub-discipline; much of what we have done in the past and we continue to do today and will do in the future are Arrovian in origin.

In 2005 Kenneth Arrow the Nobel Laureate gave the annual OHE lecture.  The lecture provides a example of how a masterly theoretician comes to deal with all the real world violations of the theory (both his and that of others): violations that force one to invent new solutions.  During the lecturer he considered one class of assumption violation (externalities) to understand the global health problem of malaria.  “These externality arguments suggest a case for public subsidy. In the case of malaria, the argument for public financing would justify making transfers only to governments. There is also, however, an international externality… [The] spread of resistance to neighbouring countries and then on to more distant ones by travellers and migrant workers is inevitable. The universal adoption of combination therapy is therefore in the interests of the global community. The value of this international public good is extremely difficult to quantify, but it must include the value of averting all the cases of malaria that would result (including the treatment and productivity costs that are averted). So there is an argument for proceeding on a collective and international basis rather than locally, because no locality has a sufficient incentive to tackle the problem.”

He goes on to elaborate the nature of the required subsidy. This is to apply theory: abstract theory and concrete actions based on it. This is a classic example of his gift of the framework and the vocabulary we need to understand and create feasible solutions in a world we actually inhabit.

Those who knew him well tell of a kind and generous man, politically in the liberal left, marvellous with young people, a phenomenal memory, a renaissance polymath, a quicksilver mind, an astonishing technical master. He should have got two Nobel prizes rather than just the one.

How much the richer we are for having had Ken Arrow amongst us for 95 years. Now how much the poorer.

Please see the full obituary here.

Related News

Group 11119
  • News
  • February 2023

Applications open for MSc Fellowship Programme 2023

Read more
Prize event
  • News
  • January 2023

Professor Aidan Hollis wins first £40,000 OHE Policy Innovation Prize

Read more
  • News
  • July 2022

OHE is Leading Research to Develop an EQ-5D ‘Bolt-on’ for Hearing

Read more
MicrosoftTeams-image-6_0
  • News
  • June 2022

OHE’s 60th Anniversary Party – Celebrating Our Achievements and Looking Forward

Read more
footer_ohe_logo

Leading intellectual authority on global health economics

Sign Up for the OHE News Bulletin

Newsletter SignupStart Sign Up

Research & Publications

News & Insights

Innovation Policy Prize

Education

Events

About Us

OHE Experts

Contact Us

Sign Up for the OHE News Bulletin

Newsletter SignupStart Sign Up

The Office of Health Economics (OHE) is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (registered number 09848965) and its registered office is at 2nd Floor Goldings House, Hay’s Galleria, 2 Hay’s Lane, London, SE1 2HB.

Terms & Conditions

Privacy Policy

Cookies Policy

© 2023 Website Design

An error has occurred, please try again later.An error has occurred, please try again later.

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

 Twitter
 Facebook
 LinkedIn
 Copy
 Email
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

3rd Party Cookies

This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!