Age, health and medical expenditure

Ageing populations in developed countries have placed increasing demands on health care services and drawn attention to how age is related to medical expenditure. The effect of ageing on health involves a mixture of biological and social factors that ideally requires an interdisciplinary approach if it is to be properly understood. Expenditure decisions connected to age add further complexity by raising difficult ethical problems. The current paper aims to bring out the intricacy of the age-medical expenditure relation and highlight the biological, social and ethical background that has often been overlooked in the economic literature.