Economics, health and health economics: HYEs versus QALYs

This paper responds to Culyer and Wagstaff's (CW) and Buckingham's (B) arguments. We refute their claim about the equivalence of HYEs and QALYs; they fail to distinguish between choice under uncertainty and under certainty. CW assume that all individuals have a specific form of utility function, which yields their conclusion of equivalence. B's arguments confuse the measurement technique and the utility theory from which it stems; his argument …