Sailing without radar: An excursion in resource allocation

Abstract

This paper deals with the knowledge base employed in resource allocation. Itdeliberately distinguishes between ?thick-textured? and ?thin-textured? knowledge. Athick-textured view of change in the health sector accounts for the history, civic goodsand variety of human needs and passions which rationalist economics defines out asa thin-textured matter of individual choices in a free market.1 The narrative materialbegins with a discussion of health service policy-making in South Australia andelsewhere in the 1980s and 1990s, then proceeds to a discussion of priority-settingliterature, which we regard as thin-textured. We offer two accounts of approaches tosetting priorities in health care which we think have overcome some of the deficienciesof the thin-textured approach.