Causes of Health Expenditure Growth: The Predominance of Changes in Medical Practices over Population Ageing

On the basis of French individual data, this paper compares the effects of demographic change, changes in morbidity and changes in practices on the growth in health expenditures that occurred between 1992 and 2000. Micro simulations show that the rise in expenditures due to ageing is relatively small and that the impact of changes in practices is 3.8 times larger. Furthermore, changes in morbidity induce savings which more than offset the increase in spending due to population ageing.