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This paper describes the food retail market in the Nordic countries and in the countries applying for EU membership and analyses the impact of reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the EU. Three of the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland and Sweden) are member states of the EU, while Iceland and Norway are not, although Iceland is applying for EU membership, as are Albania, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. Profound changes have occurred in the agricultural sector in the past years in all these countries. The reforms of the CAP approved in 2003 represent the most radical CAP reforms in the history of the EU. In the paper the resulting changes are discussed, as are the planned world trade reforms currently being negotiated within the World Trade Organization (WTO). Among the issues decided within the WTO are tariff regulations, where there is a wide diver gence between the views of developed countries and developing countries. The paper proposes an assessment of the impact of the CAP reform and the WTO negotiations on the Nordic countries and the applicants.

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ÁgripÍ greininni er lýst grunnatriðum í heilsuhagfraeði. Þaettir eins og heilsufar, vellíðan, sjúkdómar, slys og dauði eru algeng viðfangsefni innan heilbrigðisþjónustunnar. Í heilsuhagfraeði er m.a. lagt fjárhagslegt mat á leiðir til úrbóta. Heilsuhagfraeði hefur enn ekki hlotið mikla umfjöllun hérlendis. Í greininni er m.a. lýst grunnlíkönum í heilsugaeslu og fjallað er um umfang heilbrigðismála í hagkerfinu hérlendis, svo sem opinber útgjöld og starfsmannafjölda. Einnig er staða heilbrigðismála á Íslandi raedd í samanburði við önnur lönd, einkum Norðurlönd en jafnframt innan OECD. Þar kemur m.a. í ljós að staðan í heilsugaeslu hérlendis er góð en útgjöld til heilbrigðismála eru veruleg miðað við önnur lönd, sérstaklega sé tekið tillit til tiltölulega lágs aldurs íslensku þjóðarinnar. Að lokum er stuttlega fjallað um fjórar matsaðferðir innan heilsuhagfraeðinnar, þ.e. lágmarkskostnaðargreiningu, kostnaðarárangursgreiningu, kostnaðarnytjagreiningu og kostnaðarábatagreiningu. AbstractThe paper describes the base of health economics. Health, well-being, accidents and death are prevalent concepts in the health sector. Health economics is concerned with analysing the financial impact of improvements. Health economics has not been given much attention in Iceland. This paper describes basic economic models for production in health care and the major indicators of the health sector in Iceland are explained, e.g. public expenditures and labour participation. The health sector in Iceland is compared with the health sectors of other countries, primarily the Nordic countries, but also the OECD countries. The situation in health care in Iceland is good, but the health expenditures are high compared to other countries, particularly in light of the relative young age of the Icelandic population. Finally, four evaluation methods in the health sector are briefly demonstrated, i.e. minimum-costs-analysis, cost-effectiveness-analysis, cost-utility-analysis and cost-benefit-analysis. JEL-flokkun: D61; H51; I12; I18Lykilhugtök: Heilbrigðisútgjöld; heilsugaesla; heilsuhagfraeði; kostnaðarábatagreining 1 Höfundur er prófessor í Viðskipta-og hagfraeðideild Háskóla Íslands. Tryggva Þór Herbertssyni, Ásgeiri Jónssyni og tveim nafnlausum ritrýnum eru faerðar þakkir fyrir gagnlegar ábendingar. Örfáar lagfaeringar hafa verið gerðar á greininni síðan prentuð útgáfa tímaritsins kom út.