When Pharaoh refused to supply straw, productivity plummeted in the Egyptian brick industry. But Pharaoh had other concerns. Anyway, the costs fell on Israelites, not Egyptians. Productivity improvement in the health sector is similarly constrained by competing objectives, and by the distribution of resulting gains and losses. furthermore, health services have value only insofar as they improve health outcomes. Increased output of ineffective services is not productivity in any meaningful sense. Yet most of the literature on health human resources productivity focuses on outputs, not outcomes, ignoring serious questions about effectiveness. Proposals to refine the treatment of the health sector within the national accounts are similarly flawed. Proliferation of beneficial, harmful or simply unnecessary services would all be recorded as "productivity growth."
RésuméLorsque le pharaon refusa de fournir de la paille, la productivité dans l'industrie égyptienne de la brique connut un déclin. Le pharaon avait d' autres préoccupations. Néanmoins, ce sont les Israéliens qui en ont payé les frais, pas les Égyptiens. L' amél-ioration de la productivité dans le secteur de la santé est semblablement contrainte par des objectifs concurrentiels, ainsi que par la distribution des pertes et des gains qui en découlent. De plus, ce n' est que par l' amélioration des résultats pour la santé que les services de santé acquièrent leur pleine valeur. Accroître les extrants pour des services inefficaces n' est d' aucune façon un signe de productivité. Cependant, la t h e
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