The incentive structures produced by different institutional arrangements in health systems are important determinants of their performance, and can explain some of the differences in cross-country performance patterns.

This paper proposes an approach and quantitative method to investigate how different policies and institutions helped achieving better value for money across 26 OECD countries for the period of 2000-2015. To this aim, it uses a panel of health system characteristics indicators - derived from questionnaires sent to countries by OECD in 2008, 2012 and 2016 - that describes primarily health financing and coverage arrangements, health care delivery systems, and governance and resource allocation.