Background: One of the main challenges of all health systems is achieving Equity in healthcare Financing. The Kakwani index is an Equity index used to show how distant a Financing source is from the proportional status.Objectives: The present study aimed to measure the Equity of Iran’s health system Financing in rural and urban areas between 2001 and 2010 using the Kakwani index.Materials and Methods: This study analyzed secondary data for the years 2001 through 2010 in Iran. The data of annual household expenditures and an income survey conducted by the statistical center of Iran (SCI) were used in this study. In addition, out of pocket payments and health insurance premiums, as two sources of healthcare Financing, were investigated regarding vertical Equity. The T-test was used to test the dominance of the curves.Results: The Kakwani index was negative (regressive) for out of pocket payments among both rural and urban households (-0.168 in 2001 to -0.197 to 2010, and 0.104 in 2001 to 0.156 in 2010, respectively), it but did not follow a regular trend during the study period. On the other hand, the Kakwani index was positive (progressive) for health insurance premium payments in rural areas (0.065 in 2001 to 0.095 in 2010). In urban areas, this index was negative for health insurance between 2001 and 2006 (-0.04 and -0.004), respectively), but positive between 2007 and 2010 (0.003 and 0.016, respectively). The dominance test (T-test) showed the concentration curves of out of pocket payments in both areas dominated the Lorenz curve in all years, but the dominance test (T-test) for health insurance premium payments did not follow a regular trend during the study period.Conclusions: Due to the negativity of the Kakwani index for out-of-pocket payments, a great burden on the households can be predicted, and the progressivity of health insurance premium payments implies that expanding insurance coverage may lead to more equitable Financing. Thus, the government should take the responsibility to expand the service and cost coverage of insurance plans and to develop policies that protect poor people.

Background: As countries reform health Financing systems towards universal health coverage, increasing concerns emerge on the need to ensure inclusion of the most vulnerable segments of society, working to counteract existing inequities in service coverage. To this end, selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa have decided to couple performance-based Financing (PBF) with demand-side Equity measures. Still, evidence on the Equity impacts of these more complex PBF models is largely lacking. We aimed at filling this gap in knowledge by assessing the Equity impact of PBF combined with Equity measures on utilization of maternal health services in Burkina Faso. Methods: Our study took place in 24 districts in rural Burkina Faso. We implemented an experimental design (cluster-randomized trial) nested within a quasi-experimental one (pre-and post-test design with independent controls). Our analysis relied on self-reported data on pregnancy history from 9999 (baseline) and 11 010 (endline) women of reproductive age (15-49 years) on use of maternal healthcare and reproductive health services, and estimated effects using a difference-in-differences (DID) approach, purposely focused on identifying program effects among the poorest wealth quintile. Results: PBF improved the utilization of few selected maternal health services compared to status quo service provision. These benefits, however, were not accrued by the poorest 20%, but rather by the other quintiles. PBF combined with Equity measures did not produce better or more equitable results than standard PBF, with specific differences only on selected outcomes. Conclusion: Our findings challenge the notion that implementing Equity measures alongside PBF is sufficient to produce an equitable distribution in program benefits and point at the need to identify more innovative and context-sensitive measures to ensure adequate access to care for the poorest. Our findings also highlight the importance of considering changing policy environments and the need to assess interferences across policies.

Venture capital (VC) Financing is associated with the challenges of double-sided moral hazard, and uncertainty, which leads to the difficulty in estimating the venture's value accurately and consequently the impossibility of determining the optimal Equity sharing between the entrepreneur and investor. Traditionally, convertible preferred Equity mechanisms used to be implemented as an incentive to decline moral hazard. However, despite the emphasis on investor risk-taking, such mechanisms transfer the investor risk to the entrepreneur and do not mitigate the incentive of opportunistic behaviors. Furthermore, according to the literature review, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there has not been developed any practical mechanism for Equity sharing in VC Financing up to now. This paper proposes a fair Equity sharing mechanism, which alleviates the above-mentioned deficiencies. It adjusts both parties' share during the Equity dilution in each stage of Financing, regarding the difference between the venture's ex-ante and ex-post values. Moreover, it manages uncertainty by applying staged Financing and the option of abandonment at the end of each stage. The proposed mechanism has been verified by using the mathematical tools and drawing its curves for a case study.