Eco­no­mists, and nota­b­ly health eco­no­mists, very often add to their poli­cy recom­men­da­ti­ons the for­mu­la ‚from an eco­no­mic point of view‘. The con­tri­bu­ti­on starts by explo­ring what the mes­sa­ge of this clau­se to non-eco­no­mists might be. The vague­ness that it brings about as to the gene­ral accep­ta­bi­li­ty of claims to ‚ratio­nal‘ allo­ca­ti­on, ‚best‘ out­co­mes etc. is then, first, asses­sed with respect to the recent deba­te about IQWiG’s (the Ger­man equi­va­lent to Britain’s NICE) unor­tho­dox metho­do­lo­gy of health care eva­lua­ti­on. Weak­ne­s­ses within the theo­re­ti­cal basis of stan­dard health economist’s eva­lua­tions, well-known by theo­re­ti­cal eco­no­mists but rare­ly men­tio­ned when it comes to poli­cy advice, are then, second, poin­ted out. Final­ly, some con­se­quen­ces are drawn for what has to be done to enhan­ce the qua­li­ty and impact of poli­cy advice in the area of health resour­ce allocation.