Universal Health Care and the Economics of Responsibility

In the American health care system the cost of health insurance is underwritten by all three sectors of the economy: 1) households; 2) employers; and 3) government. However, while costs are shared, responsibility is not. The retreat of private firms and government from assuming a substantial share of the burden of health care costs is based on the presumption that health care is an individual’s responsibility, while the contributions of government and the private sector are basically optional - a matter of benevolence rather than responsibility. The outcome of the current debates over health care reform will depend on this issue of responsibility. Who should pay for health care? Is it a collective responsibility or an individual one? In this paper, we explore the economics of responsibility as it applies to health care. In the institutionalist framework, any reallocation of costs must be driven by an underlying philosophy of shared responsibility.     

Social Control of Corporate Power: Comment

Economic activity takes place within an institutional framework. The economy, like society, represents a complex of institutions, ranging from the smallest, such as the family, to the largest and most comprehensive, the state (Chavance 2009). Institutional economics offers a broad perspective that brings forward the concept of gender, since gender is a fundamental organizing principle of institutions (Jacobsen 2003). A focus on social provisioning, typical for both feminist as well as institutional economists, leads to a broader understanding of economic activity. This broader approach includes activities like caring and care labor that cannot be entirely understood in terms of individual choices. In this paper, I explore the relationships between care and the economy from the perspective of neoclassical, institutional, and feminist economic theory. Economic theories are a basis for public policies that have a major impact on people’s lives. I argue that changing the dominating economic perspective into feminist-institutional one would improve the situation of care providers, who would, in turn, contribute to the development of society and the economy.     

数据结构排序算法可视化的设计

可视化已经成为现代信息技术发展过程中不可或缺的技术,而实现数据结构排序的可视化可以更好地为教学服务,成为教学过程中必不可少的教学软件。数据结构排序可视化可以将各种各样的排序用动态的方式展现在教师和学生面前,有助于教师讲解,也有利于学生理解和学习。     

照顾提供、性别平等与公共政策——女性主义经济学的视角

中国的市场经济转轨与经济结构的变化提高了人民的收入从而提高了中国妇女及她们家庭的福利。社会经济制度和经济结构的变化同时加剧了妇女在工作和孩子老人照料两者之间的冲突。虽然中国的计划生育政策意味着需要照顾的儿童数量在减少,但是生育率的快速下降以及人口平均预期寿命的延长使中国老年人比例迅速增加,并由此加大了照料服务的需要。妇女的工作与照顾责任的冲突对社会性别平等、对妇女本身及她们家庭的福利都有严重的负面影响。为推动对照顾提供问题的研究和公共政策对照顾提供的关注,介绍女性主义经济学对照顾经济的研究和发达国家照顾问题的公共政策,讨论这些理论和政策对我国的借鉴意义。     

International or national implementers—Who is better? Evidence from a framing experiment

Behavioral economics has shown that changing small features in framing a context or action may drastically change behavior. A key factor characterizing most development interventions is the salience of either a local or an international implementer. Using the setup of an intervention conducted in Indonesia, we show that the study population in the Acehnese context exhibits higher levels of support for the project if the participation of international actors is highlighted. We find that previous experience with the respective actor is pivotal. Qualitative evidence suggests that internationals' perceived skills drive results, highlighting the importance of strengthened local capacities for positive experiences with local implementers. Overall, the study underlines the benefits of linking framing experiments to the actual experiences of respondents to generate insights into the real world.     

Regions of the Production Function,Returns, and Economies of Scale: A Reply

The author discusses a pedagogical strategy based on data visualization and analysis in the teaching of intermediate macroeconomics and financial economics. In these short projects, students collect and manipulate economic data from the online Federal Reserve Economic Database (FRED) in order to illustrate theoretical relationships discussed in class. All the data collection and manipulation tasks are conducted through the FRED Web site. The author argues that as students locate and effectively use the quantitative information that they need to evaluate abstract concepts, they are in effect developing the connection between theories and empirical evidence that underpins the discipline of economics.     

Economics of compatibility standards and competition in telecommunication networks

The pro- and anti-competitive implications of technical compatibility standards are introduced in general terms and then applied to current issues in telecommunications policy. The demand and supply for standards under regulated monopoly and the transition to deregulation and competitive entry create a tradeoff between the traditional goal of achieving positive externalities from interconnection and the alternative goal of providing enhanced service offerings that may involve sacrificing universal connectivity. We argue that this tradeoff has affected the utilization of data communication networks in the U.S. and Europe. In addition, we identify problems of competing interests that complicate the European approach to standards “harmonization” in the case of telecommunications. We conclude by noting that the nature of standards and standard-setting process can have marked effects on the incentives to conduct private research and development.     

Price Indexes for US Medical Care Spending, 1980–2006

We construct price indexes for medical care spending in the US economy for the period 1980–2006. Our indexes show slower price growth than the official deflator from 1987–2001, consistent with the fact that indexes that improve on the official statistics typically find slower price growth than the official indexes. However, the result is reversed for the 2001–2006 time period. We develop a decomposition that parses out the numerical differences in these indexes into three factors that are held constant in the official price indexes but are not in our indexes: changes in the type of provider supplying care, changes in the type of insurance plan used by the patients, and changes in the bundle of procedures used to treat patients. Our results suggest that using the official price measures may provide misleading conclusions about spending trends and productivity growth in this important sector over this time period.     

IS THERE A ‘SECESSION OF THE WEALTHY’? PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE UPTAKE AND NATIONAL HEALTH SYSTEM SUPPORT

The purchase of private health insurance (PHI) as a means to partially supplement the National Health System (NHS) coverage is often regarded as a potential signal for a declining support for the NHS. Exploiting the fact that PHI is typically purchased by the most affluent, in this paper we test the so called ‘secession of the wealthy’ hypothesis whereby the likelihood of expressing ‘lack of support for the NHS’ increases with having supplementary PHI. Using empirical data from Catalonia, we draw upon an empirical strategy that circumvents an obvious simultaneity problem by estimating both a recursive bivariate probit as well as an IV probit. After controlling for insurance premium, household income and other socio‐demographic determinants, we find that the purchase of PHI reduces the propensity of individuals to support the NHS. We also find evidence that PHI is a luxury good and sensitive to fiscal incentives.     

长期护理保险在中国的选择-基于制度经济学的分析

为了解决人口老龄化背景下的老年护理问题,德国、日本先后于1995年1月1日、2000年4月1日启动长期护理保险制度。我国在1999年也已经进入老龄化国家行列,老龄化并呈加速趋势。我国农村家庭养老看护功能日益削弱、城镇养老机构数量不足、新型居家养老模式的资金来源不足。有必要借鉴德国、日本长期护理保险制度,采取城市的居家养老护理保险与农村的老年护理救助模式。基于制度经济学的角度,从价值支持、意识形态支持、成本支持与路径支持上论证了该制度的可行性。