BASIC EDUCATION AS A HUMAN RIGHT

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights promises free elementary education and free choice of the type of education. International fora emphasise the first right while neglecting the second. This is unfortunate, since school choice can reduce costs and increase the attractiveness of an educational system. This essay examines arguments for limiting choice of free education, often to schools owned and operated by the state. It finds each of them to be unconvincing.     

Provincial Motor Vehicle Taxation in Indonesia

Vehicle-based taxes are collected by provincial governments in Indonesia and constitute their most important source of locally collected revenue. This paper evaluates the structure and revenue performance of the two vehicle-based taxes–-the vehicle registration tax and the vehicle transfer tax–-focusing in particular on their allocative efficiency. This is evaluated in terms of their potential to meet road maintenance resource requirements, and the study finds that objectives other than allocative efficiency have determined the structure of the two taxes.     

The economics of dying: A misapplication of tools

Conclusions Unlike McKenzie and Tullock, we do not know how personsshould treat their bodily organs or what is an ideal exit. That depends upon their utility goals, which are defined in output terms specific to the decision maker. We contend that the body is an input into the utility production process, and therefore, as with any input, it must be maintained and repaired at a level consistent with the output goals for maximization of utility. Thus, from this framework, it is quite consistent for a person to die with healthy organs without any thought of belief in reincarnation or the desire to bequeath one's bodily organs to others, or religious values. Self interest is all that must prevail.Also, the fact that there are interrelationships between the organs in the system, and at points these relationships take on fixed factor characteristics such that reduced levels of operation in one organ can create disorientation or coma or damage to other organs, means that the body cannot die as M-T suggest. Zero capacity for all organs at death is a technical impossibility as well as being inconsistent with the output goals of utility maximizers.     

Technology Strategies For Economic Development In A Fast Changing Global Economy

East Asian development experience provides the basis for understanding which are the essential elements of effective technology strategy and policy, those that are required for the efficacious development of countries that have not yet embarked on a path of sustained modernization. Globalization has had a profound impact on development, enabling countries that could exploit its propelling forces to pursue a potent strategy of export-led economic and technological development. The policies needed to sustain this strategy are those required to foster institutions that permit effective commerce among economic agents, those necessary to generate the rapid accumulation of human and physical capital, and those essential to ensure that resources are allocated in accord with the economy's dynamic comparative advantage. Of crucial importance among the latter are effectively implemented policies of selective intervention designed to develop infant industries and to foster their fast-paced achievement of international competitiveness through rapid attainment of the requisite technological capabilities.