Spatial and economic patterns in life expectancy among US States

This study investigates the determinants of gender-specific life expectancy across US states over the period 1995–2007. We employ a production function specification where life expectancy depends on health expenditure, income, education and lifestyle variables, allowing for spatial effects. Empirical results suggest that education attainment and health expenditure are the main factors behind improving longevity, whereas smoking bears a strong negative influence. For robustness purposes, we also use health spending as well as education criteria, apart from geographical ones to model interstate spillovers. In the former case, states with similar health expenditure are ‘neighbors’ and affect positively the life expectancy process. If education is applied instead of health spending together with geographic proximity, the spatial correlation is insignificant, i.e. education ‘neighbors’ do not affect life expectancy. Our findings do not imply significant gender differences regarding health production. The results suggest that health care policy will have to focus on wider economic and social considerations, like education and lifestyle changes, except medical care provision in order to exploit the full potential for life expectancy improvements of the US population.     

Adoption of health information technologies: the case of a wireless monitor for diabetes and obesity patients

This paper explores what determines the adoption of health information technologies through the use of a case study of a wireless service prototype developed for patients with diabetes and obesity. A technology acceptance model was used as the basis for developing the theoretical framework, which was later tested through a field study. Results indicated that the usefulness of an e-health service was affected by the quality of service, its compatibility with users’ lifestyle, the quality of support, the quality of information presented in the service, usage time, image, accessibility, and ease-of-use characteristics of the service. Designers should develop services that do not require much usage time as users do not want to spend much time using the service. In addition, users should be able to access data presented in the service quickly and easily when they need it. Customisable menu items and short cut keys can be used to make data access quick and easy.     

Modeling Imports in a Keynesian Expenditure Model

The author discusses several issues that instructors of introductory macroeconomics courses should consider when introducing imports in the Keynesian expenditure model. The analysis suggests that the specification of the import function should partially, if not completely, be the result of a simple discussion about the spending and import behaviors of the household, firm, and government sectors. The analysis also indicates that instructors who use certain import functions that are in some introductory textbooks will inadvertently impose restrictions on the model and potentially confuse students. The author examines several implications of the specification proposed by Robert Cherry (2001) Cherry, R. 2001. The simple expenditure model with trade: How should we model imports?. Journal of Economic Education, 32: 53–57. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] and shows how the restrictions imposed by Cherry's specification make it difficult for instructors to present certain types of economic events and policies. The import function discussed here avoids these restrictions and allows instructors to present more easily certain types of examples.     

The healthy development of economies: A strategic framework for competitiveness in the health industry

Applying a strategic decision-making perspective on the economics of business, we suggest that a competitive locality in the health industry is one that, relative to other localities, is effective in: (1) providing the healthcare that enables everyone to participate fully in the democratic development of the locality; (2) providing the healthcare that is democratically identified as a direct objective of this development; (3) contributing through the health industry to any other democratically determined objectives of the locality's development. The paper hypothesizes that strategic decision-making in organizations is an especially significant determinant of the impacts of the health industry. We conclude that: (i) a locality that suffers concentration in the power to determine the objectives of its health industry could not be strictly competitive in that industry; (ii) the first best way to achieve competitiveness in the health industry would be to democratize its strategic decision-making. What this would entail in practice is discussed in some detail.     

Modeling Technological and Institutional Change in Karl Marx’s Theory of Capitalism

Health policy in the United States struggles with apparently conflicting purposes: (1) access to health care and (2) cost-containment. The failures of policy to resolve this apparent conflict have produced inequities in the health system and the perverse outcomes of high costs and poor access. The failures of policy are associated with the third-party payment system that has become a "rationing transaction" in John R. Commons' hierarchy of transactions. The dominion of private interests over the payment system elevates the financial interests of insurers over the interests of patients. Commons' approach to "reasonable value" as a means of resolving conflicts of interest through a process that engages all participants in the going concern suggests a strengthened role for the public sector in the payment system to achieve the public purposes of the health system.     

Skill transferability,regret and mobility

After graduation many students start working in sectors not related to their field of study or participate in training targeted at work in other sectors. In this article, we look at mobility immediately after graduation from the perspective that educational choices have been made when these pupils had little experience of the actual working life in these professions. We develop a model where students accumulate partially transferable human capital but also learn about their professional preferences at the university and during the first years in the labour market. As a consequence of this newly acquired insight, these young workers might realize that working in another occupational field would better fit their preferences, although they are better equipped to work in their own field. The empirical analysis reveals that if wages are 1% lower due to lower skill transferability, the probability that a graduate who regrets his choice actually switches decreases by 1.4 percentage points, while those who switch on average take 0.3 months additional education.     

Inflation regimes and the stability of the pass-through of wages to consumer prices in Canada

This article has formally identified distinct historical inflation regimes in Canada since 1961 in order to facilitate an investigation of the impact of regime changes on the wage-price dynamics in the economy. Both in and out-of-sample evidence suggest that wage growth exerts an influence on inflation only during a high-inflation regime but inflation exerts a more systematic and quantitatively stronger influence on wage growth regardless of the prevailing inflation regime. Overall, the results do not support either the ‘cost-push’ view of inflation or the ‘new view’ that claims that increased globalization during the 1990s has reduced the feedback from wage growth to inflation by weakening the bargaining power of workers.     

Is the Sky the Limit? Can Japanese Government Bonds Continue to Defy Gravity?

This paper presents a simulation model based on the growth rate, the inflation rate, and the consumption tax rate in the future. Future tax revenues and fiscal expenditures are projected using regression models estimated from past data. The fiscal situation is called unsustainable if the outstanding amount of Japanese government bonds (JGBs) becomes higher than the level of private sector financial assets. We focus on the general account of the central government, which is the source of JGB issues. We find that the higher the economic growth, the more likely it is that the fiscal situation is sustainable. When a larger portion of interest income is reinvested in JGBs, the chance is higher that the fiscal situation is sustainable. Most importantly, raising the consumption tax to 20% guarantees fiscal sustainability in most cases. Our analysis shows that without a consumption tax hike beyond the 10% rate, a fiscal crisis will be almost a certainty, even with a real economic growth rate of 2% despite a shrinking labor force. A reasonably quick hike of the consumption tax, namely a hike by 1% a year, up to 20%, combined with high or moderate economic growth rates, seems to keep the economy out of a fiscal crisis, where a moderate growth rate is defined to be generated by a productivity increase per working‐age population of 1.9%, which was the average during the Koizumi years.     

URBANIZATION,HEALTH AND HUMAN STATURE

Economic growth has not always generated improvements in a population's health. Biological indicators of human well‐being, including stature, suggest the march to prosperity was not a steady one, and these biological indicators offer estimates of the health costs associated with modern economic growth. We employ an international data set to study the socioeconomic benefits and health costs associated with the transition to modern economic growth during the nineteenth century. We find that while the growth of GDP per capita had a positive impact on the stature of Western populations, prior to the mastery of the germ theory of disease, urbanization had a strong negative impact.     

中国老年人口自杀问题研究

老年人口是自杀率最高的人群。中国老年人口自杀率存在显著的性别差异、城乡差异和年龄差异。将我国老年人口自杀率与全球已进入老龄社会的国家作了对比,提出老年人口自杀率的三种不同模型。虽然我国老年人口的自杀率整体上呈下降趋势,但农村老年人口和高龄老年人口的自杀率仍然很高。应对老年人口自杀问题,一方面应着力解决相关的老龄问题,消除与减少老年人产生自杀意念的诱因;另一方面,要重点关切高自杀风险的老年群体,特别是群体中的男性老人、农村老人和高龄老人;还要高度重视老年人精神健康问题与精神卫生工作。