Suchergebnisse

In the past three decades, the number of obese adults in the United States has doubled and the number of obese children almost tripled, which may lead to increased medical expenditures, productivity loss, and stress on the health care system. Economic analysis now shows that weight gain is the result of individual choices in response to economic environments and demonstrates that incentives can influence individual behaviors affecting weight. Determinants are varied and include year- and area-specific food prices, availability of food outlets and recreational facilities, health insurance, and

Unlike earlier work in medical economics, which has focused on medical care, these ten papers stress the production and consequences of health itself. They reveal a serious concern with real-world health problems in their investigation of such subjects as infant mortality, life expectancy, morbidity, and disability. These papers are unusual, as well, in bringing to bear on these problems new and powerful theoretical and statistical tools. They draw on, and in some cases are, original sources for new bodies of data. As such, Economic Aspects of Health comprises a useful blend of relevance and r

In the past three decades, the number of obese adults in the United States has doubled and the number of obese children almost tripled, which may lead to increased medical expenditures, productivity loss, and stress on the health care system. Economic analysis now shows that weight gain is the result of individual choices in response to economic environments and demonstrates that incentives can influence individual behaviors affecting weight. Determinants are varied and include year- and area-specific food prices, availability of food outlets and recreational facilities, health insurance, and minimum wage levels. Timely and important, Economic Aspects of Obesity provides a strong foundation for evaluating the costs and benefits of various proposals designed to control obesity rates

The papers in this volume cover the subject of international migration. The three papers in the first part deal with general aspects. The first paper discusses the influence of migration on world development (Hatton and Williamson), the second models the patterns of labor migration when workers differ in their skills and information is asymmetric (Stark), and the third explores the economics of international labor and capital flows (Grubel). The second part focuses on experiences in the United States and contains four papers. These papers discuss the performance of immigrants in the U.S. labor market (Chiswick), the influence of immigrants on entrepreneurship in the nineteenth-century U.S. (Ferrie and Mokyr), ethnic identity, assimilation of immigrants, and the intergenerational transmission of immigrants' skills (Borjas), and the labor market consequences of U.S. immigration (Greenwood and McDowell). The three papers in the final part discuss lessons for Europe's migration policies. The first paper asks whether immigration policy can help to stabilize social security systems (Felderer), the second explores the economic consequences of immigration and the resulting lessons for immigration policies (Simon), and the third reviews the conference's papers in the light of recent European developments (Zimmermann)

One of the more striking aspects of the Dutch Welfare State is its apparent difficulty in controlling the number of transfer recipients. A prime example of this management problem is the Disability Insurance program. This monograph presents a thorough investigation of the behavioral responses of employees and firms to this generous disability scheme. The heart of the study is the empirical part based on a rich data set of persons who apply for benefits and those who do not. The data derive both from self-reports as well as medical and vocational expert evaluations. Combining facets of health economics, medical sociology and econometric technique, the authors are able to reveal the intricate causalities that underlie the disability process.

The aim of this thesis is to address certain aspects of climate change which have not attracted sufficient attention. The first part is an empirical one investigating impacts of climate change on households and individuals using the hedonic price approach (for Great Britain and Germany). In addition, we examine the relationship between climate and happiness (for 67 countries). The second part of the thesis is an analytical one in the field of emissions permit trading. As progress in the international negotiations is extremely slow and failure is not excluded we first consider the coordination of domestic markets for tradable emission permits where countries determine their own emission reduction targets. Another aspect which has not attracted sufficient attention is the time-dimension of a trading scheme. We analyse the dynamic aspects of allocating emission rights for different approaches in the final chapter