Suchergebnisse

Intro -- Contents -- Preface to the Enlarged Edition -- Introduction -- 1. Single-Person Households -- 2. Division of Labor in Households and Families -- Supplement: Human Capital, Effort, and the Sexual Division of Labor -- 3. Polygamy and Monogamy in Marriage Markets -- 4. Assortative Mating in Marriage Markets -- 5. The Demand for Children -- Supplement: A Reformulation of the Economic Theory of Fertility -- 6. Family Background and the Opportunities of Children -- 7. Inequality and Intergenerational Mobility -- Supplement: Human Capital and the Rise and Fall of Families -- 8. Altruism in the Family -- 9. Families in Nonhuman Species -- 10. Imperfect Information, Marriage, and Divorce -- 11. The Evolution of the Family -- Supplement: The Family and the State -- Bibliography -- Index.

"Medical care at the end of life, which is often is estimated to contribute up to a quarter of US health care spending, often encounters skepticism from payers and policy makers who question its high cost and often minimal health benefits. It seems generally agreed upon that medical resources are being wasted on excessive care for end-of-life treatments that often only prolong minimally an already frail life. However, though many observers have claimed that such spending is often irrational and wasteful, little explicit and systematic analysis exists on the incentives that determine end of life health care spending. There exists no positive theory that attempts to explain the high degree of end-of life spending and why differences across individuals, populations, or time occur in such spending. This paper attempts to provide the first rational and systematic analysis of the incentives behind end of life care. The main argument we make is that existing estimates of the value of a life year do not apply to the valuation of life at the end of life. We stress the low opportunity cost of medical spending near ones death, the importance of keeping hope alive in a terminal care setting, the larger social value of a life than estimated in private demand settings, as well as the insignificance in quality of life in lowering its value. We derive how an ex-ante perspective in terms of insurance and R&D alters some of these conclusions"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site