Suchergebnisse

The boom of world trade, the unprecedented openness of domestic markets, regional integration, and the persistence and magnitude of globalisation are as many challenges to the management of the internal balance between revenues and expenditures, both in the context of international, regional, national, and company mechanisms, and for the individual households and consumers. The coexistence of foreign deficits/trade and domestic deficits/ budget at macro level, at the same time with the accumulation of high levels of indebtedness of the states, non-financial corporate entities, and individual households requires, in the context of the present global financial crisis, new theoretical and practical approaches, new institutions, and new policies capable to secure the sustainability of growth, and to diminish the risk of increasingly unpredictable disturbances.

Nigeria has implemented structural adjustment policies for the past twenty years, with the intensity of reforms increasing each year. However, there is an ongoing debate as to whether strong adjustment is more effective than weak reforms in alleviating poverty in African economies. In this article, we use primary socio-economic data collected from two surveys, one conducted in 2001 and the other in 2007, of residents in the village of Umulwe in Southeastern Nigeria, to examine whether the intensity of structural adjustment policies has led to poverty reduction in the village. Specifically, we use changes in the poverty headcount index and the poverty gap index, as well as non-income measures to analyze the dynamics of poverty in the village. A cross-sectional OLS regression on the survey data does not indicate a direct link between structural adjustment and the poverty reduction observed in the village over time. By linking structural adjustment to changes in household behaviour, the article provides a micro-foundation for the analysis of the impact of structural adjustment on poverty.

Health outcomes research typically uses cost-effectiveness or cost-utility analysis. These approaches take a narrow perspective of the individual effects, typically from the payer or the provider point-of-view. However, using these narrow perspectives misses macro-level, or societal level, benefits and costs that could significantly alter whether an intervention is considered beneficial or cost-effective. The societal perspective accounts for all the effects impacting patients, their families, the public, and government expenditures for a healthcare intervention. Such a perspective is vital for healthcare interventions for illnesses where morbidity and long absences from work are probable. A cost-benefit analysis would account for all the societal benefits and costs, allowing policy-makers to observe an outcomes analysis more closely reflective of the real impacts. This paper clearly presents why a societal perspective using cost-benefit analysis should be the preferred method of health outcomes research. An example of breast cancer interventions is used to illustrate this point.