Efficiency and Equity in Welfare Economics

Efficiency and Equity in Welfare Economics PDF Author: PierCarlo Nicola
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642300715
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
Increasing efficiency in generating national income and improving equity in its distribution among economic agents is at the forefront of priorities of most modern economies. This book presents a model which aims to maximize a symmetrical welfare function under certain constraints which consider both efficiency and equity, i.e. taxes and subsidies, implemented by a public authority. The model is numerically implemented and considers a set of economic agents with starting incomes that satisfy Pareto income law under various values of the alpha parameter. Also, the model implementations respect the social production function. Various experiments are presented which show how income inequality (measured by means of the Lorenz curve and, what I call, the Lorenz-Gini inequality index) and measures of poverty are sensibly reduced by redistributing national income without lowering efficiency in production. A case study, or application, of Italian personal income in 2008 is also presented.

Efficiency and Equity in Welfare Economics

Efficiency and Equity in Welfare Economics PDF Author: PierCarlo Nicola
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642300715
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 163

Get Book Here

Book Description
Increasing efficiency in generating national income and improving equity in its distribution among economic agents is at the forefront of priorities of most modern economies. This book presents a model which aims to maximize a symmetrical welfare function under certain constraints which consider both efficiency and equity, i.e. taxes and subsidies, implemented by a public authority. The model is numerically implemented and considers a set of economic agents with starting incomes that satisfy Pareto income law under various values of the alpha parameter. Also, the model implementations respect the social production function. Various experiments are presented which show how income inequality (measured by means of the Lorenz curve and, what I call, the Lorenz-Gini inequality index) and measures of poverty are sensibly reduced by redistributing national income without lowering efficiency in production. A case study, or application, of Italian personal income in 2008 is also presented.

Equality and Efficiency REV

Equality and Efficiency REV PDF Author: Arthur M. Okun
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815726546
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
Originally published in 1975, Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff is a very personal work from one of the most important macroeconomists of the last hundred years. And this new edition includes "Further Thoughts on Equality and Efficiency," a paper published by the author two years later. In classrooms Arthur M. Okun may be best remembered for Okun's Law, but his lasting legacy is the respect and admiration he earned from economists, practitioners, and policymakers. Equality and Efficiency is the perfect embodiment of that legacy, valued both by professional economists and those readers with a keen interest in social policy. To his fellow economists, Okun presents messages, in the form of additional comments and select citations, in his footnotes. To all readers, Okun presents an engaging dual theme: the market needs a place, and the market needs to be kept in its place. As Okun puts it: Institutions in a capitalist democracy prod us to get ahead of our neighbors economically after telling us to stay in line socially. This double standard professes and pursues an egalitarian political and social system while simultaneously generating gaping disparities in economic well-being. Today, Okun's dual theme feels incredibly prescient as we grapple with the hot-button topic of income inequality. In his foreword, Lawrence H. Summers declares: On what one might think of as questions of "economic philosophy," I doubt that Okun has been improved on in the subsequent interval. His discussion of how societies rely on rights as well as markets should be required reading for all young economists who are enamored with market solutions to all problems. With a new foreword by Lawrence H. Summers

The Welfare Economics of Public Policy

The Welfare Economics of Public Policy PDF Author: Richard E. Just
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1845421574
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 706

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Book Description
The Welfare Economics of Public Policy is a great book that should be of interest to all economists interested in applied welfare analysis. It is a good reference book for economists studying the effects of public policy. Finally, it should be a useful textbook for students studying economic policy and applied welfare economics. Jean-Paul Chavas, American Journal of Agricultural Economics . . . a very comprehensive overview of the state of the art in welfare economics. It can be used as a teaching book for advanced students as well as a reference volume for researchers. This duality of possible uses is supported by the fact that very complex issues are presented in an easily readable manner. More technical aspects are then outlined in the appendices of the relevant chapters, offering colleagues the option to study formal considerations in more detail. . . a welcome addition to and expression of the knowledge base of agricultural economics. Stefan Mann, Journal of Agricultural Economics I am absolutely delighted that the authors have revised and republished this text. I have used the previous version for years in my graduate environmental economics course; usually I had to share the one copy I have with students and I felt it was a shame that these students did not have the opportunity to purchase the book since every serious environmental economist should have this volume on their shelf. It has been a continuous reference volume for me over the years and I am sure this is true of many others in the discipline. In the field of applied welfare analysis (spanning environmental economics, international trade, agricultural policy, etc.) there is no need for further elaboration when Just, Hueth and Schmitz is referenced. Everyone knows the book that is being referred to: the bible of applied welfare economics. Catherine Kling, Iowa State University, US For the record, I am one of the people who requested that the authors revise and re-issue their textbook. It is an extremely valuable book for applied economists; as with the previous edition, I will use it extensively in two of my courses and consult it frequently in my own research endeavors. Richard Adams, Oregon State University, US The original book is very well known in our profession and is still used in many classes. It will be wonderful to have a revised edition of this classic book. Colin Carter, University of California, Davis, US This outstanding text, a follow-up to the authors award-winning 1982 text, provides a thorough treatment of economic welfare theory and develops a complete theoretical and empirical framework for applied project and policy evaluation. The authors illustrate how this theory can be used to develop policy analysis from both theory and estimation in a variety of areas including: international trade, the economics of technological change, agricultural economics, the economics of information, environmental economics, and the economics of extractive and renewable natural resources. Building on willingness-to-pay (WTP) measures as the foundation for applied welfare economics, the authors develop measures for firms and households where households are viewed as both consumers and owner/sellers of resources. Possibilities are presented for (1) approximating WTP with consumer surplus, (2) measuring WTP exactly subject to errors in existing econometric work, and (3) using duality theory to specify econometric equations consistent with theory. Later chapters cover specific areas of welfare measurement under imperfect competition, uncertainty, incomplete information, externalities, and dynamic considerations. Applications are considered explicitly for policy issues related to information, international trade, the environment, agriculture, and other natural resource issues. The Welfare Economics of Public Policy is ideal for graduate and undergraduate courses in applied welfare economics, public policy, agricultural policy, and environmental economi

For the Benefit of All: Fiscal Policies and Equity-Efficiency Trade-offs in the Age of Automation

For the Benefit of All: Fiscal Policies and Equity-Efficiency Trade-offs in the Age of Automation PDF Author: Mr. Andrew Berg
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513592963
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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Book Description
Many studies predict massive job losses and real wage decline as a result of the ongoing widespread automation of production, a trend that may be further aggravated by the COVID-19 crisis. Yet automation is also expected to raise productivity and output. How can we share the gains from automation more widely, for the benefit of all? And what are the attendant equity-efficiency trade-offs? We analyze this issue by considering the effects of fiscal policies that seek to redistribute the gains from automation and address income inequality. We use a dynamic general equilibrium model with monopolistic competition, including a novel specification linking corporate power to automation. While fiscal policy cannot eliminate the classic equity-efficiency trade-offs, it can help improve them, reducing inequality at small or no loss of output. This is particularly so when policy takes advantage of novel, less distortive transmission channels of fiscal policy created by the empirically observed link between corporate market power and automation.

Public Microeconomics

Public Microeconomics PDF Author: Joaquim Silvestre
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 085793208X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
This book contains a concise, simple, yet precise discussion of externalities, public goods and insurance. Rooted in the first fundamental theorem of welfare economics and in noncooperative equilibrium, it employs elementary calculus. The book presents established theory in novel ways, and offers the tools for the application of the social welfare criteria of efficiency and equity to environmental economics, networks, bargaining, political economy, and the pricing of public goods and public utilities. This innovative, user-friendly textbook will be of use over a broad range of disciplines. The applications found here include international global-warming issues (North vs. South model), and bargaining over externalities (Coase's theorem). This text also introduces the Wicksell-Lindahl model in its original form, which depicts the parliamentary negotiation between representative parties and provides an effective introduction to political economy. Later, these ideas are applied to the pricing of an excludable public good, revealing the theoretical connection between public utility pricing and the pricing of excludable public goods. The text integrates three forms of discourse: verbal, graphical, and formal. Elementary calculus is frequently used, allowing for clarity and precision; qualities that are often missing in conventional textbooks. The main text considers a finite number of consumers and appendices cover the continuum mathematical model, which is implicit in the references to the 'marginal consumer' found in traditional texts. The analysis found in Public Microeconomics is simple and operational, conducive to computationally easy examples and exercises. This textbook is ideally suited to graduate and upper-level undergraduate courses in economics, political science, policy and philosophy.

Population Health Science

Population Health Science PDF Author: Katherine M. Keyes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190459395
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
POPULATION HEALTH SCIENCE formalizes an emerging discipline at the crossroads of social and medical sciences, demography, and economics--an emerging approach to population studies that represents a seismic shift in how traditional health sciences measure and observe health events. Bringing together theories and methods from diverse fields, this text provides grounding in the factors that shape population health. The overall approach is one of consequentialist science: designing creative studies that identify causal factors in health with multidisciplinary rigor. Distilled into nine foundational principles, this book guides readers through population science studies that strategically incorporate: · macrosocial factors · multilevel, lifecourse, and systems theories · prevention science fundamentals · return on investment · equity and efficiency Harnessing the power of scientific inquiry and codifying the knowledge base for a burgeoning field, POPULATION HEALTH SCIENCE arms readers with tools to shift the curve of population health.

The Economics of Social Determinants of Health and Health Inequalities

The Economics of Social Determinants of Health and Health Inequalities PDF Author: World Health Organization
Publisher: World Health Organization
ISBN: 9241548622
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 133

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Book Description
"This resource book discusses the economic arguments that could (and could not) be put forth to support the case for investing in the social determinants of health on average and in the reduction in socially determined health inequalities. It provides an overview and introduction into how economists would approach the assessment of the economic motivation to invest in the social determinants of health and socially determined health inequities, including what the major challenges are in this assessment. It illustrates the extent to which an economic argument can be made in favour of investment in 3 major social determinants of health areas: education, social protection, and urban development and infrastructure. It describes whether education policy, social protection, and urban development, housing and transport policy can act as health policy"--

What’s Wrong with Economics?

What’s Wrong with Economics? PDF Author: Robert Skidelsky
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300252765
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
A passionate and informed critique of mainstream economics from one of the leading economic thinkers of our time This insightful book looks at how mainstream economics’ quest for scientific certainty has led to a narrowing of vision and a convergence on an orthodoxy that is unhealthy for the field, not to mention the societies which base policy decisions on the advice of flawed economic models. Noted economic thinker Robert Skidelsky explains the circumstances that have brought about this constriction and proposes an approach to economics which includes philosophy, history, sociology, and politics. Skidelsky’s clearly written and compelling critique takes aim at the way that economics is taught in today’s universities, where a focus on modelling leaves students ill-equipped to grapple with what is important and true about human life. He argues for a return to the ideal set out by John Maynard Keynes that the economist must be a “mathematician, historian, statesman, [and] philosopher” in equal measure.

Efficiency, Equality and Public Policy

Efficiency, Equality and Public Policy PDF Author: Y. Ng
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0333992776
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
This book provides compelling arguments for the exclusive concern with efficiency ('a dollar is a dollar') in all specific areas of public economic policy, leaving the objective of equality to be achieved through the general tax/transfer system. Public policies should ultimately maximize the sum of individual welfares which should be individual happiness rather than preferences. Relative-income and environmental disruption effects cause a bias in favour of private spending which is no longer conducive to happiness socially. Welfare can be increased more by higher public spending on research and environmental protection, including the perfection of the techniques of brain stimulation to increase happiness.

Distributional Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

Distributional Cost-Effectiveness Analysis PDF Author: Richard Cookson
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198838190
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Distributional cost-effectiveness analysis aims to help healthcare and public health organizations make fairer decisions with better outcomes. It can provide information about equity in the distribution of costs and effects - who gains, who loses, and by how much - and the trade-offs that sometimes occur between equity and efficiency. This is a practical guide to methods for quantifying the equity impacts of health programmes in high, middle, and low-income countries. The methods can be tailored to analyse different equity concerns in different decision making contexts. The handbook provides both hands-on training for postgraduate students and analysts and an accessible guide for academics, practitioners, managers, policymakers, and stakeholders. Part I is an introduction and overview for research commissioners, users, and producers. Parts II and III provide step-by-step guidance on how to simulate and evaluate distributions, with accompanying spreadsheet training exercises. Part IV concludes with discussions about how to handle uncertainty about facts and disagreement about values, and the future challenges facing this growing field. Book jacket.