The study highlights the large and rising cost of the disease: an estimated $132 billion, or approximately $92 billion in direct healthcare expenditures and $40 billion in lost productivity attributed to missed workdays, disability, and early mortality. After adjusting for differences in...

The rising trends both in drug addiction and crime rates are of major public concern in Germany. Surprisingly, the economic theory of crime seems to ignore the drugs-crime nexus, whereas the criminological literature considers illicit drug use a main reason of criminal activities. This paper...

At present, a first round of hospital benchmarking as required by German law on health care reform takes place. After extensive discussions between hospitals and insurance companies, which are jointly responsible to deliver benchmarking results, a method with some peculiar characteristics was...

In earlier literature, the suggested Pareto improvements in pay-as-you- go (PAYG) systems have relied on the presence of externalities or the possibility of intragenerational redistribution. We show that neither assumption is necessary in an economy with intergenerational trade in a fixed factor...

The article analyses further develops the neo-dependency approach already presented by the same author and looks at recent time series trends in the structure of international capital penetration, international savings, and the dynamics of “unequal transfer” and their effects on social...

This publication is a non-technical report prepared for Polish Ministry of Economy and Labor. The main goal is to present a comprehensive statistical and econometric analysis of employment, unemployment and participation in Poland in the period 1998-2004 and confront Polish experiences with...

Seit zwei Jahrzehnten wird in Deutschland wie in Frankreich eine Sozialpolitik betrieben, die größtenteils auf einer gemeinsamen Einschätzung der Probleme und Herausforderungen beruht, die sich aus der zunehmenden Alterung der Gesellschaft und dem Druck zu mehr Wettbewerbsfähigkeit und...

When it comes to retirement income policy, there is a general perception that workers have full 40-year working careers before retiring. Further, it is generally assumed that workers with low lifetime earnings have low earnings in each year during a normal working career. The basic research...

That the Government of Mauritius provides nearly every resident over the age of 60 with a non-contributory, basic pension is one of the best-kept secrets in the world. The scheme dates from 1950 and became universal in 1958, following abolition of a means test. Remarkably, introduction of a...

Most workers in developing countries have no access to pensions in old age. Well-intentioned reformers have concentrated on privatization, but this does nothing to expand coverage. Non-contributory, universal pensions automatically protect an entire population, in a way that contributory...