This paper examines positive externalities and complementarities between countries in the use of antiviral pharmaceuticals to mitigate pandemic influenza. It demonstrates the presence of treatment externalities in simple SIR (susceptible-infectious-recovered) models and simulations of a Global...

This paper provides a first attempt to estimate the cross-price elasticity between alcoholic beverages and leisure, which is critical for assessing how much alcohol taxation might be warranted on fiscal grounds. We estimate an Almost Ideal Demand System defined over alcohol, leisure, and other...

Today a new generation of food safety policy is emerging in OECD countries and international public health forums. The United States has actively contributed to the thinking and scientific research underlying this new generation of policy. A consensus has emerged among nations about the basic...

Health improvements in India, while significant, have not kept up with rapid economic growth rates. The poor in India face high out-of-pocket payments for health care, a significant burden of infectious diseases, and a rapidly increasing burden of non-communicable diseases. Against this...

We use analytical and numerical models to explain and quantify the welfare effects of subsidies for artemisinin combination treatments (ACTs), a valuable new class of antimalarial drugs. There are two (second-best) efficiency rationales for such subsidies: by expanding drug use, they reduce...

The recognition that environmental hazards can affect children differently and more severely than adults has provoked growing concern in industrialized nations about the impact of environmental pollution on children’s health. In this paper, commissioned by the OECD, we are charged with...

We conducted a choice experiment presenting respondents with risk reductions for three types of illnesses related to air pollution—pollen allergy, chronic bronchitis, and lung cancer—splitting the sample to test the effects of private-good and public-good contexts on the value of a...

Mercury contamination of the Chesapeake Bay is a concern to health authorities in the region. We evaluate the economic and health effects of postulated recreational and commercial fishing advisories for striped bass on the Maryland portion of the bay. Awareness of and response to the advisory is...

This paper considers how moderate actions to slow atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel use also could reduce conventional air pollutants in the United States. The benefits that result would be “ancillary” to greenhouse gas abatement. Moreover, the benefits would tend...