Excerpt from introduction: Our object in this paper is both to advance the understanding of the quantitative impact of parasitic diseases on output and to improve on the theoretical framework within which such estimates are made for any disease and in any region. While the study examines the...

When the government institutes a program thought to be useful for society as a whole, such as building a highway or controlling air pollution, those that benefit from such programs are usually quite different from those that bear its costs. Sometimes the government responds by postponing or...

To economically evaluate a new drug or other medical innovation one must assess both the changes in costs and in benefits. Safety and efficacy matter, but so do resource costs and social benefits. This paper evaluates the effects on expenditures of the recent introduction of cimetidine, a drug...

Three factors that may influence a high school graduate's decision to attend college are considered: (1) his ability, (2) the cost of attending college, and (3) the socioeconomic status of his parents. The results, based on a probit analysis, indicate that factors (1) and (3) are strong...

Professional baseball and football each has its Hall of Fame. Most Valuable Player awards are announced in a growing number of sports, as well as by individual teams. There are Coach of the Year awards, Manager of the Year awards; there is even a Horse of the Year award. Why do economics and...

The division of responsibility between the two papers at this session is a fascinating one. One author has agreed to examine the questions that are being asked in the economics education literature, and the other to examine the answers! As is so often the case, however, the underlying assumption...

This paper is about people. It is also about productivity and growth of an economy. And it is about the proper role of government in a society devoted to using its limited physical and human resources wisely for the economic and social well-being of its people. A nation's output of goods and...

The market mechanism places a value on those assets to which title can be transferred, and thus the market does evaluate land and capital goods in our economy. The market also provides rental values (wage rates) for labor but not capitalized values, and these are frequently essential for...

During the roughly four decades since the end of World War II, the health care system in the United States has experienced historically unprecedented change in three dimensions. First, new technologies have revolutionized the ways in which health care is capable of being practiced. Almost all of...

As technological developments have altered production techniques, types of mechanical equipment, and varieties of outputs, society has begun to recognize that economic progress involves not only changes in machinery but also in men – not only expenditures on equipment but also on people....