This paper describes the dynamics of smoking behaviour in Australia and investigates what role smoking ban regulation has, if any, on individual level smoking patterns. The main argument to motivate the introduction of tougher smoking bans is the effect of second hand smoke on non-smokers. From...

This paper examines how parallel importation influences pharmaceutical innovation and the welfare of the economy, when crossnational drug price differentials occur not only because of demand elasticity based factors, but also governmental drug price control based factors. By explicitly...

Using data from the Current Population Surveys, we examine the impact of Hawaii’s mandatory employer-sponsored insurance on health insurance coverage and employment structure in Hawaii. We find empirical evidence of three phenomena. First, private employer-sponsored insurance coverage for...

In this paper we analyze the problem of population ageing in terms of non-medical care needs of persons who are dependent or have lost their autonomy, in order to provide the various public and private administrations active in these fields with some food for thought. The anticipated increase in...

We study the social interaction of non-smokers and smokers as a sequential game, incorporating insights from social psychology and experimental economics into an economic model. Social norms affect human behavior such that non-smokers do not ask smokers to stop smoking and stay with them, even...

We consider a two-period model. In the first period, individuals consume two goods: one is sinful and the other is not. The sin good brings pleasure but has a detrimental effect on second period health and individuals tend to underestimate this effect. In the second period, individuals can...

Firms may underinvest in local environmental protection even from the private viewpoint of its owners and employees, but works councils may help mitigate this problem. We show that increases in environmental investments when councils are present could be employee-led, firm-led, or jointly-led....

Shortage of stockpiled antiviral drugs and insufficient production capacity of vaccines make the possible avian flu pandemic a global disaster. Catastrophic consequences in social and economic losses loom over the near future of humans but they derive from a wrong business model based on private...

La Malaria es la Enfermedad Transmitida por Vectores (ETV) de mayor importancia en salud pública en Colombia. Este estudio realiza un análisis económico de los hogares del departamento del Caquetá, sobre la relevancia que éstos otorgan a dicha enfermedad y el valor monetario que conceden a...

Este ensayo hace un análisis crítico de las principales reformas sociales implantadas en la década anterior. Se hace énfasis en el contraste entre las intenciones iniciales de los reformadores y los efectos finales de las reformas. En muchos casos, las restricciones políticas e...