Methods for analysing a hypothetical Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak in the United States have improved greatly over cost-benefit methods. The estimated magnitudes vary greatly depending on assumptions about the epidemiological input, export loss and recovery, and consumer response. Greater consensus on those assumptions would narrow the range of estimates. Current research uses improved ...

We review the main theoretical conclusions from a quarter century of comparative studies of welfare states in the affluent democracies. We contrast early debates over the relative importance of industrialization, economic growth, and social classes for explaining welfare state differences with contemporary claims about the role of globalization, postindustrialism, and gender relations in shapin...

alternative theoretical perspectives have been presented to explain internationally effective factors affecting immigration. for example, the orthodox explanation of migration is based on the concept of wage differentials as an important factor of international immigration. the world system approach declines to interpret theoretically international migration as a phenomenon between independent ...

GDP, a measure of economic welfare, may be supplemented with other measures of economic welfare and environmental sustainability. This article discusses alternative measures which have been proposed in the literature concerning pollution, which can be used to augment GDP as a measure of welfare to produce a better index.

Aided by the longest economic expansion in U.S. history and other policy changes designed to make work pay, federal welfare reform legislation has spurred mothers to leave welfare at an unprecedented rate. The majority of mothers who left welfare are working, but most have jobs with low pay and limited benefits. This article discusses the relationship between economic resources and child well-b...

A number of recent studies have attempted to identify the determinants of government size. It is well known that the size of government has implications for welfare and economic growth. This paper shows that the size of the fixed cost involving public good provision affects the magnitude of capital inflow induced changes in government size and welfare. By making use of a simulation exercise, it...

We introduce habit formation in a model that studies the link between international trade in financial assets, economic growth, and welfare. As with time separable preferences asset trade increases the mean growth rate, but it also increases growth-volatility. We demonstrate that the welfare gain from asset trade is lower with habit persistence in consumption. This reflects that the habit-formi...