The issue of pricing contraceptives in family planning programs is becoming more and more important. What is the relationship between consumer prices and demand, and how can we strike the correct balance between the two? This report examines the correlation between consumer prices for condoms, expressed as a percentage of per-capita gross national product, and per-capita sales of condoms in 24 ...

Social welfare expenditures under public programs reached $362.3 billion in fiscal year 1977, which covered the 12-month period from October 1, 1976, to September 30, 1977. This figure was about $30 billion higher than the $331.9 billion spent in fiscal year 1976 (July 1, 1975, through June 30, 1976) and represented a 9-percent increase. When adjusted for price and population changes, real per ...

SPEAKING A T SHELLHARBOUR, N.S.W., on May 5, the Federal Treasurer Mr. McMahon stated that Australia’s gross national product at constant prices had been rising by 5J per cent annually, 1 per cent higher than the growth rate of the ’fifties. “If the recent rate is m aintained,” he said, “our gross national product would treble in 20 years . . . Australia, if it m aintained its present immigrati...

In 1961, a new and mandatory National Health Insurance plan was enacted in Japan. This healthcare system has succeeded in providing universal coverage while also containing the growth of national medical expenditures (NME) to the rate of growth of the gross national product (GNP), namely, approximately 4-5% annually, for several decades. All Japanese medical procedures, including dental procedu...

Happiness is rising on the political agenda and this calls for measures of how well nations perform in creating great happiness for a great number, analogous to measures of success in creating wealth, such as GDP. Happiness is defined as subjective enjoyment of one’s life as-a-whole and this can be measured using self-reports. Question on happiness are currently used in large scale surveys of t...

PURPOSE To assess the number of ophthalmologists in Brazil, their regional distribution, ophthalmologist/habitant ratio, and the relation between ophthalmologist and State Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita to aid public health policies. METHODS An ecologic study was conducted. Data were obtained from the "Census 2011 Brazilian Ophthalmology Council", from "Demographic Census of Brazilia...

Existing country studies of the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW), the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) and related measures, while sharing the same basic methodological approach, differ with respect to the valuation of important items. This paper provides a critical, but constructive, discussion of the various methods used for the valuation of non-renewable resource depletion and lo...