The welfare and security of modern nations rely on the continuous production and distribution of a number of essential goods (e.g. water, energy, data), and services (e.g. banking, health care), by large scale, man-made, networked systems, called infrastructures, mostly spanning long distances, and privately owned or operated. Such infrastructures are termed critical, as any incapacity or destr...

As part of its food security policy, South Korea has been pursuing food selfsufficiency using high tariffs and high administrative prices in key agricultural and food markets. Using a dual approach to trade and trade restrictiveness indices, we analyze the impact of these market distortions on welfare and trade volume. Then, we compute optimum distortions, which minimize the welfare costs of ob...

Possibly the first formal action of the United States in the field of social security was a system of health insurance for seamen established in 1798. In June 1946, at the maritime session of the International Labor Conference in Seattle, representatives of this country worked with delegates from more than 30 other governments that are members of the International Labor Office to draw up conven...

Without policy reforms, the aging of the U.S. population is likely to increase the burden of the currently unfunded Social Security and Medicare systems. In this paper we build an applied general equilibrium model and incorporate the population projections made by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to evaluate the macroeconomic and welfare implications of alternative fiscal responses to t...

This paper considers the effects of aging in a currency union with endogenous growth. It is shown that mortality, labour supply and social security funding have no effect on inflation and pose therefore no problems for monetary integration. On the other hand, the demand for medical care speeds up inflation. Hence, if a currency union accepts a new member in which families have a relatively high...

While tissue culture (TC) technology for vegetative plant propagation is gradually gaining in importance in Africa, rigorous ex post assessments of welfare effects for smallholder farm households is lacking. Using recent survey data and accounting for self-selection in technology adoption, we analyze the impacts of TC banana technology on household income and food security in Kenya. To assess f...

Prior to January 1, 1997, individuals with drug- or alcohol-related disabilities could qualify for federal public assistance through the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. During the welfare reforms of the Clinton administration, this policy was changed resulting in lost income and health care benefits for many low-income substance abusers. This paper examines the historical underpinni...

Komodo National Park is a medium in maintaining national identity to support the implementation of defense and maintain security. one five parks that were first designated Indonesia with main icon being endemic animal, Komodo. Then, Government runs this park management model using participatory approach tourism development accompanied by provision training develop human resources, capital assis...