Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion stipulates that under total utilitarianism, it might be optimal to choose increasing population size while consumption per capita goes to zero. We evaluate this claim within a canonical AK model with endogenous fertility and a reduced form relationship between demographic growth and economic growth. While in the traditional linear dilution model, the Parfit Repugna...

This article reviewed achievements and challenges of the National Health Insurance of the Republic of Korea and shared thoughts on its future directions. Starting with large workplaces of 500 or more employees in 1977, Korea's National Health Insurance successfully achieved universal coverage within just 12 yr in 1989. This amazing pace of growth was possible due to a positive combination of st...

In view of the distinct and seminal contributions of Pareto and Pigou to the economics of welfare, Pigou’s enduring influence in the field of public finance and Pareto’s hostility to developments in that field of study, the lack of a comparative study of their contributions is unfortunate. This study contrasts the place of ophelimity and utility and in these authors’ approaches to welfare studi...

As an important aspect for the level of wealth, social welfare and economic growth, the housing stock, and more specifically, home ownership are significant structural mechanisms in the reduction of poverty and social inequalities. Nevertheless, the difficulties in measuring the prices of real capital such as housing are very well known. These difficulties stem, in part, from the heterogeneity ...

This paper seeks to examine the effects of the ageing population in Illinois with inclusion of the household’s ex-ante intra-generational heterogeneity across race and migration status. For this, this paper empirically shows that there are significant gaps in returns to education between race and migration status in Illinois; and there exists significant relationships between a resident’s demog...

China’s decade-long housing boom looks nothing short of a gigantic bubble familiar to many countries: In big cities the price-to-income ratio reached 30 to 1 and the vacancy rate stood at 30% or above. This paper provides a theoretical framework to shed light on the causes and consequences of the great housing boom in China. We argue that the boom could be a rational bubble rooted in China’s un...

In Germany politics and consumers ask for the implementation of more animal welfare. So far there are no bio economic models available to calculate animal welfare measures on the farm management level. Experiments on animal welfare often result in limited data for farm management analysis. In this article the economic effects of measures for animal welfare using stochastic simulations are analy...

In this study, we sought to identify empirically the types of use and non-use values that motivate dairy farmers in their work relating to animal welfare of dairy cows. We also sought to identify how they prioritize between these use and non-use values. Use values are derived from productivity considerations; non-use values are derived from the wellbeing of the animals, independent of the prese...

STUDIES OF THE economic position of consumers have long recognized t,hat families with the same current income may differ widely with respect, to the amount of wealth they own. It is common pract,ice to speak of the wealthier family as “better off” than the less wealthy. Moreover, welfare programs reflect, the philosophy that assets should be taken into account in evaluating eligibility for ass...

Welfare-state measures often tend to persist even when they seem to have become suboptimal due to changes in the economic environment. This paper proposes an information-based explanation for this welfare-state persistence. I present a structural model where rationally inattentive voters decide upon implementations and removals of social insurance. In this model, welfarestate persistence arises...