Download or read book On Measuring Aggregate social Efficiency written by Martin Ravallion and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cross-country comparisons of social indicators controlling for income and/or social spending have been widely used to measure and explain "social efficiency" analogously to "technical efficiency" in production. The author argues that these methods are clouded in ambiguities about what exactly is being measured. Standard methods of measuring technical efficiency require assumptions that seem unlikely to hold for social indicators. In the context of a simple parametric model of life expectancy, conditions are identified under which there will be a systematic pattern of bias in estimates of efficient health spending.

Download or read book On Measuring Aggregate Social Efficiency written by Martin Ravallion and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cross-country comparisons of social indicators controlling for income and/or social spending have been widely used to measure and explain quot;social efficiencyquot; analogously to quot;technical efficiencyquot; in production. Ravallion argues that these methods are clouded in ambiguities about what exactly is being measured. Standard methods of measuring technical efficiency require assumptions that seem unlikely to hold for social indicators. In the context of a simple parametric model of life expectancy, conditions are identified under which there will be a systematic pattern of bias in estimates of efficient health spending.This paper - a product of the Poverty Team, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to assess the reliability of empirical methods used to inform policy debates.

Download or read book Patterns and Drivers of Health Spending Efficiency written by Ms. Mercedes Garcia-Escribano and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2022-03-04 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demands for ramping up health expenditures are at an all-time high. Countries’ needs for additional health resources include responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, closing gaps in achieving the Sustainable Development Goal in health in most emerging and developing countries, and serving an ageing population in advanced economies. Facing limited fiscal space for raising health spending focuses policymakers’ attention on ensuring that resources are used efficiently. How sizable are the potential gains—in terms of freeing up resources and delivering better health outcomes—from improving health spending efficiency? How has efficiency evolved over the past decade? What can policymakers do to boost it? This paper estimates health spending efficiency across countries using bias-corrected data envelopment analysis and finds sizable differences in efficiency across countries, in particular among emerging and developing countries compared to advanced economies. The examination of the evolution of efficiency reveals that important efficiency gains have been made in the majority of countries. The paper also explores some of the key drivers of efficiency and finds that lower income inequality, less corruption, and health interventions oriented at expanding population access to basic health services are associated with greater efficiency.

Download or read book The Measurement of Productive Efficiency and Productivity Growth written by Harold O. Fried and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-02-04 with total page 723 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Harold Fried, et al. published The Measurement of Productive Efficiency: Techniques and Applications with OUP in 1993, the book received a great deal of professional interest for its accessible treatment of the rapidly growing field of efficiency and productivity analysis. The first several chapters, providing the background, motivation, and theoretical foundations for this topic, were the most widely recognized. In this tight, direct update, these same editors have compiled over ten years of the most recent research in this changing field, and expanded on those seminal chapters. The book will guide readers from the basic models to the latest, cutting-edge extensions, and will be reinforced by references to classic and current theoretical and applied research. It is intended for professors and graduate students in a variety of fields, ranging from economics to agricultural economics, business administration, management science, and public administration. It should also appeal to public servants and policy makers engaged in business performance analysis or regulation.

Download or read book The Architecture of Green Economic Policies written by P.K. Rao and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-06-14 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After numerous scienti?c papers and books on most aspects of climate change and the design of pro-environmental policies (including some that suit some industrial lobby or another), is there relevance for another book and what is the purported role of this one? Is this yet another academic exercise or “much ado about nothing”? Do we have to bother designing green economic policies and incur transaction costs of this effort? Are there shortcomings of existing policies if we care to live “happily” on this planet? Is it not enough to care for the current generations so that the future generations can take care of themselves (or even be given the incentives for in- vations – for lack of fully provided resources)? What can “we” do about the green economic policies (and what are these anyway)? What trade-offs, if any, are re- vant in foregoing some bene?ts and in incurring some costs (not all of which can be expressed in monetary units)? What are the overarching objectives and priorities in the current context? What economic and other approaches are relevant for atta- ing the objectives? These are some of the questions the author re?ected in writing this book.

Download or read book Cost effectiveness in Health and Medicine written by United States. Public Health Service. Panel on Cost-effectiveness in Health and Medicine and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Intercity Transport and Climate Change written by Yoshitsugu Hayashi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-11-25 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While intercity passenger transport counts for about 2% of the total passenger transport volume the share of the total passenger kilometers traveled is estimated more than one third. In many countries the major part of intercity transport is performed by car and air and as a result, the contribution to the carbon footprint is substantially higher than the share of overall passenger transport performance. This creates a challenge to develop a sustainable organization of intercity transport which requires a true joint effort of policy makers, industry sectors and households. This presupposes that all options for reducing the carbon footprint of the transport modes – car, air and rail – are fully exploited through modern propulsion technology, use of regenerative energy and efficient organization of transport processes. Basic conditions for meeting this requirement are an incentive compatible public framework of regulation, taxation, charging and education, the private willingness to adjust to new behavioral patterns and a consequent push of technological progress towards energy and CO2 savings. This book begins with an international comparison of intercity transport and the current state of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) of this transport segment. A focus is given to comparing the situation in the EU, the US and Japan while describing the more recent development of intercity transport in China, followed by an analysis of intercity transport policies and their contribution to meet the global climate change issues. This book will be of interest to researchers in transportation economics and policy, as well as civil engineering and planning.

Download or read book Government Expenditures on Education Health and Infrastructure written by Antonio Estache and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All interested parties seem to agree that it is important to be able to monitor public sector performance at the sectoral level, but most current work based on multi-country databases does not lend itself to country-specific conclusions. This is due to a large extent to major data limitations both on sectoral expenditures and on sectoral outcomes. This paper discusses the related issues and shows what we can do with the current data in spite of the drastic limitations. The main conclusions of the paper are that any efforts to assess country-specific performances in relative terms are likely to be difficult in view of the data problems. A rough sense of performance across sectors can be estimated for groups of countries, allowing some modest benchmarking exercises. These estimates show that low-income countries generally lag significantly behind higher-income countries. Efficiency has improved during the 1990s in energy and education but has not improved significantly in transport.

Download or read book The World Bank Research Program 2005 2007 written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2008 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pocket-sized reference on key environmental data for over 200 countries includes key indicators on agriculture, forestry, biodiversity, energy, emission and pollution, and water and sanitation. The volume helps establish a sound base of information to help set priorities and measure progress toward environmental sustainability goals.

Download or read book Climate Friendly Goods and Technologies in Asia written by Soumyananda Dinda and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-12-12 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the potential trade opportunity of climate friendly goods and technology (CFGT) in Asia and South Asia region, and uses a case study of India to clarify India's position on global warming and efforts to mitigate climate change impacts regionally and globally. In four main sections, the book applies econometric techniques to analyze the trade performance of CFGTs in nations in Asia and South Asia, in order to assess trade gaps and map the movement of CFGTs in these regions. The major themes addressed in the book include climate change and trade, issues that shape regional and national policies, and strategies for implementing global climate change mitigation on trade opportunities and developments. Section 1 introduces readers to some background on global climate change threats and its effects on trade, as well as the need to develop trade for CFGTs. Section 2 assesses the trade performance of CFGTs in Asia, and South Asia, and the competitiveness of CFGT trade. Section 3 uses a regional orientation index to analyze CFGT trade. Section 4 discusses the potential business applications of CFGT trade in the Asia, South Asia region, and uses a case study on India to analyze climate change mitigation effects on trade and policy. The book will be of interest to researchers, students, governments, and policy makers.

Download or read book Measuring and Controlling Sustainability written by Adam Lindgreen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Efforts to establish the measurement and control of sustainability have produced notable tools, but those instruments lack applicability in practice. Increasing the level of standardization of such tools also seems difficult to achieve, because the contexts surrounding the focal organizations differ considerably. Therefore, what we need is a systematic, interdisciplinary assessment of how to measure and control sustainability, so that we can establish an essential definition and up-to-date picture of the field. Measuring and Controlling Sustainability attempts to provide such an assessment in 17 chapters, organized into four main topic sections: (a) organizations and social value creation: concepts, responsibilities, and barriers; (b) accounting, measurement, performance, and diffusion of social value; (c) practical and managerial insights from real-life cases; and (d) choices, incentives, guidance, and ethics. This research anthology provides a comprehensive collection of cutting-edge theories and research that will further the development and advancement of measuring and controlling sustainable efforts in theory and managerial practice.

Download or read book Handbook of Research on Nonprofit Economics and Management written by Bruce Alan Seaman and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nonprofit organizations are arguably the fastest growing and most dynamic part of modern market economies in democratic countries. This book explores the frontiers of knowledge at the intersection of economics and the management of these entities. The authors review the role, structure and behavior of private, nonprofit organizations as economic units and their participation in markets and systems of public service delivery, assess the implications of this knowledge for the efficient management of nonprofit organizations and the formulation of effective public policy, and identify cutting-edge questions for future research. Chapters address five broad categories of scholarship: development and management of the diverse economic resources supporting nonprofit organizations; market behavior of nonprofits; strategic economic decision-making; evaluation and performance of them; and impacts and implications of public policies affecting nonprofit organizations. Topics include: income diversification and crowd-out among income sources, paid and volunteer labor markets, competition and collaboration among nonprofits and for-profits, pricing and diversification of nonprofit products and services, performance measurement and regulation, contracting, franchising and federation practices, and government taxation and funding. The book will help nonprofit scholars identify new areas of productive research, help practicing managers understand the underlying economics of their decision-making, and offer teachers and students a concise and penetrating view of key economic dimensions to managing nonprofit organizations.

Download or read book A Micro Decomposition Analysis of the Macroeconomic Determinants of Human Development written by Dominique Van de Walle and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: This paper shows how differences in aggregate human development outcomes over time and space can be additively decomposed into a pure economic-growth component, a component attributed to differences in the distribution of income, and components attributed to "non-income" factors and differences in the model linking outcomes to income or non-income characteristics. The income effect at the micro level is modeled non-parametrically, so as to flexibly reflect distributional changes. The paper illustrates the decomposition using data for Morocco and Vietnam, and the results offer some surprising insights into the observed aggregate gains in schooling attainments. A user friendly STATA program is available to implement the method in other settings.

Download or read book World Bank Research Program written by World Bank and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book How Does the Composition of Public Spending Matter written by Stefano Paternostro and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2005 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: Public spending has effects which are complex to trace and difficult to quantify. But the composition of public expenditure has become the key instrument by which development agencies seek to promote economic development. In recent years, the development assistance to heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) has been made conditional on increased expenditure on categories that are thought to be "pro-poor". This paper responds to the growing concern being expressed about the conceptual foundations and the empirical basis for the belief that poverty can be reduced through targeted public spending. While it is widely accepted that growth and redistribution are important sources of reduction in absolute poverty, a review of the literature confirms the lack of an appropriate theoretical framework for assessing the impact of public spending on growth as well as poverty. There is a need to combine principles of both public economics and growth theory to develop appropriate theoretical guidance for public expenditure policy. This paper identifies a number of approaches that are beginning to address this gap. Building on these approaches, it proposes a framework that has its foundation in a broadly articulated development strategy and its economic goals such as growth, equity, and poverty reduction. It recommends the use of public economics principles to clarify the roles of the private and public sectors and to recognize the complementarity of spending, taxation, and regulatory instruments available to affect public policy. With regard to the impact of any given type of public spending, policy recommendations must be tailored to countries and be based on empirical analysis that takes account of the lags and leads in their effects on equity and growth and ultimately on poverty. The paper sketches out such a framework as the first step in what will have to be a longer-term research agenda to provide theoretically and empirically robust and verifiable guidance to public spending policy.

Download or read book American Educational History Journal written by Paul J. Ramsey and published by IAP. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 581 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American Educational History Journal is a peer?reviewed, national research journal devoted to the examination of educational topics using perspectives from a variety of disciplines. The editors of AEHJ encourage communication between scholars from numerous disciplines, nationalities, institutions, and backgrounds. Authors come from a variety of disciplines including political science, curriculum, history, philosophy, teacher education, and educational leadership. Acceptance for publication in AEHJ requires that each author present a well?articulated argument that deals substantively with questions of educational history.

Download or read book Social Evolution written by Benjamin Kidd and published by . This book was released on 1895 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: