Challenges for health care development in Croatia [Izazovi razvoja zdravstvenog sustava Republike Hrvatske]

The main aim of the research done in this paper was to establish key challenges and perspectives for health care development in the Republic of Croatia in the next two decades. Empirical research was conducted in the form of semi-structured interviews involving 49 subjects, representatives of health care professionals from both, public and private sectors, health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, drug wholesalers, and non-governmental organisations (patient associations). The results have shown that key challenges and problems of Croatian health care can be divided into three groups: functioning of health care systems, health care personnel, and external factors. Research has shown that key challenges related to the functioning of health care are inefficiency, financial unviability, inadequate infrastructure, and the lack of system transparency. Poor governance is another limiting factor. With regard to health care personnel, they face the problems of low salaries, which then lead to migration challenges and a potential shortage of health care personnel. The following external factors are deemed to be among the most significant challenges: ageing population, bad living habits, and an increase in the number of chronic diseases. However, problems caused by the global financial crisis and consequential macroeconomic situation must not be neglected. Guidelines for responding to challenges identified in this research are the backbone for developing a strategy for health care development in the Republic of Croatia. Long-term vision, strategy, policies, and a regulatory framework are all necessary preconditions for an efficient health care system and more quality health services

Direct evidence on income comparisons and their welfare effects

This paper provides direct evidence that comparisons exert a significant effect on subjective well-being. It also evaluates the relative importance of different types of benchmarks. Internal comparisons to one's own past living standard outweigh any other comparison benchmarks. Local comparisons (to one's parents, former colleagues or high school mates) are more powerful than self-ranking in the social ladder. The impact of comparisons is asymmetric: under-performing one's benchmark always has a greater welfare effect than out-performing it (in absolute value). Comparisons which reduce satisfaction also increase the demand for income redistribution, but there, the relative impact of subjective ranking is preponderant.subjective well-being ; income comparisons ; demand for income redistribution ; internal and external benchmarks ; transition

Variable population welfare and poverty orderings satisfying replication properties

We discuss and compare the variable population axioms of Critical Level (CL) and Population Replication Invariance (PRI) introduced in the economic and philosophical literature for evaluating distributions with different population size. We provide a common framework for analyzing these competing views considering a strengthening of the Population Replication Principle (PRP) based on Dalton's (1920) "principle of proportionate additions to persons" that requires an ordering defined over populations of the same size to be invariant w.r.t. replication of the distributions. The strong version of PRP extends the invariance condition to hold also when distributions of different population size are compared. We suggest ethically meaningful general specifications of the invariance requirement underlying the Strong PRP and characterize the associated classes of parameterized evaluation functions that include CL principles and PRI properties. Moreover, we identify a general class of evaluation functions satisfying the Strong PRP: the social evaluation ordering will be represented by the simple formula considering the product of the population size times a strictly monotonic function of the Equally Distributed Equivalent Income (EDEI). Interesting ethical properties are shown to be associated with the shape of the function transforming the EDEI. Implications for poverty measurement are investigated.Variable Population Social Choice, Population Replication, Welfare Measurement, Poverty Measurement.

A concern about low relative income, and the alignment of utilitarianism with egalitarianism

A utilitarian social planner who maximizes social welfare assigns the available income to those who are most efficient in converting income into utility. However, when individuals are concerned about their income falling behind the incomes of others, the optimal income distribution under utilitarianism is equality of incomes.Utilitarianism, Income equality, Social welfare maximization, Relative income, Labor and Human Capital, H0, I0, I30, I31,

Is happiness different from flourishing? Cross-country evidence from the ESS

This paper appeals to novel survey information on over 30 000 individuals in 21 European countries to address an important and controversial question with respect to well-being: Do cognitive, hedonic and eudaimonic measures of well-being reflect very different aspects of individual quality of life? Or, more precisely, do the subjective appreciation of these dimensions by individuals exhibit different patterns? Our empirical results first reveal a very significant correlation between the measures of happiness and life satisfaction. Second, someone with high “hedonic” well-being (happiness or life satisfaction) is likely to have high eudaimonic well-being as well (flourishing, vitality, resilience and functioning). In addition, the factors that are correlated with the different measures of well-being seem to be very similar at the individual level. For example, marriage, higher income and greater education are associated with greater satisfaction, but also with higher levels of flourishing, vitality, resilience and functioning. This fit is not perfect, however, and men notably report lower levels of hedonic well-being but higher eudaimonic well-being.happiness ; life satisfaction ; eudaimonia ; European Social Survey

Introducing CGE Models to the Classroom Using EXCEL

This paper demonstrates how simple general equilibrium models can be solved with the help of Microsoft Excel. Two different general equilibrium models for tax incidence analysis are used as illustrative examples. The methods presented here are intended to be beneficial to both students and teachers working with general equilibrium theory in the classroom and can easily be extended to various policy analysis term projects. The techniques presented here are simple and effective tools for inclusion in any student’s toolkit.Excel, Solver, General Equilibrium, Optimization, Newton’s Method

From the Tallest to (One of) the Fattest: The Enigmatic Fate of the American Population in the 20th Century

Within the course of the 20th century the American population went through a metamorphosis from being the tallest in the world, to being among the most overweight. The American height advantage over Western and Northern Europeans was between 3 and 9 cm in the middle of the 19th century. Americans were also underweight. However, today, the exact opposite is the case as the Dutch, Swedes, and Norwegians are the tallest, and the Danes, British and Germans – even the East-Germans - are also taller, towering over the Americans by as much as 3-7 cm. Americans also live shorter. The hypothesis is worth considering that this adverse development is related to the greater social inequality, an inferior health-care system, and fewer social safety nets in the United States than in Western and Northern Europe, in spite of higher per capita income. The West- and Northern European welfare states, with cradle to grave health and unemployment insurance currently provide a more propitious environment for the biological standard of living than its US counterpart

Income and happiness across Europe: Do reference values matter?

Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS), we examine the link between income and subjective well-being. We find that, for the whole sample of nineteen European countries, although income is positively correlated with both happiness and life satisfaction, reference income exerts a negative effect on individual well-being, a result consistent with the relative utility hypothesis. Performing separate analyses for some Eastern European countries, we also find some evidence of a ‘tunnel effect’, in that reference income has a positive impact on subjective well-being. Our findings support the view that in environments with stable income and employment, reference income serves as a basis for social comparisons, whereas in relatively volatile environments, it is used as a source of information for forming expectations about future status

Measuring Wellbeing in the SOEP

I define wellbeing as preference realization. Wellbeing can be measured with affective (the amount of pleasant versus unpleasant experiences) and cognitive (satisfaction with life in general and life domains) measures. Since its inception 25 years ago, the SOEP has included cognitive measures of wellbeing. In 2007, the SOEP included four items (happy, sad, angry, afraid) as an affective measure of wellbeing. This paper examines similarities and differences between cognitive and affective measures of wellbeing. In the end, I propose a wellbeing index that combines information from measures of life satisfaction, average domain satisfaction, and affect balance.General welfare, quality of life, happiness, wellbeing