The Normative Problem of Merit Goods in Perspective

In his Theory of Public Finance (1959), Musgrave invented the concept of merit wants to describe public wants that are satisfied by goods provided by the government in violation of the principle of consumer sovereignty. Starting from Musgrave’s mature discussion (1987), I construct two categories to classify the explanations of merit goods. The first strand of thought attempts to justify merit goods within the New welfare economics, by modifying its assumptions to accommodate irrationality, uncertainty, lack of information, and psychic externalities. The second category encompasses more radical departures from consumer sovereignty, drawn from philosophical critiques of economics. In the third part of the paper, I argue that the two strands might be represented by a non-individualistic social welfare function. I also show how this solution echoes Musgrave’s early views on public expenditures before he coined the concept of merit wants. From an historical perspective, the survival of the concept highlights the persistence of a social point of view in welfare economics

Understanding West German economic growth in the 1950s

We evaluate explanations for why Germany grew so quickly in the 1950s. The recent literature has emphasized convergence, structural change and institutional shake-up while minimizing the importance of the post-war shock. We show that this shock and its consequences were more important than neoclassical convergence and structural change in explaining the rapid growth of the West German economy in the 1950s. We find little support for the hypothesis of institutional shakeup. This suggests a different interpretation of post-World War II German economic growth than features in much of the literature

Functional outcome after endoprosthetic limb-salvage therapy of primary bone tumours—a comparative analysis using the MSTS score, the TESS and the RNL index

Limb-saving therapy for primary bone tumours is the treatment of choice. We aimed at analysing the quality of life of this group of patients by combining three different tools. Eighty-seven patients (46 females, 41 males) with a primary bone tumour of the extremity who had undergone endoprosthetic reconstruction between 1982 and 2000 were included in this retrospective study. The median age at the time of evaluation was 30 (12–73) years. The Toronto Extremity Salvage Score (TESS) and the Reintegration to Normal Living index (RNL) were recorded an average of 5.8 years after reconstruction and the Musculoskeletal Tumour Society Score (MSTS) after an average of 6.5 years. The mean MSTS score was 77% (13–93%). The mean TESS was 82% (22–99%), and the mean RNL index was 87% (32–98%). The subjective satisfaction and acceptance of physical impairment were significantly higher than the objective score (p < 0.001). The TESS was 88% in patients aged 12–25 years, 81% in those aged 26–40 years and 57% in those aged 41–73 years. Parallel recording of the MSTS score, TESS and RNL index provides a better measure reflecting the complex situation of the patients by combining objective and subjective parameters