What Kind of Health Service do we Really Need?. ESRI Memorandum Series No. 140 1980

It is a privilege to be invited by this Association to address such a distinguished audience. Permit me to begin this afternoon by describing the nature and progress of my work at the Economic and Social Research Institute. As some of you know, I spent 1975 and 1976 at the Institute, doing research that in 1978 resulted in my paper on expenditures in education. I returned to the Institute last September, to undertake a project on health care expenditures. I have spent the time since September acquainting myself with the Irish health care system; acting as a consultant to the Oireachtais Joint Committee on state-Sponsored Bodies, on their study of the Voluntary Health Insurance Board; developing a report on "Poverty and Health" for the Irish Team, under the Institute of Public Administration, of a European Community study of poverty; and, as may not surprise you, trying to defend my paper on educational expenditures. Hence I have no results to report to you on health care expenditures. What I will have to say today is based on what is already generally known about the Irish system of health care, together with my understanding of health economics. I reserve the right to modify later the positions I take today. What kind of health care system do we need and want? I will offer the economists' answer: a system which is equitable in its treatment of persons, and efficient in its use of resources. As you will see, these terms are elastic enough to caver the preservation of health and life

The 'CUB' Budget as a Measure of Fiscal Policy. Quarterly Economic Commentary Special Article, January 1976

In a recession or depression, as at present, government budgets tend to be much less expansionary in their effects on the economy than one might infer from the sizes of their overall deficits. In other words, those who try to gauge the effect of the budget on demand in the economy by reference .to the size of the deficit in the overall budget are likely, in a recession, to be wrong. When government budget deficits rise, the usual interpretation is that the budget is more expansionary than theretofore in its influence on the economy, and when budget deficits fall (or surpluses grow), the usual interpretation is that the influence is less expansionary (or more contractionary). But the fact is that increased deficits are not necessarily more expansionary, nor are reduced deficits necessarily more contractionary, even apart from such matters as the types of taxes used, the mix of expenditures, the ways in which deficits are financed, and movements in the supply of money. The sizes of budget deficits and surpluses are influenced not only by the direction and strength of fiscal policy, but by short-term movements of the economy itself

Inter-Industry Differences in Male Percentage Unemployment Compensation - A Cross Section Analysis for Irish Manufacturing Industry. Quarterly Economic Commentary Special Article, November 1976

It is widely accepted that unemployment rates vary substantially amongst industrial sectors in Ireland. However, it does not appear to be equally recognised that there are substantial inter-industry differences in the percentage of net earnings which an unemployed person receives from Unemployment and Pay-Related Benefits. These differences are accentuated by the non-uniformity of the dependency structure of the labour force in different industries. This paper, therefore, comprises two parts. Part 1 is methodological and consists of an attempt to compute, under fairly restrictive assumptions, for each of 36 manufacturing industries, the proportion of net earnings obtained from unemployment compensation. This is done for persons of differing dependency status. These proportions are then weighted by the dependency distribution of the unemployed in each industry in order to obtain a representative percentage compensation figure for each of the 36 industries. Some space is devoted to an examination of these results. In Part 2 an attempt is made to explore the hypothesis that levels of unemployment compensation may be an important factor in explaining the extent and duration of registered unemployment

Symposium on White Paper on Education

In his Foreword to the White Paper on Educational Development, the Minister stated that despite the fact that no Green Paper was issued, the issues dealt with are very much open for discussion and the Government\u27s position is not inflexible. It is in this spirit that the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society has organised this symposium. I hope that my paper, and those of my colleagues, will contribute to a public debate, not alone on the issues raised in the White Paper as the omissions are so important, but on all the questions pertaining to the organisation, financing, and curricula of the Irish system of education

Physician-induced demand by Irish GPs

Approximately one-third of the Irish population receive all medical care services free. GPs (general practitioners) treat both public and private patients, and are remunerated on a fee-for service basis by the state for public patients, and by the patient, at a higher rate, for private patients. In 1981, the first author conducted a national survey of Irish medical care utilization, asking whether patients' most recent GP visits resulted in a return visit being arranged. This measure of self-referral by GPs is significantly and strongly associated with the ratio of GPs to population, and negatively with the ratio to population of persons eligible for free services, and with area per capita income. All three results are as hypothesized from a theoretical model, and point to significant self-interested physician-induced demand by Irish GPs.physician induced demand Eire