Public Health Law & Policy最新文献

{"title":"Why Income Comparison is Rational","authors":"D. Wolpert","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1324270","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1324270","url":null,"abstract":"A major factor affecting a person's happiness is the gap between their income and their neighbors', independent of their own income. This effect is strongest when the neighbor has moderately higher income. In addition a person's lifetime happiness often follows a \"U\" shape. Previous models have explained subsets of these phenomena, typically assuming the person has limited ability to assess their own (hedonic) utility. Here I present a model that explains all the phenomena, without such assumptions. In this model greater income of your neighbor is statistical data that, if carefully analyzed, would recommend that you explore for a new income-generating strategy. This explains unhappiness that your neighbor has greater income, as an emotional \"prod\" that induces you to explore, in accord with careful statistical analysis. It explains the \"U\" shape of happiness similarly. Another benefit of this model is that it makes many falsifiable predictions.","PeriodicalId":105371,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Law & Policy","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2009-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127982126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Effect of Newer Drugs on Health Spending: Do They Really Increase the Costs?","authors":"Abdulkadir Civan, Bülent Köksal","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1068909","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1068909","url":null,"abstract":"We analyze the influence of technological progress on pharmaceuticals on rising health expenditures using US State level panel data. Improvements in medical technology are believed to be partly responsible for rapidly rising health expenditures. Even if the technological progress in medicine improves health outcomes and life quality, it can also increase the expenditure on health care. Our findings suggest that newer drugs increase the spending on prescription drugs since they are usually more expensive than their predecessors. However, they lower the demand for other types of medical services, which causes the total spending to decline. We estimate that a 1-year decrease in the average age of prescribed drugs causes per capita health expenditures to decrease by $45.43. The biggest decline occurs in spending on hospital care due to newer drugs.","PeriodicalId":105371,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Law & Policy","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121330798","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cash Transfers, Behavioral Changes, and Cognitive Development in Early Childhood: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment","authors":"K. Macours, Norbert R. Schady, Renos Vakis","doi":"10.1596/1813-9450-4759","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-4759","url":null,"abstract":"Cash transfer programs have become extremely popular in the developing world. A large literature analyzes their effects on schooling, health and nutrition, but relatively little is known about possible impacts on child development. This paper analyzes the impact of a cash transfer program on early childhood cognitive development. Children in households randomly assigned to receive benefits had significantly higher levels of development nine months after the program began. There is no fade-out of program effects two years after the program ended. Additional random variation shows that these impacts are unlikely to result from the cash component of the program alone.","PeriodicalId":105371,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Law & Policy","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129489283","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Should Research Tools Be Patentable? Troubles & Chances of Patenting Research Tools in Biotechnology and Nanotechnology","authors":"N. Mueller","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1265731","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1265731","url":null,"abstract":"Biotechnology is the key technology of the 21st century. Nanotechnology is about to follow, but has not met the expectations yet. However, expectations are high of finding better treatments to common diseases.Research tools, on one hand, are the fundamental toolkit to develop diagnostics and pharmaceuticals. Patents, on the other hand, are powerful instruments for protection. They offer an exclusive right, which is the entitlement to the fruit of mental labour and knowledge. Patents, moreover, stimulate innovation and investments as well as they may offer benefits and compensation to its owner. But, patents are accompanied by fragmentation, blocking patents, thickets, exclusive/expensive licensing, bioprivatisation and the Tragedy of the Anticommons. As biotechnology and nanotechnology are very complex areas, scientists need access to several resources. Therefore, patents on (upstream) research tools can slow down research and development and thus, indirectly harm public health.There are two famous examples that clearly show the risks of research tool patents: Myriad and its patents on the BRCA genes including their mutations; Chiron/Roche with their patents on genomes/tests of the Hepatitis C and Aids virus. Those cases may or may not seem to be solved by today, but there are more (new) patent files regarding patents on genes that may cause the same problems: new cancer genes CHEK, BMP7 - osteogenesis/bone growth, CDKN2A - tumour elimination/already owned by 9 different owners, PIK3R5 - against diabetes, LEPR - obeseness or the patent on the honey bee allergen.Therefore, the concerning question raised within this thesis is, whether research tool patents cause negative impacts and if so, what can be done to overcome them. What are the legal risks and opportunities of patenting research tools in bio- and nanotechnology? By evaluating this question I will, finally, give an answer on whether research tools should be patentable. What solutions are most promising to alleviate negative impacts?But, how shall the question best be evaluated? The thesis will evaluate the influence of research tool patents, particularly on the example of DNA patents. I will also look into the area of nanotechnology to see if research tool patents cause similar problems there. The thesis, moreover, contains an interesting and fascinating collection of (very new) inventions in bio- and nanotechnology that have been patented or are still under examination of the EPO. In its main Chapter this thesis subsequently explores the answer on whether research tools shall be patentable. Chapter 6 aims at providing a guideline on how to deal with the negative impacts of research tool patents by developing and discussing several ideas on possible solutions and offering recommendations. It concludes that compulsory licensing combined with voluntary licensing and/or expansive research exemptions offer the most promising approaches. Furthermore, Chapter 6 proposes a couple of terms & condit","PeriodicalId":105371,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Law & Policy","volume":"59 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125587364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Tobacco Control and the Role of Litigation: A Survey of Issues in Law, Policy, and Economics","authors":"B. Bitas, P. Barros","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1121000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1121000","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the course of tobacco litigation in the United States and its implications for law and policy in the future, both in the U.S. and internationally. In our view, the different legal traditions and attitudes of other countries when applied to the current balance achieved in the U.S. through a mix of litigation, settlement, and regulation will lead the majority of such states to opt for the direct and transparent regulation of tobacco activities through formal and perhaps consensual channels, thereby bypassing the long and costly stage of litigation that characterized the U.S. process. Therefore, despite some increased litigation in the product liability area as a whole, the approach to tobacco control on the international level is likely to be characterized by the continuing, and, indeed, increased reliance on direct regulation rather than on ad hoc litigation, the efficiencies of the former approach having now become evident.","PeriodicalId":105371,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Law & Policy","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117115911","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Unknown: The Extent, Distribution and Trend of Global Income Poverty","authors":"Thomas Pogge, S. Reddy","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.936772","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.936772","url":null,"abstract":"The estimates of the extent, distribution and trend of global income poverty provided in the World Bank's World Development Reports for 1990 and 2000/01 are neither meaningful nor reliable. The Bank uses an arbitrary international poverty line unrelated to any clear conception of what poverty is. It employs a misleading and inaccurate measure of purchasing power equivalence that vitiates international and inter-temporal comparisons of income poverty. It extrapolates incorrectly from limited data and thereby creates an appearance of precision that masks the high probable error of its estimates. The systematic distortion introduced by these three flaws likely leads to a large understatement of the extent of global income poverty and to an incorrect inference that it has declined. A new methodology of global poverty assessment is feasible and necessary.","PeriodicalId":105371,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Law & Policy","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134012511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Self-Assessed Health as a Key Determinant of Lifestyles: An Application to Tobacco Consumption in Argentina","authors":"Mariana Conte Grand, Vanesa D'Elia","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1208782","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1208782","url":null,"abstract":"The relationship between lifestyle choices and health has been widely studied in the epidemiological and economic literature. In the last years, empirical research was directed towards the use of recursive systems with structural equations for a health production function and reduced form equations for lifestyles. As a result, behaviors toward health are taken to be determined by exogenous socio-economic variables. In this article, we show that health is a key determinant of health habits. When people feel well, they adopt less healthy behaviors. We use maximum simulated likelihood for a multivariate 5 equation probit model. In that model, lifestyles (diet, exercise, alcohol consumption and smoking) are a function of exogenous socioeconomic variables and self-reported health. Self-reported health varies with socio-economic characteristics and depends on health indicators that are the consequence of lifestyles undertaken in the past (i.e., overweight, blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol levels). Data is that of adults in Argentina´s 2005 Risk Factors National Survey. We find that health partial effects on lifestyle are much larger having accounted for health endogeneity. Accounting for unobservable variables that jointly determine all lifestyles does not change much the magnitude of our results. Our findings are robust to different specifications.","PeriodicalId":105371,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Law & Policy","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116927146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Macroeconomic Analysis of Obesity","authors":"Pere Gomis-Porqueras, Adrian Peralta-Alva","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1150985","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1150985","url":null,"abstract":"This paper tries to understand the underlying causes of the rapid increase in obesity rates over recent decades. In particular, we propose a dynamic general equilibrium model to derive the quantitative implications of a decline in the relative (monetary and time) cost of food prepared away from home on the caloric intake of the average American adult over the last forty years. Two channels that lower this relative cost are considered. First, productivity improvements in the production of food prepared away from home. We and that this channel is qualitatively consistent with expenditure trends in food items, but falls short of accounting for the magnitude of the observed changes. We then consider actual declines in income taxes and in the gender wage gap, which increase the cost of preparing food at home from scratch. Our model accounts for three quarters of the observed changes in calorie consumption, and is consistent with trends in aggregate food expenditures, time use, and key macroeconomic variables. Our results indicate that changes in the relative cost of food prepared away from home play an important role in our understanding of the increased weight of the American population during the last 40 years.","PeriodicalId":105371,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Law & Policy","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128894795","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Retirement Effects on Health in Europe","authors":"Norma B. Coe, Gema Zamarro","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1148883","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1148883","url":null,"abstract":"What are the health impacts of retirement? As talk of raising retirement ages in pensions and social security schemes continues around the world, it is important to know both the costs and benefits for the individual, as well as the governments' budgets. In this paper we use the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) dataset to address this question in a multi-country setting. We use country-specific early and full retirement ages as instruments for retirement behavior. These statutory retirement ages clearly induce retirement, but are not related to an individual's health. Exploiting the discontinuities in retirement behavior across countries, we find significant evidence that retirement has a health-preserving effect on overall general health. Our estimates indicate that retirement leads to a 35 percent decrease in the probability of reporting to be in fair, bad, or very bad health, and an almost one standard deviation improvement in the health index. While the self-reported health seems to be a temporary impact, the health index indicates there are long-lasting health differences.","PeriodicalId":105371,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Law & Policy","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116720894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Disaster in Denver: Prelude to Pandemic Pandemonium","authors":"B. P. Billauer","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.1133264","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.1133264","url":null,"abstract":"Public health experts have been predicting imminent threat of pandemic influenza. The latest US preparedness plans use the single statistic of case-fatality as the basis to evaluate any new threats. On this basis, Avian flu (H5N1) has been declared the single pandemic threat of concern, such that current preparedness plan also bears the title Avian Flu. A 7.1 billion dollar initiative for vaccines and other interventions has been allocated to deal with this as yet non-existent threat of Avian Flu. In the last four years less than four hundred cases of Avian flu has been reported worldwide. Yet in one week this March over 1000 cases of college students in the United States were diagnosed with influenza; the strain: H3N2, a strain that has already demonstrated a propensity to mutate rapidly, infect humans by direct transmission, and cause high levels of morbidity and mortality. This paper collects evidence that demonstrates an anomolous set of influenza statistics for this season (2007-8) that resemble no pandemic in recent history - with the exception of its uncanny similarity with the unusual presentation of the Spanish flu of 1918-1919. Further, all evidence suggests that should a United States epidemic or worldwide pandemic materialize in the near future, we are likely to see the cause as a variant strain of H3N2 - for which current vaccines and antivirals are ineffective. Nevertheless, as compared to Avian flu, for which we cannot begin preparing vaccines until a human variant emerges, we are capable of producing a vaccine that would protect Americans from an H3N2 epidemic - in time for the next wave - that is if we start right now. Finally, while preparedness plans make detailed provisions for social distancing and curtailment of public activities, conspicuous by its absence are contingency plans should the second wave of the epidemic materialize in August or Sept of 2008, the same months that the Spanish flu made its second appearance.","PeriodicalId":105371,"journal":{"name":"Public Health Law & Policy","volume":"123 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115170723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}