nutritional status during an economic crisis evidence from russia between 1996 and 1998 russia experienced a spectacular decline in economic activity which was followed by a dramatic rebound between 1998 and 2000 we use panel data to examine the impact of variation in household resources on six dimensions of nutritional status distinguishing longer run from short term fluctuations in resources nutritional status is very resilient to short term variation in household resources gross energy intake adult weight and child stature change very little as expenditure deviates from its long run average longer run resources have a substantively large positive and significant effect on energy intake diet quality adult weight and child stature the evidence indicates that individuals and households are able to weather short term fluctuations in economic resources at least in terms of maintaining body mass and energy intake increased globalisation has resulted in many less developed countries becoming more integrated into world markets this integration carries both benefits and costs for the populations of those countries an oft cited cost is elevated risk of exposure to economic fluctuations which has been manifest in several spectacular economic crises across the globe in the last few decades there is however little evidence on the extent to which individuals and families are able to mitigate deleterious effects of these economic upheavals on their well being in spite of its importance for understanding the consequences of globalisation this article provides new evidence on this issue specifically we examine the relationship between several dimensions of nutritional well being and variation in household resources during the russian economic crisis in the late 1990s the economies of the former soviet bloc have been especially volatile since the transition to market based economies which began in the early 1990s nowhere has this been more true than in russia where in the last half of 1998 real gdp collapsed by around 30 and then rapid growth brought the economy back to its pre crisis level by 2000 the time path of changes in gdp is closely mimicked by changes in the incomes and expenditures of russian households using extremely rich longitudinal household survey data from the russian longitudinal monitoring survey rlms we examine the impact of these large fluctuations in household resources on nutrient intake and on anthropometric markers of nutritional status at the individual level in so doing we address an important issue in the literature regarding the extent to which households in low income settings are able

will aging baby boomers bust the federal budget barely ten years from now the leading edge of the baby boom generation will turn 65 ushering in a sustained aging of the u s population many are concerned that through the first half of the 21st century the federal government will stagger under the weight of these elderly baby boomers as they receive the medical retirement and disability benefits promised them the number of people over age 65 in the population is projected to increase by a factor of 2 5 by 2040 lee and tuljapurkar 1994 with the number of nursing home residents growing even more rapidly schneider and guralnick 1990 long term forecasts suggest that nearly one third of gdp will be accounted for by health care by 2030 burner waldo and mckusick 1992 warshawsky 1994 the fiscal impact of this demographic change is potentially enormous shoven topper and wise 1994 an alternative view is much more optimistic about retirement prospects for the baby boom generation this view holds that disability and morbidity will continue to become more compressed leading to healthier years later in life manton stallard and liu 1993b manton corder and stallard 1997 the average retirement age will rise productivity gains and increased tax revenue will offset the demands that aging baby boomers place on the federal budget one projection suggests the percentage of those over age 65 requiring medicaid coverage for longterm care will decline in the next century wiener illston and hanley 1994 another is that long term health care costs will decline as a fraction of median

longitudinal studies of human growth and health a review of recent historical research longitudinal studies of health this paper reviews recent literature using stature and weight as measures of human welfare with a particular interest in cliometric or historical research we begin with an overview of anthropometric evidence of living standards and the new but fast growing field of anthropometric history this literature is always implicitly and often explicitly longitudinal in nature we then discuss i systematic empirical research into the relationship between conditions in early life and later life health and mortality and ii historical evidence on the relationship between body mass morbidity and mortality we conclude with a discussion of the importance of historical sources and understandings to health economics and population health

institutional structure finance and race in higher education public private sectoral differences this paper has examined and extended the range of economic implications implied by existing differences in the underlying institutional structure of higher education along the lines of lindsay 1976 sisk 1981 and weisbrod 1977 it was hypothesized that public private intersectoral and intrasectoral differences in the dependence on various sources of finance give rise to systematic differences in the input output mix of institutions and lead to corresponding differences in blacks relative access to and success in higher education empirical evidence was offered in support of the contention that blacks relative to whites are more likely to gain access to higher education through the public sector but once entered they relative to whites face a greater likelihood of success in the private compared to the public sector

managing local commons theoretical issues in incentive design local commons encompass a wide range of resources whose shared feature is the need for some form of collective management in what follows we shall be concerned mainly with the problems of implementing a collective management plan whatever the mechanisms invoked many recent contributions to the literature have stressed that relatively informal collective management of common property resources can in the right circumstances avoid the severe resource degradation predicted by the tragedy of the commons nevertheless both empirical and theoretical arguments suggest that cooperative behavior may be only partial and the incentives of short term self interest only partially held in check under what circumstances then can more formal implementation mechanisms make good the deficiency and given that formal incentives are typically stronger than informal ones are there any reasons why informal incentives might nevertheless sometimes be preferred

a model of longevity fertility and growth abstract economic and demographic outcomes are determined jointly in a dynamic general equilibrium model of longevity fertility and growth reproductive agents in overlapping generations mature safely through two periods of life and face an endogenous probability of surviving for a third period given this probability each agent maximises her expected lifetime utility by choosing consumption and the number of children child bearing is costly in the sense that time must be spent on child rearing activities rather than on production or education the model produces multiple development regimes which yield different predictions about life expectancy fertility timing of births and educational investment depending on initial conditions these predictions accord strongly with the empirical evidence on demography and development

economic growth population theory and physiology the bearing of long term processes on the this lecture sketches a theory of the secular decline in morbidity and mortality that takes account of changes induced in physiological functioning since 1700 the synergism between technological and physiological improvements has produced a form of human evolution biological though not genetic rapid culturally transmitted and not necessarily stable which is still ongoing in both oecd and developing countries thermodynamic and physiological aspects of economic growth are defined and their impact on growth rates is assessed implications of this theory for population forecasting measurement of national income demand for leisure pension policies and demand for health care are considered excerpt

the determinants of mortality mortality rates have fallen dramatically over time starting in a few countries in the 18th century and continuing to fall today in just the past century life expectancy has increased by over 30 years at the same time mortality rates remain much higher in poor countries with a difference in life expectancy between rich and poor countries of also about 30 years this difference persists despite the remarkable progress in health improvement in the last half century at least until the hiv aids pandemic in both the time series and the cross section data there is a strong correlation between income per capita and mortality rates a correlation that also exists within countries where richer better educated people live longer we review the determinants of these patterns over history over countries and across groups within countries while there is no consensus about the causal mechanisms we tentatively identify the application of scientific advance and technical progress some of which is induced by income and facilitated by education as the ultimate determinant of health such an explanation allows a consistent interpretation of the historical cross country and within country evidence we downplay direct causal mechanisms running from income to health

a bio economic model of community incentives for wildlife management under campfire this paper formulates a bio economic model to analyze community incentives for wildlife management under benefit sharing programs like the communal areas management programme for indigenous resources campfire in zimbabwe three agents influence the wildlife stock a parks agency determines hunting quotas outside poachers hunt illegally and a local community may choose to protect wildlife by discouraging poaching wildlife generates revenues from hunting licenses and tourism it also intrudes on local agriculture we consider two benefit sharing regimes shares of wildlife tourism rents and shares of hunting licenses resource sharing does not necessarily improve community welfare or incentives for wildlife conservation results depend on the exact design of the benefit shares the size of the benefits compared with agricultural losses and the way in which the parks agency manages hunting quotas

trade tastes and nutrition in india this paper introduces habit formation into an otherwise standard model of international trade household tastes evolve over time to favor foods consumed as a child the opening of trade causes preferred goods to rise in price as these were relatively inexpensive in autarky neglecting the correlation between tastes and agro climatic endowments overstates the short run nutritional gains from agricultural trade liberalization and masks potential caloric losses for laborers i examine the predictions of this model of trade with habit formation using household survey data from india both by looking across indian regions and by examining the consumption patterns of inter state migrants

endogenous evolution of heterogeneous consumers preferences multistability and coexistence between groups we propose an exchange economy evolutionary model with agents heterogeneous in the structure of preferences assuming that the share updating mechanism is non monotone in the calorie intake we find multistability phenomena involving equilibria characterized by the coexistence of heterogeneous agents

economic development and the escape from high mortality summary this paper studies the characteristic features of the escape from high mortality as recorded from the historical experience of northwestern europe and from the current experience of less developed countries the paper documents stylized facts of mortality change and measures the contribution of economic development represented by income per capita to the mortality decline during the second half of the 20th century the paper argues that improvements in economic conditions since the 18th century are an important factor behind the decline in death rates in developed countries and in the subsequent reduction of death rates in less developed countries we show that economic development lowers mortality through differential effects in infectious disease mortality and that quantitatively income growth is able to account for between one third and one half of the recent mortality decline

physiology and development why the west is taller than the rest we hypothesise that the timing of the fertility transition is an important determinant of comparative physiological development in support we provide a model of long run growth that elucidates the links between population size average body size and income during development industrialisation is shown to be accompanied by a reduction in family size and an intensification of nutrition per child early transition countries are therefore expected to be more developed today economically and physiologically empirically the timing of the fertility transition is strongly correlated with average body size across countries

the economics of non convex ecosystems introduction the word convexity is ubiquitous in economics but absent from economics in this paper we explain why and show what difference it makes to economic analysis if ecosystem non convexities are taken seriously a simple proof is provided of the connection between self similarity and power laws we also provide an introduction to each of the papers in the symposium and draw out the way in which they form a linked set of contributions

trade policy and ecology trade sanctions on product exports are often used as measures for conservation of stocks of living resources two opposing approaches are investigated the harvest approach argues that sanctions reduce the harvest and thus protects the stock it is shown that this does not consider the long run effects nor the effects of sanctions on the management system the investment approach argues that increased price protects the stock making the species a profitable investment it is shown that this approach does not consider the asset effects of price changes and that the sanctions usually increase the stock in an one species analysis if the wildlife competes for land the conclusions may be different but still sanctions usually works if the manager has a joint management of several species the stock effects of sanctions are ambiguous depending on both the species interaction and the profitability of the harvesting from each of them in this case it is not possible to use intuitive reasoning sanctions give distortions to all stocks simultaneously the threat of extinction depends crucially on the unit cost in harvesting of depleted stocks the paper concludes that trade policy is a too general measure for the management of living resources and may implicate important economic distortions to the ecological system

longitudinal studies of human growth and health a review of recent historical research this paper reviews recent literature using stature and weight as measures of human welfare with a particular interest in cliometric or historical research we begin with an overview of anthropometric evidence of living standards and the new but fast growing field of anthropometric history this literature is always implicitly and often explicitly longitudinal in nature we then discuss i systematic empirical research into the relationship between conditions in early life and later life health and mortality and ii historical evidence on the relationship between body mass morbidity and mortality we conclude with a discussion of the importance of historical sources and understandings to health economics and population health

occupational variation in quantity quality trade off in a brawn based economy the paper revisits the theory of the quantity quality trade off and demonstrates that the relationship between quantity and health of children is subject to occupational variation in physical energ

the long term impact of health on economic growth in latin america abstract growth regressions adapted as granger type causality tests give strong evidence of 30 year causality from health to income in 18 latin american countries the health indicator is probability of survival by age and gender groups for 1950 90 a permanent increment of between 0 8 and 1 5 annual income is associated with typical adult and surprisingly old age health improvements the channels of causation from health to income are diverse and need to be identified in microeconomic studies that should however include a wide variety long term phenomena to account for the economic effects of health

regulating endangered species endangered species timothy swanson one important issue at the earth summit in rio de janeiro was the preservation of diverse biological resources or biodiversity to date the regulation of endangered species has been based on the premise that over exploitation is the principal problem this diagnosis has led to a wide range of attempts to destroy demand for wildlife by means of bans on trade and consumption of the products of endangered species this approach misses the fundamental cause of the problem terrestrial species compete for land land use primarily reflects human decisions about its allocation even over exploitation is the result of human allocation decisions species that are overexploited are those for which society chooses not to invest in their management species that survive are thus those in which humans chose to invest whilst extinction should be interpreted as disinvestment in species or their ancillary resources habitat management trade bans do not address this fundamental cause of extinction the paper sets out how demand should be constructively managed to encourage continuing investment in endangered species

potatoes milk and the old world population boom abstract this paper explores the role of two foods potatoes and milk in explaining the increase in economic development experienced throughout the old world in the 18th and 19th centuries nunn and qian 2011 show the introduction of the potato from the new world has a significant explanatory role for within country population and urbanization growth over this period i expand on this by considering the role of milk consumption which is hypothesized to be a complement in diet to potatoes due to a differential composition of essential nutrients using a country level measure for the suitability of milk consumption the frequency of lactase persistence i show that the marginal effect of potatoes on post 1700 population and urbanization growth is positively related to milk consumption as the frequency of milk consumption approaches unity the marginal effect of potatoes more than doubles in magnitude compared to the baseline estimate of nunn and qian

calculation and decomposition of income inequality in low and middle income countries a survey data analysis this article estimates income inequality in a sample of four low and middle income lmi countries namely albania nepal tajikistan and tanzania using the household survey data nepal living st

endogenous labor supply growth and overlapping generations abstract this paper explores a simple model of endogenous growth in an overlapping generations framework when labor supply is made endogenous the following results are obtained if leisure and consumption are substitutes the economy can experience multiple equilibrium paths including high growth and high labor supply or no growth and low labor supply if the demand for leisure is inelastic then the economy enjoys steady growth as in standard models if leisure and consumption are complements then production remains bounded although endogenous growth is possible and socially desirable

income productivity in china on the role of health this study provides empirical evidence regarding the income productivity of health human capital in china we appeal to concepts from human capital theory to support a basic model that treats health as a form of human capital in the income production process our model examines the economic return at the household level from the health of its individual members we estimate this with a longitudinal sample drawn from the china health and nutrition survey chns allowing us to exploit within variation in health and income to address possible unobservables biasing estimates of the impact of health on income in the simple cross sectional setting household income is strongly influenced by the health of its members particularly in rural areas these findings could have important implications for health and economic policy making aimed at reducing the long standing urban rural economic gap and more comprehensively insuring the rural population against health and economic risk