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on Health Economics |
| By: | Subbarao Srinivas P. |
| Abstract: | By the very nature of tourism as a service industry, its efficient management and successful operation depend largely on the quality of manpower. In India, the shortage of skilled manpower poses a major threat to the overall development of tourism. In particular, the rapid expansion of hotels of an international standard in India is creating a high level of demand for skilled and experienced staff. The nature of the decisions facing hotel management is continually expanding. For their business to remain competitive, managers must be skilful in many diverse areas. Tourism statistics reveal that both domestic and foreign tourism are on a robust growth path. This growth will need to be serviced by a substantial increase in infrastructure, including air-road, rail connectivity as well as hotels and restaurants The availability of skilled and trained manpower is a crucial element in the successful long-term development and sustainability of a tourist destination. Skilled and trained human resources will ensure the delivery of efficient, high-quality service to visitors, which is a direct and visible element of a successful tourism product. High standards of service are particularly important in sustaining long-term growth, since success as a tourist destination is determined not only by price competitiveness or the range of attractions available, but also by the quality of the services provided, there by the qualified human capital. This paper elaborates the issues and constrains relating to demand and supply of manpower in hospitality industry and also suggested the recommendations to fill the gap. |
| Date: | 2008–02–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iim:iimawp:2008-02-03&r=hea |
| By: | Carlo Ciccarelli (Faculty of Economics, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Luigi Giamboni (Faculty of Economics, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Robert J. Waldmann (Faculty of Economics, University of Rome "Tor Vergata") |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses two aspects of the model of rational addiction: forward looking behavior and time consistent preferences. It explores smoking by women before, during and after pregnancy using the European Community Household Panel (ECHP).Pregnancy is used as an instrument for a partially predictable future decrease in smoking. Women reduce the average number of cigarettes they smoke and many quit in the period 10 to 15 months before the birth of a child. Our analysis suggests that this effect may be stronger for married than for unmarried women, corresponding to the higher probability that the pregnancies of married women are planned. Pregnancy is also used as an instrument to estimate the parameters of a structural model of addiction. The estimates imply that cigarettes are highly addictive. Finally, we present statistically significant evidence that, even when the expected number of cigarettes smoked one month after the interview is taken into account, expected smoking further in the future has an independent effect on current consumption. This effect remains even when we impose the highest theoretically possible coefficient on expected cigarettes smoked one month after the interview. This means that the null of time consistency is (barely) rejected against the alternative of time inconsistency. |
| Date: | 2008–11–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:132&r=hea |
| By: | Rooth, Dan-Olof (Kalmar University) |
| Abstract: | This study provides empirical support for automatically activated associations inducing unequal treatment against the obese among recruiters in a real-life hiring situation. A field experiment on differential treatment against obese job applicants in hiring is combined with a measure of employers' automatic/implicit performance stereotype toward obese relative to normal weight using the implicit association test. We find a strong and statistically significant obesity difference in the correlation between the automatic stereotype of obese as being less productive and the callback rate for an interview. This suggests that automatic processes may exert a significant impact on employers' hiring decisions, offering new insights into labor market discrimination. |
| Keywords: | implicit stereotypes, obese job applicants, differential treatment |
| JEL: | J64 J71 |
| Date: | 2008–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3799&r=hea |
| By: | John Mullahy; Stephanie A. Robert |
| Abstract: | Although individuals are all endowed with the same time budgets, time use patterns differ owing to heterogeneity in preferences and constraints. In today's health policy arena there is considerable discussion about how to improve health outcomes by increasing levels of physical activity. In this paper, we explore how individuals endowed with different levels of human capital allocate time to physically-demanding activities that we characterize as health-producing behaviors. Our data are drawn from multiple years of the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), which are based on daily time use diaries and include information on detailed physical activity time uses. Since ATUS time use categories are mutually exclusive and exhaustive -- i.e. "multitasking" is not accommodated -- we employ a novel econometric share equation techniques to enforce the adding-up requirement that time use is constrained to 1,440 minutes per day. We find that differential human capital endowments result in different manifestations of how time is used to produce health. While more-educated individuals, e.g., sleep much less than less-educated individuals, they utilize some of the time so liberated to exercise and work more. We find as well that various features of individuals' environments, broadly defined, play important roles in time allocation decisions. |
| JEL: | I1 |
| Date: | 2008–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14513&r=hea |
| By: | Dürsch, Peter (Department of Economics, University of Heidelberg); Oechssler, Jörg (Department of Economics, University of Heidelberg); Vadovic, Radovan (ITAM) |
| Abstract: | Sick pay is a common provision in most labor contracts. This paper employs an experimental gift-exchange environment to explore two related questions using both managers and undergraduates as subjects. First, do workers reciprocate sick pay in the same way as they reciprocate wage payments? Second, do firms benefit from offering sick pay? Firms may benefit in two different ways: directly, from workers reciprocating higher sick pay with higher efforts; and indirectly, from self-selection of reciprocal workers into contracts with higher sick pay. Our main finding is that the direct effect is rather weak in terms of effort and negative in terms of profits. However, when there is competition among firms for workers, sick pay can become an important advantage. Consequently, competition leads to a higher provision of sick pay relative to a monopsonistic labor market. |
| Date: | 2008–10–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:xrs:sfbmaa:08-14&r=hea |
| By: | Coe, Norma B. (Tilburg University); Lindeboom, Maarten (Free University of Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | The magnitude of the effect that health has on the retirement decision has long been studied. We examine the reverse relationship, whether or not retirement has a direct impact on later-life health. In order to identify the causal relationship, we use unexpected early retirement window offers to instrument for retirement behavior. They are legally required to be unrelated to the baseline health of the individual, and are significant predictors of retirement. We find that there is no negative effect of early retirement on men's health, and if anything, a temporary increase in self-reported health and improvements in health of highly educated workers. While this is consistent with previous literature using Social Security ages as instruments, we also find some evidence that anticipation of retirement might also be important, and might bias the previous estimates towards zero. |
| Keywords: | health, retirement, instrument, causal effect |
| JEL: | I12 J08 J14 |
| Date: | 2008–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3817&r=hea |
| By: | Pascal Courty; Gerald R. Marschke |
| Abstract: | We model the sorting of medical students across medical occupations and identify a mechanism that explains the possibility of differential productivity across occupations. The model combines moral hazard and matching of physicians and occupations with pre-matching investments. In equilibrium assortative matching takes place; more able physicians join occupations less exposed to moral hazard risk, face more powerful performance incentives, and are more productive. Under-consumption of health services relative to the first best allocation increases with occupational (moral hazard) risk. Occupations with risk above a given threshold are not viable. The model offers an explanation for the persistence of distortions in the mix of health care services offered the differential impact of malpractice risk across occupations, and the recent growth in medical specialization. |
| JEL: | D82 I10 J31 J33 L23 |
| Date: | 2008–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14502&r=hea |
| By: | Kohei Enami; John Mullahy |
| Abstract: | Practitioners of empirical health economics might be forgiven for paying little heed to the recent 50th anniversary of the publication of one of the most important papers in its methodological heritage: James Tobin's widely-cited 1958 Econometrica paper that developed what later became known as the Tobit estimator. This golden anniversary milestone provides a fitting opportunity to reflect on Tobin's contribution and to assess the role that econometric limited dependent variable modeling has played in empirical health economics. Of primary focus here is how Tobin's estimator came to be and came to take root in empirical health economics. The paper provides a brief history of Tobin's estimator and related methods up through about 1971, discusses the early applications of Tobit and related estimators in health economics, i.e. the "technology diffusion" of Tobit in health economics, and offers some concluding remarks. |
| JEL: | I1 |
| Date: | 2008–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14512&r=hea |
| By: | CREMER, Helmuth; DE DONDER, Philippe; MALDONADO, Dario; PESTIEAU, Pierre (Université catholique de Louvain (UCL). Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)) |
| Abstract: | We consider a two-period model. In the first period, individuals consume two goods: one is sinful and the other is not. The sin good brings pleasure but has a detrimental effect on second period health and individuals tend to underestimate this effect. In the second period, individuals can devote part of their saving to improve their health status and thus compensate for the damage caused by their sinful consumption. We consider two alternative specifications concerning this second period health care decision: either individuals acknowledge that they have made a mistake in the first period out of myopia or ignorance, or they persist in ignoring the detrimental effect of their sinful consumption. We study the optimal linear taxes on sin good consumption, saving and health care expenditures for a paternalistic social planner. We compare those taxes in the two specifications. We show under which circumstances the first best outcome can be decentralized and we study the second best taxes when saving is unobservable. |
| Keywords: | paternalism, behavioral, economics, dual self v single self. |
| JEL: | H21 I18 |
| Date: | 2008–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2008031&r=hea |
| By: | BOUCEKKINE, Raouf (Université catholique de Louvain (UCL). Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)); DESBORDES, Rodolphe; LATZER, Hélène |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a theory of optimal fertility behavior under mortality shocks. In a 3- periods OLG model, young adults determine their optimal fertility, labor supply and life-cycle consumption with both exogenous child and adult mortality risks. For fixed prices (real wages and interest rate), it is shown that both child and adult one-period mortality shocks raise fertility due to insurance and life-cycle mechanisms respectively. In general equilibrium, adult mortality shocks give rise to price effects (notably through rising wages) lowering fertility, in contrast to child mortality shocks. We complement our theory with an empirical analysis on a sample of 39 Sub-Saharan African countries over the 1980-2004 period, checking for the overall effects of the adult and child mortality channels on optimal fertility behavior. We find child mortality to exert a robust, positive impact on fertility, whereas the reverse is true for adult mortality. We further find this negative effect on fertility of a rise in adult mortality to dominate in the long-term the positive effect on demand for children resulting from an increase in child mortality. |
| Keywords: | fertility, mortality, epidemics, HIV |
| JEL: | J13 J22 O41 |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvco:2008042&r=hea |