Post-pandemic Economics and Health Equity Comment on "Ensuring Global Health Equity in a Post-pandemic Economy".

This article aims to compare the foundations of the post-pandemic economy and its impact on health equity, according to Labonté with the economics theory. The methodology developed is based on bibliometrics analysis, the documents, and specifications for a cluster of concepts, allowing deepened exposure of Labonté, complementing with the latest publications on the post-pandemic economy. Finally, the results agreed with Labonté about to economic development for achieving an economy that allows health equity considering sustainable development and the possibility of achieving the livelihood of Green New Deal as a basis.

Abundance and Equality.

The technology driven post-scarcity society is upon us. Ubiquitous technologies are eradicating scarcity in many industries. These macroscopic system trends are causing our economy to transition from relative scarcity to relative abundance. For many people in the world however, in both developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries, the notion of an Age of Abundance will sound utterly bizarre. There is a tension between abundance and equality. Good governance considers in what manner the state conducts public policy, manages public resources and promotes overall prosperity. This chapter connects good governance to the end of scarcity and integrates equality into abundance. The chapter critically examines the normative justifications of our scarcity based legal institutions, such as property and intellectual property (IP) systems, in light of 10 exponential, Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies, and the post-scarcity economy. Starting point is that absolute and relative abundance are not utopian. Technology will erase scarcity in more and more economic areas in the foreseeable future, but not everywhere or for everybody. The chapter views relative scarcity and relative abundance as temporal socio-economic categories at two opposite sides of a continuum. The chapter unifies good governance with equality and abundance, by introducing a post-Rawlsian Equal Relative Abundance (ERA) principle of distributive justice. This includes defining a set of material and immaterial primary goods, warranting adequate, sufficient levels of relative abundance (which depend on technological evolution), and equitable results per region or group. Crucially, ERA integrates desert-based principles to the degree that some may deserve a higher level of material goods because of inequality in contributions, i.e., their hard work, talent, luck or entrepreneurial spirit, only to the extent that their unequal rewards do also function to improve the position of the least advantaged. A society governed by the ERA principle should in theory be able to solve the poverty trap on a global level. As lifting people from poverty in Europe is a different thing than achieving ERA in the US, applying equal relative abundance techniques in Asia and Africa each have their own specific challenges and dimensions.

Time, scarcity, and abundance.

Scarcity abounds in law just as abundance is subject to law's limitations. This Article builds on legal theory, economics, and social psychology to present the dialectic of scarcity and abundance as they interplay in our relationship to information and time. This Article has made two overarching arguments: one about scarcity, abundance, and regulation generally and a second about time as an instrument of regulation subject to terms of scarcity and of abundance. The first argument is that scarcity and abundance are rhetorical constructs that inform different regulatory institutions. Scarcity traditionally has mapped onto limits on freedom. Abundance, by contrast, props freedom's unlimited potential. Under the language of scarcity, limits promote outcomes, for example through rights to exclude, deprivation of a benefit, or imposition of a burden. Under the language of abundance, identified freedoms promote outcomes through rights of access or rights to use. Scarcity is distinct from absolute deprivation, and abundance, from unbounded and infinite possibility. Each are building blocks understood relative to the goals of institutional design. Furthermore, scarcity and abundance have an intertwined relationship, a dialectic of famine and plenty. Similarly, freedom and limitations coexist each supporting the other. The second argument of this Article is that time as an instrument of regulation illustrates the uses of scarcity and abundance. Time can be regimented to regulate activities such as work, travel, diet, reproductive rights, social relations, and interaction with media. Time can also be liberating, seemingly abundant using perpetuities, technologies for fast forwarding, rewinding, or shifting content, and increases in the velocity of access and movement. Information retrieval, processing, and sharing are connected to time. It is no surprise that reform proposals for the problems confronting the information economy rest up regulation of time. This Article has demonstrated what these reform proposals share is an attempt to make time scarce, to return to perhaps an idealized era of regimented broadcast within an era of multivalent technological means for information creation and dissemination. But imposing scarcity on abundance ignores the deeper challenges of information glut and distortion: how to manage and assess content.

The Two Main Macroeconomic Theories of Keynes and Friedman and Their Use in the Economic Policy of the World's Major Countries and Russia.

The article analyzes two approaches to developing economic policy, Keynesian and monetarist. The main ideas of J. Keynes and M. Friedman and their applicability as the basis for designing an anticrisis economic policy are considered in a historical context. It is shown that over the 1970s-1980s Friedman's ideas made it possible for the American economy to overcome a period of long-term stagnation, which enabled the United States to regain leadership in the innovation sphere and ensure the sustainability of economic development in subsequent decades. It is also shown that during Margaret Thatcher's prime ministership, monetarist ideas brought UK remarkable success. At the same time, it is stated that in the modern complex economy of a global nature it is not enough to use any one theory and it is required to adopt different ideas. Actually, no unified universal synthetic theory has been created so far. Returning to the problems of the Russian economy, the author clearly proves that a significant part of the Friedman's ideas could successfully be used in the process of structural and technological modernization of our country.

Human Capital Mediates Natural Selection in Contemporary Humans.

Natural selection has been documented in contemporary humans, but little is known about the mechanisms behind it. We test for natural selection through the association between 33 polygenic scores and fertility, across two generations, using data from UK Biobank (N = 409,629 British subjects with European ancestry). Consistently over time, polygenic scores that predict higher earnings, education and health also predict lower fertility. Selection effects are concentrated among lower SES groups, younger parents, people with more lifetime sexual partners, and people not living with a partner. The direction of natural selection is reversed among older parents, or after controlling for age at first live birth. These patterns are in line with the economic theory of fertility, in which earnings-increasing human capital may either increase or decrease fertility via income and substitution effects in the labour market. Studying natural selection can help us understand the genetic architecture of health outcomes: we find evidence in modern day Great Britain for multiple natural selection pressures that vary between subgroups in the direction and strength of their effects, that are strongly related to the socio-economic system, and that may contribute to health inequalities across income groups.

"Important but risky": attitudes of global thought leaders towards cost and value research in health professions education.

Studies of cost and value can inform educational decision making, yet our understanding of the barriers to such research is incomplete. To address this gap, our aim was to explore the attitudes of global thought leaders in HPE towards cost and value research. This was a qualitative virtual interview study underpinned by social constructionism. In telephone or videoconference interviews in 2018-2019, we asked global healthcare professional thought leaders their views regarding HPE cost and value research, outstanding research questions in this area and why addressing these questions was important. Analysis was inductive and thematic, and incorporated review and comments from the original interviewees (member checking). We interviewed 11 thought leaders, nine of whom gave later feedback on our data interpretation (member checking). We identified four themes: Cost research is really important but potentially risky (quantifying and reporting costs provides evidence for decision-making but could lead to increased accountability and loss of autonomy); I don't have the knowledge and skills (lack of economic literacy); it's not what I went into education research to do (professional identity); and it's difficult to generate generalizable findings (the importance of context). This study contributes to a wider conversation in the literature about cost and value research by bringing in the views of global HPE thought leaders. Our findings provide insight to inform how best to engage and empower educators and researchers in the processes of asking and answering meaningful, acceptable and relevant cost and value questions in HPE.

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Food Consumption Behavior: Based on the Perspective of Accounting Data of Chinese Food Enterprises and Economic Theory.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rapid spread of COVID-19 around the world has become one of the main focuses of concern in almost every country, and governments have taken numerous measures to prevent/mitigate the spread of the disease. As an essential social determinant, COVID-19 has significantly impacted consumers' food consumption behavior and healthy eating habits/behaviors. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on food consumption behavior, and the main goal was to assess the possible problems (such as food waste and weight gain) caused by changes in food consumption behavior during the pandemic. Based on the accounting data of Chinese enterprises found in the China Stock Market and Accounting Research (CSMAR) database, this study uses economic theory and the translog function to conduct an average partial effect (APE) analysis of the pandemic, and finds that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased Chinese people's overall food consumption, and the consumption of food from large food enterprises has increased even more (APE = 0.11 vs. APE = 0.31). This study suggests that food waste and weight gain in the Chinese population may be more severe during the pandemic, and it is necessary to enhance food management and weight management through multiple pathways.

Social acceptability of standard and behavioral economic inspired policies designed to reduce and prevent obesity.

The obesity epidemic is a significant public policy issue facing the international community, resulting in substantial costs to individuals and society. Various policies have been suggested to reduce and prevent obesity, including those informed by standard economics (a key feature of which is the assumption that individuals are rational) and behavioral economics (which identifies and harness deviations from rationality). It is not known which policy interventions taxpayers find acceptable and would prefer to fund via taxation. We provide evidence from a discrete choice experiment on an Australian sample of 996 individuals to investigate social acceptability of eight policies: mass media campaign; traffic light nutritional labeling; taxing sugar sweetened beverages; prepaid cards to purchase healthy food; financial incentives to exercise; improved built environment for physical activity; bans on advertising unhealthy food and drink to children; and improved nutritional quality of food sold in public institutions. Latent class analysis revealed three classes differing in preferences and key respondent characteristics including capacity to benefit. Social acceptability of the eight policies at realistic levels of tax increases was explored using post-estimation analysis. Overall, 78% of the sample were predicted to choose a new policy, varying from 99% in those most likely to benefit from obesity interventions to 19% of those least likely to benefit. A policy informed by standard economics, traffic light labeling was the most popular policy, followed by policies involving regulation: bans on junk food advertising to children and improvement of food quality in public institutions. The least popular policies were behaviorally informed: prepaid cards for the purchase of only healthy foods, and financial incentives to exercise.

Research directions for sharing economy issues.

The sharing economy proposes a new approach to designing and delivering products and services, that aims at avoiding waste, improving efficiency, and favoring bottom-up change. In this research commentary, we survey the current state of things and propose some directions for research. We first describe the industries, products, and services currently representing the sharing paradigm, the technology platforms enabling it, the business models driving it, and the regulatory issues. We envisage that promising areas of research should include: (1) devising more efficient algorithms; (2) considering ecological and prosocial objective functions; (3) dealing with regulatory issues; (4) expanding the span of research to cover more geographical areas and a wider set of services; and (5) supporting services with more reliable reputation and recommendation systems.

The Lineage Theory of the Regional Variation of Individualism/Collectivism in China.

China has undergone a rapid process of modernization since 1949. The modernization process has accelerated with the development of the market economy and rural-to-urban migration after the 1980s. Nevertheless, Chinese regions still exhibit substantial differences in terms of individualist/collectivist cultural orientations. The rice theory and the climato-economic theory have attempted to explain this variation by analyzing provincial-level data. Based on a quantitative analysis of more granular, county-level variables spanning from the early 1990s until 2010, we offer an alternative account of this cultural variety based on lineage development in different Chinese regions. Using the ArcGIS geographic information system, we first present the regional distribution of individualism/collectivism indicators at the county level through descriptive statistics and spatial analysis. We also run a regression model to analyze county-level data on individualism/collectivism that includes three periods (1990, 2000, and 2010). Our multi-level analysis shows that lineage development is a critical variable that explains more regional variation of culture in China when compared to other variables. While rice farming, the key variable of the rice theory, is a significant variable, its explanatory power is less than the lineage variable. Finally, our analysis shows that the climato-economic theory fails to explain the regional variation of culture.

Comment on "Explaining virtual water trade: A spatial-temporal analysis of the comparative advantage of land, labor and water in China," published by Zhao et al. [Water Research (2019) 153: 304-314].

The virtual water hypothesis offers the reasonable proposition that if water-abundant regions export water-intensive products to water-scarce regions, the latter could devote their scarce resources instead to uses yielding higher economic returns. Zhao et al. show that trade flows in China do not adhere to this hypothesis, use the economic theory of comparative advantage to explore why, and seek a solution where both the hypothesis and the theory are apparently satisfied. However, they have not fully utilized the power of the theory: this is made evident by the fact that their calculations quantify what they call "the comparative advantage of land, labor and water," as stated in the title of the article. This Comment describes the significance of comparative advantage for this inquiry and our comparable investigation for the regions of Mexico. It concludes with the case for a collaborative effort to situate such single-country studies in the context of a model of global comparative advantages.

Prohibition, regulation or laissez faire: The policy trade-offs of cannabis policy.

Trade-offs are central to the cannabis policy debate. Prohibition and strict regulation may help reduce the physical, mental and social harms of cannabis consumption, but at the cost of increasing the harms from illegal markets and reducing consumption benefits. An economic model clarifies how these costs and benefits relate to policy and connects them to observable prices and tax-levels given the assumptions of the analysis. These model- based arguments are related to the ongoing academic policy debate. While some arguments from this literature modify the interpretation of the model (e.g., due to dependence, cognitive biases and market structure), the literature often fails to appropriately account for the magnitude of the policy costs and benefits identified. Taking various caveats into account, the framework indicates that a strict regulation would likely be preferable to prohibition given current estimates of excess harms (externalities and internalities) from cannabis use. While cannabis prohibition appears difficult to justify within an economic regulatory framework, risks from industry influence, policy ratchet effects, and human "decision-making flaws" speak to the need for caution and strong regulation when implementing legal regimes.

Prosocial Behavior and Depression: a Case for Developmental Gender Differences.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Prosocial behavior and depression are related constructs that both increase during adolescence and display gender-specific effects. The current review surveys literature examining the association between depressive symptoms and prosociality, measured with behavioral economic paradigms, across development and proposes a theoretical model explaining a mechanism through which adolescent girls have higher risk for depression than boys. RECENT FINDINGS: Relative to healthy controls, prosocial behavior is reduced in adults with major depressive disorder (MDD) but may be increased in adolescents with MDD. The relationship between non-clinical levels of depressive symptoms and prosocial behavior remains to be studied experimentally; however, self-reported prosocial behavior is negatively associated with depressive symptoms in non-clinical adolescents, which may suggest a shift in the relation of prosocial behavior and depressive symptoms across the non-clinical (i.e., negative) to clinical range (i.e., positive). SUMMARY: The effect of gender on these developmental and clinical status shifts has not been studied but could have important implications for understanding the emergence of higher rates of depression in girls than boys during adolescence. We propose that girls are at heightened risk for depression due to higher social-evaluative concern and other-oriented prosocial motivation that emphasize the needs of others over the self, leading to more altruistic prosocial behavior (despite personal cost) and a higher burden that enables depressive symptoms.

Medical Sercice-seeking Behavior Choice and Hierarchical Medical System: Economic Theoretical Framework / 中国卫生经济

It provided a theoretical framework of how medical help-seeking behavior influences hierarchical medical system.Under the model of free medical help-seeking behavior of heterogeneous patients,there existed structural unbalance of demand in mild disease medical service market and heavy disease medical service market.In the heavy disease service market,mild disease patients crowded out the opportunity of access to medical service.While in the hierarchical medical system,both of the mild disease medical service market and the heavy disease medical service market reach equilibrium,under which circumstances there is no crowding out of medical chance of heavy disease patients.In the hierarchical medical system,it also found that the best geographical location of general hospital was in the center of a city and the best geographical location of basic hospital was in the center of each community.It suggested to enhance the primary hierarchical medical service quality,define the function of different-level hospital health care services,simplify health care transferral procedure and promote transferral efficiency.

Economic Theory and Self-Reported Measures of Presenteeism in Musculoskeletal Disease.

This study had two objectives: to describe the historical development of self-reported presenteeism instruments that can be used to identify and measure presenteeism as a result of musculoskeletal disease (MSD) and to identify if, and how many of these, presenteeism instruments are underpinned by economic theory. Systematic search methods were applied to identify self-report instruments used to quantify presenteeism caused by MSD. A total of 24 self-reported presenteeism instruments were identified; 24 were designed for use in general health, and 1 was specifically designed for use in rheumatoid arthritis. One generic self-reported presenteeism instrument was explicitly reported to be underpinned by economic theory. Overtime, self-reported presenteeism instruments have become more differentiated and complex by incorporating many different contextual factors that may impact levels of presenteeism. Researchers are encouraged to further develop presenteeism instruments that are underpinned by relevant economic theory and informed by robust empirical research.

Avaliação em saúde e avaliação econômica em saúde: introdução ao debate sobre seus pontos de interseção / Health assessment and economic assessment in health: introduction to the debate on the points of intersection

O estudo pretende inferir a existência, ou não, de um continuum entre a Avaliação em Saúde e a Avaliação Econômica em Saúde ao evidenciar os pontos de interseção entre essas formas de avaliação. Para tanto se realizou uma revisão bibliográfica no que concerne à fundamentação teórica, métodos e enfoques de ambas as formas de avaliação. Tomando por base a fundamentação teórica dos modelos de avaliação em saúde, normativa e pesquisa avaliativa, como referida por Hartz et al., e as abordagens teóricas da avaliação econômica, welfarista e extrawelfarista, referidas por Brouwer et al., concluiu-se que há um continuum, entre o modelo da pesquisa avaliativa, adotada na avaliação em saúde, e a abordagem teórica extrawelfarista da avaliação econômica em saúde e entre a abordagem normativa da avaliação em saúde e o enfoque welfarista da avaliação econômica em saúde. No que tange, entretanto, à prática avaliativa no dia a dia das instituições, os estudos realizados, em geral, ainda são concebidos sob um enfoque normativo e sob uma abordagem welfarista.

The study aims to infer the existence of a continuum between Health Assessment and Economic Assessment in Health, by highlighting points of intersection of these forms of appraisal. To achieve this, a review of the theoretical foundations, methods and approaches of both forms of assessment was conducted. It was based on the theoretical model of health evaluation as reported by Hartz et al and economic assessment in health approaches reported by Brouwer et al. It was seen that there is a continuum between the theoretical model of evaluative research and the extrawelfarist approach for economic assessment in health, and between the normative theoretical model for health assessment and the welfarist approaches for economic assessment in health. However, in practice the assessment is still conducted using the normative theoretical model and with a welfarist approach.

Studying the Effects of Alcohol Advertising on Consumption.

The effects of advertising on alcohol consumption (and alcohol abuse) are controversial, and research on the subject has produced mixed results. An economic theory underlying the general relationship between advertising and consumption can help explain this variance, however. Studies that use national data on annual alcohol advertising expenditures measure advertising at a high level with little yearly change and are likely to find no effect on consumption. In contrast, studies that use local-level data measured over the course of a year find wide variation in the level of advertising and are likely to conclude that alcohol advertising significantly increases alcohol consumption. To mitigate consumption increases, some countries and localities have tested alcohol advertising bans or counter advertising campaigns. Studies of advertising bans show a decrease in alcohol consumption to some degree when intervening factors are controlled. Counter advertising likewise reduces alcohol consumption. Thus, policymakers can choose from various forms and combinations of these strategies to curb consumption and, presumably, alcohol abuse.