Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Do you need more exposure for your health policy blog? Do you have valuable insights on health policy that you believe the public needs to hear? If so, here is the perfect avenue for you… Healthcare Economist will be the host the Health Wonk Review #11. The Health Wonk Review is “the best of the best”: the best blog…
Productivity. More output with fewer inputs. Increasing productivity is one of the few goals towards which all businesses strive. The Times of London reports (“Rankings to identify slow surgeons“) that the NHS will try to increase the productivity of surgeons in the UK. The system of âperformance indicatorsâ? will be announced this week by ministers,…
Throughout the past week, I have spoke of the work disincentives many social security programs create. The question is: how do we measure these disincentives. The economics literature has given three different metrics to measure implicit social security wealth a retiree has and I will discuss each in turn. Accrual The accrual method measures how much…
The public pension system in the United Kingdom differs significantly from its peers in continental Europe. First, private and occupational pensions play a much larger role in retirement than in the rest of Europe. Secondly, UK projects that public pension savings will actually decrease as a percentage of GDP (from 4.5% in 2000 to 4.1%…
For the average Spaniard, going into retirement means collecting a public pension and nothing else. In 1990 less than 5% of the employed population had a private pension; while this figure has risen to 30% in 1999, still less than 1% of the population derives more than 10% of their retirement consumption needs from private…
While France, Germany and Italy struggle to reform their gigantic old-age pension system, in the Netherlands the problems are not nearly as acute. The Dutch have a Social Security system, but it is not as large as in the countries to its south. A large portion of the a Dutch individual’s pension comes from their employer;…
Japan is an incredible success story. After so much suffering in World War II, this country now has the second largest economy in the world and the longest life expectancy of any country in the OECD. This success however, may become a fiscal nightmare in the future. In 1998, 16.2% of the Japanese population was…
Like the French, Germans retire early (on average at between age 59 and 60) and for Germans, this early retirement is seen as a social achievement. Some polls, however, show that younger Germans do not believe they will receive an adequate pension in their old age and attempts at reform are underway. The Germans have had…
According to the OECD Structural Policy Indicators paper, France has one of the highest implicit tax rates on continued work during its old age pension in the entire OECD. In 1998, the implicit tax was over 80%. Subsequent reforms have reduced the implicit tax to about 50% in 2003; yet only Luxemburg and the Netherlands…
In Denmark the official retirement age is 65, but on average most people retire at age 61. Around 8%-9% of GNP is spent on government income transfers to the elderly. Among men between the ages of 55-65, only Sweden, the U.S., and Japan have higher labor force participation (LFP) rates. Why do we see such…