2006 Corruption Perceptions Index

Every year Transparency International puts out a Corruption Perceptions Index ranking each country’s corruption level. The index is constructed from a survey of various resident and non-resident country experts as well as business leaders (see methodology here). The 2006 Corruption Perceptions Index gives us one clear conclusion: there is a lot of corruption in the…

The Nursing Home as a public good

Medicaid currently accounts for roughly 50% of all nursing home expenditures and 70% of all bed days.  The government mandates that nursing homes provide a uniform level of quality to all residents, regardless of the payer type.  Yet one may ask: does this mandate hold in reality?  Nursing homes may have an incentive to segregate private insurance…

Measuring Corruption with Parking Tickets

How do you measure the level of corruption in a nation?  Transparency International uses a Perceptions Index to rank the corruption of each nation.  The problem with this index is that it does not give the true corruption of officials, but the resulting corruption from a mix of personal corruption and the effective enforcement of…

Crisis of Abundance Conference

On August 29th, 2006 there will be a book forum discussing The Crisis of Abundance by Arnold Kling.  While I have not yet read this book, I do respect Mr. Kling’s work and am anxious to see him discuss his views in this type of setting.  The book made the top 10 list of the…

Bikini Blues

While advances by physicians and new medical technologies often make for front page news, public health interventions have likely been the major cause of the significant health improvements throughout history.  For instance, creating a system of waste disposal and maintaining clean water has greatly increased the expected longevity of urban residents.  The 14th century Black…

Avian Flu: What should be done

Economist Tyler Cowen of George Mason University has an interesting paper (“Avian Flu: What should be done“) on the optimal policy to combat avian flu.  Below, I cite a few of the more interesting points from his executive summary: Prepare social norms and emergency procedures which would limit or delay the spread of a pandemic. Regular hand…

Budget deficit trimmed: trend or statistical anomaly

Many outlets in the popular press have been heralding the reduction of the budget deficit as a sign of good times on the horizon for the U.S. economy.  The Washington Times (“Economic sunshine“) credits President Bush’s economic policies–in particular his tax cut–as the source for the economic growth which is driving the increased tax receipts.  Former…

Privatization of Roads

On Gary Becker and Richard Posner’s blog, there is a spirited debate regarding whether or not we should privatize roads in the United States.  The two focus on Indiana’s recent decision to sell the rights to collect tolls on the Indiana toll road to a Spanish-Australian consortium for $3.85 billion.  The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports in…

Mandated Maternity Benefits

In many cases, the government will mandate that employers provide benefits in lieu of having the government provide the benefit themselves. One example is that the U.S. government mandates that firms purchase Worker’s Compensation insurance. Are these mandated benefits a more or less effective form of social insurance than direct government provision? Summers (1989) claims…