Health care arguably is the single most regulated industry in industrial countries, and possibly in newly industrialized and developing countries as well. But what exactly is being regulated, what are the instruments used, and what are the effects and side-effects of such regulation? Regulation...

This paper uses a unique dataset-containing information collected in 2006 on individuals aged 40-79 in 21 countries throughout the world to examine whether individual income, relative income in a reference group, and income inequality are related to health status across middle/low and...

A critical appraisal is made of an article in this journal by Dabelko and McCormick. In the article, the authors try to estimate the opportunity cost of defence. With simple tools from economic analysis it is shown that their methodological approach reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of this...

Using data covering 38 countries across the 1965–2005 period, this paper shows that former British colonies tend to exhibit higher levels of carbon dioxide emission than other countries.

In the classical period, it was a duty and an honour for rich Athenians to perform liturgies - to provide services for the common good. Using a rational-actor perspective, it is shown that the origin of this practice may go back to 594 B.C., when Solomon introduced a property qualification for...