The Medicare problem' is examined as part of the larger problem of providing for the overall financial needs of the elderly. Several myths about Medicare are discussed, and sources and uses of the elderly's full income' are estimated. The paper explores policy options to deal with...

This paper reports the results of an exploratory survey designed to measure differences in time preference across individuals and to test for relationships between time preference and schooling, health behaviors, and health status. Approximately 500 adults age 25-64 were surveyed by telephone....

The Medicare trust funds face huge prospective deficits by the end of this decade.This paper discusses trends in six areas that bear on the Medicare problem: the number of the elderly, their health status, use of medical care, labor force participation, income, and living arrangements. Among the...

Data from the 1960, 1970, and 1980 Censuses of Population and theCurrent Population Surveys of 1980 and 1985 are used to describe and analyzethe economic position of children with special emphasis on cross-sectiondifferences and variation over time in the incidence of poverty. Between1959 and...

Recent studies on human decision-making under uncertainty have revealed the following typical behavioral principles: (1) the importance of the status quo as a reference point ("target") for assessing outcomes, (2) the prevalence of risk-aversion for gains, i.e. above-target payoffs, but...

The United States is in the midst of a revolution in health care finance, the third since the end of World War II. Medicare's prospective payment system (PPS) based on diagnosis-related groups (DRGs), the State of California's hospital-specific contracts for Medi-Cal patients, deductibles and...

No cross-sectional consumer price index is currently available by state, and the BLS's cross-sectional "family budget" index for metropolitan areas is not well-suited for cross-state analyses. In this paper we propose an algorithm for constructing a state-specific Laspeyres price index using...

Current cost containment strategies will undoubtedly result in fewer health services for patients. The analytical framework presented in this paper shows how the effects of reductions in services on health and social welfare depend upon the amount and distribution of services(relative to...

This paper presents a computable general equilibrium model that simulates the effects on employment, output, wages, and economic efficiency of introducing comparable worth into the U.S. economy. The model calculates economy-wide aggregate impacts and disaggregated results for individuals grouped...

This paper reports the results of a survey of over 1500 employees who faced compulsory reductions of 10 percent in hours of work and earnings during the second half of 1985. The workers were asked how they used the free time and how they viewed the program, and their answers were analyzed in...