Fiscal Costs (fiscal + cost)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Assessing the Fiscal Costs and Benefits of A8 Migration to the UK,

FISCAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2010
Christian Dustmann
J61; H20 Abstract This paper assesses the fiscal consequences of migration to the UK from the Central and Eastern European countries that joined the European Union in May 2004 (A8 countries). We show that A8 immigrants who arrived after EU enlargement in 2004 and who have at least one year of residence, and are therefore legally eligible to claim benefits, are 59 per cent less likely than natives to receive state benefits or tax credits and 57 per cent less likely to live in social housing. Furthermore, even if A8 immigrants had the same demographic characteristics as natives, they would still be 13 per cent less likely to receive benefits and 29 per cent less likely to live in social housing. We go on to compare the net fiscal contribution of A8 immigrants with that of individuals born in the UK, and find that in each fiscal year since enlargement in 2004, irrespective of the way that the net fiscal contribution is defined, A8 immigrants made a positive contribution to the public finances despite the fact that the UK has been running a budget deficit over the last few years. This is because they have a higher labour force participation rate, pay proportionately more in indirect taxes and make much less use of benefits and public services. [source]


Smoothing the Fiscal Costs of Population Ageing in Australia: Effects on Intergenerational Equity and Social Welfare,

THE ECONOMIC RECORD, Issue 265 2008
ROSS GUEST
This paper applies an overlapping generations model in order to evaluate the case for smoothing the fiscal costs associated with population ageing. The motivation is the establishment in Australia of the Future Fund which acts to smooth the tax burden over time. The conclusion is that tax smoothing of the order implied by the Future Fund yields a gain in social welfare in the order of 1.0 per cent in equivalent annual increases in GDP. All current generations of workers and retired workers are worse off, with middle-aged workers the worst affected, but future generations are better off and by larger magnitudes. [source]


Can Latin America Protect the Elderly with Non-Contributory Programmes?

DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 6 2005
The Case of Uruguay
Coverage of contributory pension programmes has been quite disappointing in Latin America in the aftermath of the reforms. The question thus arises as to whether non-contributory programmes could fill the gap. Uruguay is atypical in this region in that the proportion of the elderly receiving contributory pensions is high, and the incidence of poverty among the aged population is lower than among any other age group. But several observers fear that this situation could deteriorate in the future, because the conditions for accessing the pensions have been significantly tightened in the past decade. This article assesses several options for reforming the existing non-contributory pension programme, and estimates their fiscal cost. [source]


Why Fiscal Stimulus is Likely to Work

INTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 1 2009
Antonio Fatás
We provide an overview of the effectiveness of fiscal policy actions by summarizing evidence from empirical and theoretical studies. Empirically, expansionary policy is found to have output multipliers greater than one. Given current economic conditions, we argue that the fiscal cost of not stabilizing the economy is likely to be much higher than the cost of a deficit that helps the economy go faster towards a recovery path. [source]


Cell therapies: realizing the potential of this new dimension to medical therapeutics

JOURNAL OF TISSUE ENGINEERING AND REGENERATIVE MEDICINE, Issue 6 2008
Pawanbir Singh
Abstract Stem cells promise to treat conditions poorly served by conventional therapeutics. Cells from both embryonic and somatic tissues are being used to create cell therapies for genetic, traumatic and degenerative conditions. The current human, healthcare and fiscal costs of these conditions are significant. This review summarizes the use of stem cells for neurological and cardiac disorders and diabetes to determine the requirements for generic translational research to assist such therapies to be a reality. While there are multiple strategies in each disease area, with no clear favourite, there are clear opportunities in treatments that use a single cell type. A key requirement is to work with pluripotent progenitor cells to cultivate and differentiate a sufficiently large population of functioning cells. Challenges also arise in determining and achieving timely delivery of the correct dose of cells to where they can most effectively treat the disease and best benefit individual patients. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Population Ageing and Social Expenditure in New Zealand

THE AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 1 2005
John Creedy
As the population ages there will be potentially significant implications for a wide range of economic variables, including in particular the fiscal costs of social expenditures. Long-term fiscal planning requires estimates of the possible future path of public spending. This article presents projections for 14 categories of social spending. These projections are based on detailed demographic estimates covering fertility, migration and mortality. Distributional parameters are incorporated for all of the major variables, and are used to build up probabilistic projections for social expenditure as a share of gross domestic product using simulation. Attention is focused on health expenditures which are disaggregated into seven broad classes. In addition, we explore the impacts of alternative hypotheses about future health costs. While it can be predicted with some confidence that overall social expenditures will rise, the results suggest that long-term planning would be enriched by recognising the distributions around point estimates of projected social costs. [source]


Smoothing the Fiscal Costs of Population Ageing in Australia: Effects on Intergenerational Equity and Social Welfare,

THE ECONOMIC RECORD, Issue 265 2008
ROSS GUEST
This paper applies an overlapping generations model in order to evaluate the case for smoothing the fiscal costs associated with population ageing. The motivation is the establishment in Australia of the Future Fund which acts to smooth the tax burden over time. The conclusion is that tax smoothing of the order implied by the Future Fund yields a gain in social welfare in the order of 1.0 per cent in equivalent annual increases in GDP. All current generations of workers and retired workers are worse off, with middle-aged workers the worst affected, but future generations are better off and by larger magnitudes. [source]


Prevention of medication errors: detection and audit

BRITISH JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY, Issue 6 2009
Germana Montesi
1. Medication errors have important implications for patient safety, and their identification is a main target in improving clinical practice errors, in order to prevent adverse events. 2. Error detection is the first crucial step. Approaches to this are likely to be different in research and routine care, and the most suitable must be chosen according to the setting. 3. The major methods for detecting medication errors and associated adverse drug-related events are chart review, computerized monitoring, administrative databases, and claims data, using direct observation, incident reporting, and patient monitoring. All of these methods have both advantages and limitations. 4. Reporting discloses medication errors, can trigger warnings, and encourages the diffusion of a culture of safe practice. Combining and comparing data from various and encourages the diffusion of a culture of safe practice sources increases the reliability of the system. 5. Error prevention can be planned by means of retroactive and proactive tools, such as audit and Failure Mode, Effect, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA). Audit is also an educational activity, which promotes high-quality care; it should be carried out regularly. In an audit cycle we can compare what is actually done against reference standards and put in place corrective actions to improve the performances of individuals and systems. 6. Patient safety must be the first aim in every setting, in order to build safer systems, learning from errors and reducing the human and fiscal costs. [source]