Community Resources for Older Adults provides comprehensive, up-to-date information on programs, services, and policies pertaining to older adults. Authors Robbyn R. Wacker and Karen A. Roberto build reader awareness of programs and discuss how to better understand help-seeking behavior, as well as explain ways to take advantage of the resources available to older adults. The substantially revised Fifth Edition includes new topics and updated research, tab...

Our population is aging. What will we do about it?Due to population explosion and a global increase in average life expectancies, an unprecedentedly high percentage of the world′s population is aging. By the middle of this century there will be up to 2 billion individuals over the age of 65, a demographic shift never before experienced in our human history. In addition, declining birth rates in industrialized countries means a decrease in the number of adults under...

This book provides a multi-disciplinary framework for developing and analyzing health sector reforms, based on the authors' extensive international experience. It offers practical guidance - useful to policymakers, consultants, academics, and students alike - and stresses the need to take account of each country's economic, administrative, and political circumstances. The authors explain how to design effective government interventions in five areas - financing, payment, organization, regu...

Many ideas about poverty and discrimination are nothing more than politically driven assertions unsupported by evidence. And even politically neutral studies that do try to assess evidence are often simply unreliable. In Poverty and Discrimination, economist Kevin Lang cuts through the vast literature on poverty and discrimination to determine what we actually know and how we know it.Using rigorous statistical analysis and economic thinking to judge what the best research ...

Tax evasion is a complex phenomenon which is influenced not just by economic motives but by psychological factors as well. Economic-psychological research focuses on individual and social representations of taxation as well as decision-making. In this 2007 book, Erich Kirchler assembles research on tax compliance, with a focus on tax evasion, and integrates the findings into a model based on the interaction climate between tax authorities and taxpayers. The interaction climate is defined b...

Perceptions of Africa have changed dramatically. Viewed as a continent of wars, famines and entrenched poverty in the late 1990s, there is now a focus on "Africa rising" and an "African 21st century." Two decades of unprecedented economic growth in Africa should have brought substantial improvements in well-being. Whether or not they did, remains unclear given the poor quality of the data, the nature of the growth process (especially the role of natural resources), conflicts that affect pa...

The Measure of America, 2010-2011, is the definitive report on the overall well-being of all Americans. How are Americans doing—compared to one another and compared to the rest of the world? This important, easy-to-understand guide will provide all of the essential information on the current state of America.This fully illustrated report, with over 130 color images, is based on the groundbreaking American Human Development Index, which provides a single measure of the w...

Upon signing the Millennium Declaration in 2000, the international community committed itself to eight development goals with timebound targets and measurable indicators. The third of these eight goals was to "promote gender equality and empower women". The third Millennium Development Goal (MDG3) in the Millennium Declaration has spurred national and international efforts to improve women's situation around the globe. Equality for Women: Where Do We Stand on Millennium Goal 3? tracks co...

Why have Americans severely limited the estate and gift tax - ostensibly targeted at only the very wealthy - but greatly expanded the subsidies to low-wage workers through the Earned Income Tax Credit, now the single largest poverty program in the country? Why do people hate the property tax so much, yet seemingly revolt against it only during periods of economic change? Why are some groups of taxpayers more obedient to the tax authorities than others, even when they face the same enforcem...

Leading scholars examine the conflicting paradigms of affluence and destitution in the United States—as well as other free societies—and discuss the influence of education, race, and status on economic mobility.While recent catastrophic events in New Orleans and Haiti may have magnified issues of social inequity, leaders have debated over poverty and discrimination for decades. Are the poor disadvantaged by the institutions of society or by the choices they make? Through two insigh...

A New Era in U.S. Health Care demystifies the Affordable Care Act for unfamiliar readers, setting an agenda for lawmakers and the health industry alike. It focuses on four key issues that will determine the success of this 2010 legislation: the use of state-run Medicaid programs to expand access to insurance; the implementation process; the creation of health insurance exchanges; and the introduction of a new organizational form, accountable care organizations.

This primer explains why macroeconomists need to be concerned with issues of health policy and elaborates the essential information that a macroeconomist should know in providing inputs to discussions on health sector policy. The primer illustrates how these issues and the range of appropriate policy options may differ depending on the state of development of an economy and the particular approach taken by a country in structuring its health system. The primer also highlights the appropria...