Consumption and Social Welfare

Consumption and Social Welfare
Author: Daniel T. Slesnick
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2001
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0521497205

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Designed to be accessible to noneconomists, it relegates technical details to appendixes."--BOOK JACKET.

The Present State of Consumer Theory

The Present State of Consumer Theory
Author: Timothy P. Roth
Publisher: University Press of America
Total Pages: 240
Release: 1998
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780761809449

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The neoclassical theory of choice is an integral part of a large and growing literature. Its elegance, simplicity and apparent generality appear, increasingly, to influence the thinking of psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists. At the same time, the theory is subject to robust attack. The theme of the book is that the critics have it right. Account must be taken of the endogeneity of preference and value structures, of decision makers' cognitive limitations, of information asymmetries, of opportunistic behavior, and of positive transaction and decision costs. Yet these considerations militate against the specification of both the efficiency frontier and the Social Welfare Function. This, in turn, suggests that Social Welfare Theory is an inappropriate guide for the formulation of distributional and other economic policies. A corollary is that economists' (and others) attention should center less on 'getting the prices right' and more on 'getting the institutions right'.

Living Standards in the United States

Living Standards in the United States
Author: Daniel T. Slesnick
Publisher: American Enterprise Institute
Total Pages: 76
Release: 2000
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780844771427

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Over the course of nearly every national presidential campaign we are asked whether we are better off than we were four years ago. The question is almost always rhetorical. But many economists have attempted to address the standard-of-living issue objectively, and, for the most part, their findings paint a bleak picture. In Living Standards in the United States, Daniel T. Slesnick demonstrates that this pessimistic view of social welfare in the United States is unwarranted. The erroneous conclusions arise from the income-based methods used by the Bureau of the Census and others to measure welfare; a more accurate assessment is based on what families consume. Examining the two practices and highlighting the advantages of the consumption-based approach, Slesnick questions the case for changes in politics that are predicated on a declining or stagnant standard of living.

The Behavioral and Welfare Analysis of Consumption

The Behavioral and Welfare Analysis of Consumption
Author: Federico Perali
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2013-06-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1475737297

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The motive force of human activity that propels the stream of progress is here caught at its source, in its most modest, material expressions. The mechanism of the passions acting as determinant in these low spheres is less complex and can therefore be observed with greater precision. All one need do is leave the picture its clear, calm colors and its simple design. Gradually, as that search for material well-being by which man is tormented grows and expand, it also tends to rise and pursue an ascendant course thorough the social classes. In 'I Malavoglia' it is still only the struggle for material needs. Once these needs are satisfied, the search turns into greed for riches and will be embedded in a bourgeois type . . . Giovanni Verga, from the Introduction to The House by the Medlar Tree (I Malavoglia) Motivation In the past decade, many less developed countries have undertaken structural adjustment programs with the hope of breaking the vicious circle of the depression that enveloped them during the 1980s and of loosening the suffocating grip of the debt crisis. Nearly always, macroeconomic stabilization implies a reduction of public spending and, consequently, a reduction of subsidies on wage goods and food production. Other macro policies, such as tariff elimination and exchange rates alignment, alter relative prices and may have significant effects on the level and distribution of income. Today, poverty and inequality are perceived as economic threats as a result of globalization and unbalanced market expansion.

Social Welfare

Social Welfare
Author: David Macarov
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Total Pages: 345
Release: 1995-02-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1452246882

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Poverty, unemployment, limited access to health care: the litany of ills plaguing contemporary society seems endless, reflective of the pragmatic and philosophical battles waged to overcome what some perceive as insurmountable obstacles. What role has the state played in mitigating the effects of these harsh realities? Offering a comprehensive survey of past and present programs, Social Welfare considers the substance and results of government intervention. Shaped by the works of such distinguished figures as Martin Luther, Adam Smith, and Charles Darwin, this incisive text charts the progression of social welfare policy from inception to its current status. David Macarov links present policy to the convergence of five interacting motivations: mutual aid, religion, politics, economics, and ideology. In identifying these elements, Macarov assays the significance of each in determining the nature of social welfare and its future. Featuring chapter summaries and exercises, this intriguing introduction to social welfare policy and practice will involve and inform students of social work, political science, and sociology. "David Macarov has written a handy introductory social policy text for undergraduate that transcends the descriptive accounts of the social services that pervade the literature. Unlike many other introductory texts, Macarov does not seek to list the major social services and describe their functioning but focuses instead on the role of ideas and wider social forces in social welfare. The book is easy to read and thoroughly supported with recommendations for additional reading. It is a useful addition to the literature." --Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare

Economic Efficiency and Social Welfare (Routledge Revivals)

Economic Efficiency and Social Welfare (Routledge Revivals)
Author: E. J. Mishan
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 684
Release: 2013-05-13
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1136629548

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First published in 1981, Professor Mishan’s Economic Efficiency and Social Welfare: Selected Essays on Fundamental Aspects of the Economic Theory of Social Welfare is a collection of 22 pioneering essays written while the author was teaching at the London School of Economics and chosen to indicate landmarks in the development of his own thought. Professor Mishan, who also enjoys an international reputation as a popular writer on the impact of modern economic growth on social welfare, is among the foremost authorities in the field of resource allocation, and his influence in his subject area has been profound. Mishan’s essays, while generally accessible to the layman due to the author’s lucidity, his economy in the use of mathematical notation and his concern with perspective, are invaluable reading for the economics undergraduate. The essays are particularly relevant to upper level students of project appraisal, welfare economics and cost benefit analysis requiring a coherent survey of their field of study.

Work, Consumerism and the New Poor

Work, Consumerism and the New Poor
Author: Zygmunt Bauman
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2004-09-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0335224164

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Reviewers’ comments on the first edition “Zygmunt Bauman presents a cogently argued and compelling thesis... an important book from a distinguished scholar, that adds a new dimension to the poverty debate.”British Journal of Sociology “It will be of great interest and value to students, teachers and researchers in sociology and social policy… [Bauman] provides a very forceful and sophisticated statement of the case; and a very well written one too. As a wide ranging analysis of our present discontents it is an admirable example of the sort of challenge which sociology at its best can offer to us and our fellow citizens to re-assess and re-think our current social arrangements.”Work, Employment and Society “This is a stylish and persuasive analysis of the transition between the age of the ‘society of producers’ to that of the ‘society of consumers’.”Political Studies It is one thing to be poor in a society of producers and universal employment; it is quite a different thing to be poor in a society of consumers, in which life projects are built around consumer choices rather than on work, professional skills or jobs. Where ‘being poor’ was once linked to being unemployed, today it draws its meaning primarily from the plight of a flawed consumer. This has a significant effect on the way living in poverty is experienced and on the prospects for redeeming its misery. Work, Consumerism and the New Poor traces this change over the duration of modern history. It makes an inventory of its social consequences, and considers how effective different ways of fighting poverty and relieving its hardships are. The new edition of this seminal work features: Updated coverage of key thinkers in the field Discussion of recent work on redundancy, disposability and exclusion Current thinking on the effects of capital flows on different countries and the changes on the shop floor through, for example, business process re-engineering New material on security and vulnerability Key reading for students and lecturers in sociology, politics and social policy, and those with an interest in contemporary social issues.

Social Change, Social Welfare and Social Science

Social Change, Social Welfare and Social Science
Author: Peter Taylor-Gooby
Publisher:
Total Pages: 264
Release: 1991
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

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After the cuts and privatisation schemes of the past decade, the welfare state faces new challenges in the 1990s. Writers on the collectivist left, the individualistic right, and from schools of feminist thought claim that the state can no longer function as chief provider of welfare services. It is argued that changes in the economy, in the social structure and in patterns of political ideology are bringing the era of state welfare to an end. In particular, growing inequality coupled with rising living standards enhances many people's ability to pay for their own welfare services and undermines the sense of citizenship on which common provision must rely. Social Change, Social Welfare and Social Science provides a critical assessment of these claims and of the sociological and normative theories used to support them. It argues that the case against the welfare state is not proven and explores the reasons why social science in the 1980s and 1990s has devalued state welfare as yesterday's future. The book goes on to demonstrate that a forceful case for the welfare state can be made, and that this must include the advancement of women's interests as an essential component in citizenship. In presenting this evaluation of the theoretical, empirical and philosophical arguments about the role of the state in welfare provision, Social Change, Social Welfare and Social Science is essential reading for students and researchers of social policy and the sociology and politics of welfare, and also of interest to social workers, health professionals and civil servants.