The literature on economic problems connected with measuring and modelling of welfare and inequality has grown rapidly within the last decade. Since this literature is scattered throughout a great number of journals on economics, economic theory, econometrics, and statisties, it is difficult to get an adequate picture of the present state of the art. Therefore books should appear from time to time, which offer a representative cross-section of the latest results of research on: the subject. This book offers such material. It contains 54 articles by 84 authors from four of the five continents. Each paper has been reviewed by two referees. As a conse­ quence, the contributions of this book are revised versions, or, in many cases, revised revisions of the original papers. The book is divided into four parts. Part I: Measurement of Inequality and Poverty This part contains eleven papers on theory and empirical applications of inequa­ lity and/or poverty measures. Two contributions deal with, among other things, experimental findings on questions concerning the acceptance of distributional axioms. Part II: Taxation and Redistribution Distributional or, rather, redistributional aspects play an important role in Part II. The topics of the 14 papers included in this part range from tax progressivity and redistribution, allocative consequences of splitting under income taxation, and connections between income tax and cost-of-living indices to merit goods and welfarism as well as to welfare aspects of tax reforms.

Product Description: Improving wellbeing and sustainability are central goals of government, but are they in conflict? This engaging new book reviews that question and its implications for public policy through a focus on indicators. It highlights tensions on the one hand between various constructs of wellbeing and sustainable development, and on the other between current individual and societal notions of wellbeing...read more

Product Description: The understanding of subjective perceptions of wellbeing, that is, the perceived needs and current levels of satisfactions of people, could provide valuable information for policy and decision makers. It would allow for the mapping of the envisaged impacts of policy against things that people value and care about, thus providing information about the positive and negative potential of different policy options to impact upon human welfare...read more

Product Description: The proposed book is a sequel to volume 1-4 of Community Quality-of-Life Indicators: Best Cases. The first volume, Community Quality-of-Life Indicators: Best Cases was edited by M. Joseph Sirgy, Don Rahtz, and Dong-Jin Lee and published in 2004 by Kluwer Academic Publishers in the Social Indicators Research Book Series (volume 22)...read more

Product Description: This book provides clear evidence that Science and Engineering (S&E) research is becoming an increasingly international endeavour. Science and Engineering activities are occurring and intensifying in more regions and economies, largely in response to recognition by governments that S&E research and development leads to economic growth, employment, and overall social well-being of their citizens...read more

Who has the most nuclear assets in the Middle East? Whose power is waning, whose increasing? Economic, demographic and military indicators establish the pecking order for 232 countries analyzed in this yearbook, with estimates of all nuclear arsenals including rarely published data on non-signatory nations.The numbers are derived from objective sources to the extent possible, and are pesented in clear tabular formats.The foundations of power politics in the nuclear age, fundamental forces that drive events in the international news, and seldom-discussed factors that can shift whole economies, or trigger wars, may be discerned from the statistical tables presented in this novel yearbook. This statistical annual presents fundamental data in three sections: (1) Quality of Life, (2) Balance of Power, and (3) Developed Market Economies since 1960.It contains data that is generally not available elsewhere. Sections 1 and 2 give statistics for 232 countries. The World Bank and Encyclopedia Britannica provide statistical data for a maximum of about 160 countries. The CIA World Factbook gives limited and imprecise data for about 230 countries. The author has managed to increase the number of countries tallied by writing proprietary software utilizing statistical regressions, selecting data which, first of all, is important and, second, which allows for high correlation coefficients for these regressions.Section 2 includes data about nuclear delivery systems and the number of nuclear warheads of all nuclear powers. This is based on information from reputable sources. Among others, it includes estimates of the Israeli nuclear arsenal which usually do not appear in the press.Official estimates of Russian military expenditures distributed by US and British intelligence communities claim to give a picture of military expenditures of the countries of the world at market exchange rates; at the same time, they apparently cite Russian military expense figures at purchasing power parities, thus inflating these numbers in comparison to those of other countries. Such deceptive practices of the Anglo-American intelligence services are counter-balanced by presenting two different tables, showing military expenditures estimates both at market exchange rates and by purchasing power parities.Section 3 gives data on the topic of health care. It seems that public health expenditures as a share of total health expenditures has a stronger correlation with the comparative level (and the rates of improvement) of the main health care indicators than the absolute level (measured as a percent of GDP) of total health expenditures. The data demonstrates that the US has the lowest public health expenditure of developed market economies and is increasingly lagging behind other countries by main health care indicators. The recent legislation that was intended to provide greater access to health care for people in the US was furiously attacked by opponents who suspected it would entail some sort of tax increase that would hurt the economy. Surprisingly enough, the empirical data for developed market economies does not seem to support the popular idea that low taxes are strongly correlated with higher rates of growth; thus the data sheds light on modern ideological debates about the share of taxation in GDP and its influence on rates of growth.This volume is streamlined from 2008 and updated for 2011.

Product Description: Furnishing the Eighteenth Century provides an illuminating, interdisciplinary look into European and American furniture during the century that connoisseurs and collectors consider its golden age. Lavishly illustrated, this lively collection of essays by historians, art historians, and literary scholars examines the ways furniture of this period reflects the global contacts and social rituals developed in eighteenth-century Europe and America...read more

Product Description: Community indicators projects are plentiful. These projects capture the quality of life in towns, cities, counties, metropolitan regions, and larger geographic regions. Community quality-of-life (QOL) indicators are increasingly being integrated into overallplanningandotherpublicpolicyactivities...read more

Product Description: Community quality-of-life (QOL) indicators continue to gain attention and interest in their use as many communities and regions design and apply them. Evolving from early use as data systems, indicators are increasingly being integrated into overall planning and other public policy activities...read more

The world is an uncertain place, which is why the future and the unknown absolutely fascinate us. Veteran television journalist Mike Wallace asked the question "What will life be like 50 years from now?" to sixty of the world's greatest minds. Their responses offer a fascinating glimpse into the cultural, scientific, political, and spiritual moods of the times. Edited and with an introduction by Mike Wallace, this book provides an imaginative and thought-provoking look into our collective soul and the critical issues that underlie our hopes, prayers, fears, and dreams for life in the 21st century.Contributors include former presidents, leading scientists, noted writers and artists, respected religious leaders, and current political figures, including:Vint Cerf, Vice President of Google; known as a "Father of the Internet"Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., a geneticist who led the Human Genome ProjectDr. Wanda Jones, Director of the Office on Women's Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesRay Kurzweil, an inventor whose developments include the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind and the first text-to-speech synthesizerGeneral James E. Cartwright, Commander of United States Strategic CommandKim Dae-jung, the former President of the Republic of KoreaRonald Noble, Secretary General of InterpolNorman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize winner; called "the father of the Green Revolution"Carol Bellamy, former Executive Director UNICEF, first former volunteer to serve as director of Peace Corp, and current president and CEO of World LearningGerardus 't Hooft, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Utrecht University in the Netherlands; Nobel Prize in Physics Craig Newmark, Internet pioneer and founder of craigslist

Product Description: Major Theoretical Questions Theories about subjective well-being have grown over the past several decades, but have been re ned only slowly as adequate data have been compiled to test them. We can characterize the theories describing happiness along several dimensions...read more