Showing papers by "Dean T. Jamison published in 2011"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors introduce the concepts of amount and speed of a discounting procedure in order to generate well-characterized families of procedures for use in social project evaluation, and show that the social procedure will in general be slower than the average of the speeds of the individual procedures.
Abstract: This paper introduces the concepts of amount and speed of a discounting procedure in order to generate well-characterized families of procedures for use in social project evaluation. Exponential discounting sequesters the concepts of amount and speed into a single parameter that needs to be disaggregated in order to characterize nonconstant rate procedures. The inverse of the present value of a unit stream of benefits provides a natural measure of the amount a procedure discounts the future. We propose geometrical and time horizon based measures of how rapidly a discounting procedure acquires its ultimate present value, and we prove these to be the same. This provides an unambiguous measure of the speed of discounting, a measure whose values lie between 0 (slow) and 2 (fast). Exponential discounting has a speed of 1. A commonly proposed approach to aggregating individual discounting procedures into a social one for project evaluation averages the individual discount functions. We point to serious shortcoming with this approach and propose an alternative for which the amount and time horizon of the social procedure are the averages of the amounts and time horizons of the individual procedures. We further show that the social procedure will in general be slower than the average of the speeds of the individual procedures. For potential applications in social project evaluation we characterize three families of two-parameter discounting procedures – hyperbolic, gamma, and Weibull – in terms of their discount functions, their discount rate functions, their amounts, their speeds and their time horizons. (The appendix characterizes additional families, including the quasi-hyperbolic one.) A one parameter version of hyperbolic discounting, d(t) = (1+rt)-2, has amount r and speed 0, and this procedure is our candidate for use in social project evaluation, although additional empirical work will be needed to fully justify a one-parameter simplification of more general procedures.
29 citations
TL;DR: A United Nations high level summit meeting on noncommunicable diseases will set priorities for addressing this major threat to the health of both developing and developed nations.
Abstract: A United Nations high-level summit meeting on noncommunicable diseases will set priorities for addressing this major threat to the health of both developing and developed nations.
17 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the relationship between health and the economy in a number of ways, and the multiple causal mechanisms that define this relationship divide naturally into two categories: the first comprises the linkages between healthcare and the growth rate and distribution of income; the second concerns the relationships among healthcare delivery institutions, health finance policies, and economic outcomes.
Abstract: Health and healthcare systems interrelate with the economy in a number or ways, but the multiple causal mechanisms that define this relationship divide naturally into two categories. The first comprises the linkages between health and the growth rate and distribution of income. The second concerns the relationships among healthcare delivery institutions, health finance policies, and economic outcomes. The two major sections of this chapter follow this division of topics.
2 citations