Purchasing power

About: Purchasing power is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2714 publications have been published within this topic receiving 36866 citations. The topic is also known as: adjusted for inflation.

Food Aid: Disincentive Effects and Their Policy Implications

Abstract: Food in the present situation can be considered as one of the world's limited, scarce, and vital natural resources such as the atmosphere, or, for that matter, oil. The world is generally agreed that in the interests of mankind as a whole access to such scarce resources vital for a country's existence should be more equitably shared and, specifically, should not be made dependent only on the market, which allocates according to current purchasing power. (In the case of food, animal feeds bid away land, fertilizer, and even grains from the needs of the poor for the grains for themselves.) We are all concerned that the poorest countries need special help in the situation created by the rise in oil prices. The case of food is in many ways even clearer: food aid appears to be an obvious mechanism by which scarce and vital supplies can be allocated outside the normal market mechanism to help meet this basic human need. However, there is also general agreement that the long-run answer to food shortages in the poor countries must be sought in expanded food production in the poor countries themselves, and in employment and income distribution policies which provide sufficient incomes for the poor to be able to buy enough food. There is sufficient concern about the possible harmful effects of food aid on domestic food production that many economists recommend less or no food aid (other than, perhaps, for emergencies) even in cases where nutritional and other human needs are strongest. It is the purpose of this article to review some of the analytic issues and literature relevant to this concern about the disincentive effects and risks of food aid, which we have found to be strongly held by agricul-

Geographies of injustice: the socio-spatial determinants of energy poverty in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary

Abstract: Falling real incomes, rising utility prices and the historically poor thermal quality of the housing stock are some of the main factors that have driven the rise of systemic injustices surrounding energy poverty in the post-communist states of Eastern and Central Europe (ECE) We undertake a socio-spatial and temporal assessment of energy poverty in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, using Household Budget Survey micro-data and the consolidated national results of the EU Survey of Income and Living Conditions Our results indicate that increases in domestic energy prices and expenditures during the last decade have not been offset by purchasing power gains or energy efficiency improvements, resulting in sustained and growing levels of energy poverty Capital city regions have fared better than rural areas even if traditional macroeconomic performance indicators do not easily match domestic energy deprivation metrics We thus question policy approaches that favour income-based solutions and fa

Health reform, equity, and the right to health in Colombia

Abstract: The author develops a long-term perspective to assess advances in equity and the right to health in the Colombian health system reform. In a restricted political system, actors in the field of health in Colombia have chosen individualistic alternatives to legalize inequities in individual purchasing power for services. Despite the complex regulations established in the General System for Social Security in Health, there is a trend towards consolidating traditional inequities and to further restrict opportunities for achieving the right to health with full, equitable, universal guarantees.