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211. The Global Aging Preparedness Index

Author:
Richard Jackson, Neil Howe, and Keisuke Nakashima
Publication Date:
10-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
Global aging promises to affect everything from business psychology and worker productivity to rates of savings and investment, long-term returns to capital, and the direction of global capital flows. Perhaps most fatefully, it could throw into question the ability of many societies to provide a decent standard of living for the old without placing a crushing burden on the young.
Topic:
Demographics, Economics, Globalization, and Health

212. The Russian Federation in an Era of Demographic Crisis: The Special Challenges of Population Aging and Social Security Policy

Author:
Jeffrey Mankoff
Publication Date:
01-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Like much of the world, Russia has been in the midst of a serious economic crisis since the late summer of 2008. Although the worst appears to be over, Russia will continue to feel its effects longer than many other industrialized countries, largely because of a rigid economy burdened with an overweening state role. The recognition that Russia faces serious long-term challenges has emboldened President Dmitry Medvedev and others to call for far-reaching economic restructuring. If successful, their economic policies could undermine the semi-authoritarian, state- capitalist model developed under Prime Minister and former president Vladimir Putin. Although concrete reforms have so far been limited, Medvedev's demands for change (seconded in some cases by Putin) have acquired increasing momentum in recent months. The speed of Russia's recovery and obstacles along the way will play a major role in determining both the success of Medvedev's call for modernization and the course of Russia's foreign policy since a quicker recovery would diminish the pressure for fundamental reform and lessen the need for caution internationally.
Topic:
Demographics, Human Welfare, and Population
Political Geography:
Russia

213. The Effect of Coresidence with an Adult Child on Depressive Symptoms among Older Widowed Women in South Korea: An Instrumental Variable Estimation

Author:
Young Kyung Do and Chetna Malhotra
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
The objective of this paper is to estimate the causal effect of coresidence with an adult child on depressive symptoms among older widowed women in South Korea. Data from the first and second waves of the Korea Longitudinal Study of Aging were used. Analysis was restricted to widowed women aged ? 65 years with at least one living child (N=2,449). We use an instrumental variable approach that exploits the cultural setting where number of sons predicts the probability of an elderly woman's coresidence with an adult child but is not directly correlated with the mother's depressive symptoms. Our models adjust for age, education, total assets, residence, functional limitations, self-rated health, and various illnesses. Our robust estimation results indicate that, among older widowed women, coresidence with an adult child has a significant protective effect on depressive symptoms, but that this effect does not necessarily benefit those with clinically relevant depressive symptoms. Future demographic and social transitions in South Korea portend that older women's increasing vulnerability to poor mental health is an important though less visible public health challenge.
Topic:
Demographics, Gender Issues, and Health
Political Geography:
Israel and South Korea

214. Never an Empty Bowl: Sustaining Food Security in Asia

Author:
Dan Glickman and M.S. Swaminathan
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Asia Society
Abstract:
Asia's ability to feed itself is of fundamental importance not only to the people living in the region, but also to the world. One of the bright spots over the past half-century has been Asia's capacity to lift many of its citizens out of poverty and ensure that they have plentiful, inexpensive supplies of food, including rice, the region's main staple. But Asia still accounts for about 65% of the world's hungry population, and the historical gains from the Green Revolution are increasingly at risk. Declining trends in agricultural research and rural investment may lead to long-term food supply shortages and increased vulnerability to the famines that used to plague the region.
Topic:
Security, Climate Change, Demographics, Poverty, Food, and Famine
Political Geography:
Asia

215. All That Is Solid Melts Into Air

Author:
Anthony Olcott
Publication Date:
05-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Abstract:
It is eerie to reread The Communist Manifesto while contemplating the profound and deeply unpredictable effects of the new information revolution. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels saw dialectical materialism and the iron laws of history as driving change, not the Internet and the digitization of information, but their jeremiad, that “all that is solid melts into air,” looks startlingly prescient in regard to huge swaths of the information industry. Book publishing, TV network news, newspapers, and even traditional universities are, if not melting into air, then at least finding their revenue bases eroding, their customer bases migrating, and the positions of prestige they once occupied shrinking toward nothingness.
Topic:
Demographics, Economics, Industrial Policy, Science and Technology, Social Stratification, and Culture

216. Confronting Ghosts: Thailand's Shapeless Southern Insurgency

Author:
Joseph Chinyong Liow and Don Pathan
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
The violence that has plagued the predominantly Malay provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat and Yala in southern Thailand (not to mention four Malay-speaking districts in the upper southern province of Songkhla) over the past few years has become one of the most closely watched security situations in Southeast Asia. Like Thailand, many other states in the region are still struggling with key nation-building challenges that are potentially prone to involvement by regional and global terrorist groups, posing threats to these countries' hubs of international engagement and undercutting attempts at regional confidence and community building. The significant and sustained upsurge in violence in southern Thailand in the last few years, across numerous administrations in Bangkok, and the nebulous nature of the insurgency itself, make it a particularly important conflict to understand for those with interests in Thailand and Southeast Asian security and stability and in the evolution of internal conflicts. A decade ago, many hoped that the insurgency in the south of Thailand had melted away. Instead it has come back in a more powerful and threatening manner.
Topic:
Political Violence, Demographics, Islam, and Insurgency
Political Geography:
Asia, Thailand, and Southeast Asia

217. Aging Risk and Health Care Cost in Korea

Author:
Byong Ho Tchoe and Sang-Ho Nam
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
It is generally perceived that health care cost is increasing because of population aging. In Korea, the number of people over 65 years of age was 3.1 percent of the population in 1970, 5.1 percent in 1990, 7.2 percent in 2000, and 9.1 percent in 2005. These figures show that the period of time in which an aging population increases by 2 percent is getting shorter; thus aging has been accelerating.
Topic:
Demographics and Health
Political Geography:
Israel, Asia, and Korea

218. Does your health care depend on how your insurer pays providers? Variation in utilization and outcomes in Thailand

Author:
Sanita Hirunrassamee and Sauwakon Ratanawijitrasin
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Hospitals in Thailand operate in a multiple insurance payment environment. This paper examines 1) access to medicines and other medical technologies, 2) treatment outcomes, and 3) efficiency in resource use, among beneficiaries of the three government health insurance schemes in Thailand. Using 2003-2005 inpatient data for patients with three tracer diseases from three government hospitals, we find that utilization of more expensive items differs between patients whose insurers pay on a closed- or open-ended basis. Where new vs. conventional drugs are both available, patients whose insurer pays on a fee-for-service basis tend to have greater access to new drugs, compared to patients whose insurer pays on a capitated or case basis. Similar patterns were found where there are options between originator vs. generic drugs, drugs in different dosage forms, and more vs. less advanced diagnostic technologies. Effects of insurance payment are more pronounced where price gaps among the medical technologies are significant. Efficiency results are mixed, depending on nature of the disease conditions and type of resources required for treatment.
Topic:
Demographics and Health
Political Geography:
Thailand and Southeast Asia

219. The healer or the druggist: Effects of two health care policies in Taiwan on elderly patients' choice between physician and pharmacist services

Author:
Kang-Hung Chang
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
When both physicians and pharmacists in Taiwan prescribed and dispensed drugs, many elderly people considered the two types of health care providers more or less synonymous (i.e., close substitutes). Two policies mandated in the 1990s changed this perception: National Health Insurance (NHI), which provides insurance coverage to all citizens, and a separation policy (SP) that forbids physicians from dispensing and pharmacists from prescribing drugs. The author finds that by providing an economic incentive to the previously uninsured elderly, NHI raised the probability that they would visit physicians, relative to their continuously insured counterparts. In particular, some previously uninsured elderly who once only visited pharmacists were more likely to also visit physicians after NHI was implemented. Following this, the SP made it more likely that all elderly patients would only visit physicians and buy drugs from on-site pharmacists hired by physicians—a result different than its policy goal.
Topic:
Demographics, Health, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Israel, Taiwan, and Asia

220. Allocation of control rights and cooperation efficiency in public-private partnerships: Theory and evidence from the Chinese pharmaceutical industry

Author:
Zhe Zhang, Ming Jia, and Difang Wan
Publication Date:
03-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
This article uses incomplete contract theory to study the allocation of control rights in public-private partnerships (PPPs) between pharmaceutical enterprises and nonprofit organizations; it also investigates how this allocation influences cooperation efficiency. We first develop a mathematic model for the allocation of control rights and its influence on cooperation efficiency, and then derive some basic hypotheses from the model. The results of an empirical test show that the allocation of control rights influences how enterprises invest in PPPs. A proper allocation provides incentives for firms to make fewer self-interested and more public-interested investments. Such an allocation also improves the cooperation efficiency of PPPs.
Topic:
Demographics, Health, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
China, Israel, and Asia