Background The amount of resources, particularly prepaid resources, available for health can affect access to health care and health outcomes. Although health spending tends to increase with economic development, tremendous variation exists among health financing systems. Estimates of future spending can be beneficial for policy makers and planners, and can identify financing gaps. In this stud...

BACKGROUND The current food, fuel, and financial crises have highlighted the importance of school feeding programs both as a social safety net for children living in poverty and food insecurity, and as part of national educational policies and plans. OBJECTIVE To examine the costs of school feeding, in terms of both the absolute cost per child and the cost per child relative to overall educat...

Carbon emission reduction could be achieved through extensive cooperation between relevant groups such as businesses, governments and consumers. Generally, carbon emissions stem from consumer behavior. To tackle the increasingly serious energy crisis and climate change in China, it is thus vital to control carbon emissions generated by the country’s urban consumers. From a consumption perspecti...

CONOMISTS have long sought to understand the links between economic growth and income distribution. The main issues, listed below, have important policy implications for developing countries: • In countries with low levels of development, does economic growth result in a more unequal distribution of income, and is it necessary for per capita income to reach a certain minimum level before income...