This chapter proposes a framework for estimating the investment in human capital from health improvement or activities that improve life expectancy and reduce morbidity rates. The measurement framework builds on and extends the Jorgenson-Fraumeni income-based approach for estimating human capital to account for the effect of health on human capital. This economic approach to measuring health human capital differs from the welfare-based approach that estimates the economic effect of health improvements on the quality of life and well-being of individuals. The framework is then implemented for Canada, and the investment in health human capital for the period from 1970 to 2020 is estimated. The estimated investment in health human capital based on the income approach was found to be lower than health expenditures in Canada. This suggests that much of the health expenditures should be classified as consumption rather than as an investment that increases earnings.

While reaction ruled, Germany was in the midst of rapid industrialization, urbanization, and overall modernization, and the Jews were often considered as prime agents of this development. However, a close look discloses Jewish communities living mainly in small towns, working in local commerce and in traditional branches of industry. Still, it seems that they were moving forward more quickly than others, more easily accepting change, enjoying more favorable demographic trends, and quickly improving their educational level. As a typical example, the chapter presents a sketch of one family history, that of the Liebermanns, who held on to their commercial interests in cotton and silk, but then slowly expanded to become larger-scale industrial entrepreneurs, centered in Berlin and later in Silesia too, gradually moving to more modern and more large-scale production sectors. On the whole, the Jewish way of modernization added one more route to the multiple varieties of such routes in Germany. Through their unique perspective, the various possibilities of moving towards modernity are more easily perceived, enriching the overall picture of this process as a whole, especially in Germany.

Increase in life expectancy will affect future welfare through changes in the stock of human capital and financial wealth. In projecting these changes it is important to differentiate between the direct demographic effect (a change in the population age structure) and the indirect behavioural change (a change in age-specific economic characteristics). Using a multi-country dynamic (general equilibrium) economic model, this chapter assesses the effects of increasing life expectancy on economic growth and inequality in European countries. The economic model accounts for both the direct effect of changes in the age structure of the population, given the economic characteristics, and the indirect effect of population changes on age-specific economic behaviour in a globalized economy. Projections for the period 2020-2100 show that future life expectancy improvements: (1) will have a negative impact on consumption and output per capita; (2) will negatively affect the accumulation of assets (more so in high-income compared to middle-income European countries due to the more generous pension systems in high-income countries); and (3) will lead to an increase in the intergenerational income inequality due to the fall in asset income at old age. However, it also finds that more generous old-age public transfer systems mitigate the negative impact of life expectancy gains on inequality.

This chapter starts by delimiting the scope of the book and making clear that we focus on various types of domestic political violence but that international wars are touched upon as well. We clearly define these terms and provide examples that illustrate the differences between distinct forms of violence, before moving to a discussion of the costs that these forms of violence impose on society. Strikingly, some people believe that wars and conflicts are good business. They are not. This chapter shows that wars not only destroy millions of innocent lives, but they are also poison for the economy. In particular, wars may be lucrative for the few but disastrous for the many. The detriments of war are manifold and include human, economic and social costs. This is illustrated by a series of historical examples. Drawing on recent cost estimates, it is also shown that the costs of a given war spread well beyond the borders of the country at war, with continental if not worldwide consequences.

Chapter 1 sets the scene for this book, providing the requisite background for the chapters that follow. It begins with a short overview of the military regime, focusing on repression and the gradual restoration of democratic freedoms, highlighting the role the latter played in facilitating the country’s burgeoning environmental movement. It then turns to the dictatorship’s plans for industrial growth and energy production. The chapter closes with an overview of the symbolism that surrounds big dams and an introduction to the influential generals and engineers responsible for orchestrating the dictatorship’s dam-building campaign. This chapter also lays the groundwork for the book’s first argument, that political pressures encouraged the military regime to build big dams quickly and with little regard for their social and environmental impacts.

This chapter analyzes the importance of insolvency law for the promotion of economic growth as well as the goals and strategies of insolvency law. It is argued that, even though insolvency law seeks to solve similar economic problems across jurisdictions, the intensity of these problems and the desirability of a particular insolvency response depend on a variety of country-specific and firm-specific factors. Unfortunately, many emerging economies have adopted insolvency laws that usually replicate practices existing in countries with totally different market and institutional environments. As a result, it is not surprising that insolvency law has failed to deliver the expected outcome in emerging economies. The chapter concludes by providing a general overview of the structure of the book and the underlying reasons justifying the need to reinvent insolvency law in emerging economies and beyond.

This chapter provides a macroeconomic perspective of artificial intelligence’s impacts on labor markets and economic growth – although the analysis remains grounded in microeconomic functions. In this chapter, we provide an economic growth model wherein AI as a possible substitute for human labor is modeled, taking into account the nature of AI as an automation technology. This goes to the heart of the current focus of economists on AI, namely its implications for labor markets, and specifically unemployment and skills requirements. The crucial points that we make here are that economists need to go further than indirectly modeling AI through assumptions on substitution elasticities and need to take the specific nature (narrow focus) of AI into explicit account.

In this chapter, we take the production function enriched with AI abilities from Chapter 4, and apply it to study the implications for progress in AI on growth and inequality. The crucial finding we discuss in this chapter is that understanding the nature of AI as narrow ML and its effect on key macroeconomic outcomes depends on having appropriate assumptions in growth models. In particular, we discuss the appropriateness of assuming, as most standard endogenous growth models today do, that economies are supply driven. If they are not supply driven, then demand constraints, which can arise from the diffusion of AI, may restrict growth. Through this, we show why expectations that AI will may lead to “explosive” economic growth is unlikely to materialize. We show that by considering the nature of AI as specific (and not general) AI and making appropriate assumptions that reflect the digital AI economy better, economic outcomes may be characterized by slow growth, rising inequality, and rather full employment – conditions that rather well describe economies in the West.

Chapter 3 analyses the normativity of sustainable development in international law and politics as expressed beyond the questions on its present (domestic) manifestations or the endless struggle to place the concept within general legal (normative) registers. It highlights how international law tends to subordinate non-Western experiences in its elevation of sustainable development into a global standard. What emerges from this process is that the more the world pursues sustainable development in its current form, the more we unwittingly contribute to the global dissemination of a particular strand of Eurocentrism. Sustainable development thus reveals itself as an amalgam of power and knowledge while simultaneously establishing itself as a vital component in international legal governance. What emerges in this chapter is that, although the concept of sustainable development is always at the forefront of international public discourse, little is done, in fact, to achieve its presumed objectives. Thus, while sustainable development’s quick ascent to become a universalist concept is central to this book, the concept’s character must be understood as quietly operating to mute global ecological violence that disproportionately affects marginalised peoples in the Global South.

Over the last quarter-century, the relations between Australia and Latin America, while not intense, clearly have thickened and deepened. And the pace of this thickening and deepening is quickening. The most obvious manifestation is in the economic realm, in trade and investment. But our research indicates that in more obscure areas, such as cultural exchange, education, and environmental issues, much is happening and there is every reason to expect that the contact will expand. That said, any informed observer of Australia’s relations with Latin America would be struck by how little each knows about the other, how recent and relatively superficial the contacts are, and consequently how tenuous they could remain unless both the Australians and the Latin Americans invest further substantial effort. This effort cannot be limited to the material – trade and investment – but must include education at all levels to overcome the barriers of language and culture, of limited transport, of competing economies, of stereotypes.

The chapter documents how U.S. economic growth, labor productivity growth, and labor’s share of output have evolved over time. Issues concerning the estimation of the economy’s productive potential are discussed, including problems associated with factor aggregation, the theoretical and empirical use of production functions, and growth accounting. The role that estimates of potential output should play in the policy process is also considered.