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Journal ojEconomic Perspectives
8
3
Summer 1994
Page 197-204
Recommendations for Further Reading
Bernard Saffran
This section will list readings that may be especially useful to teachers of undergraduate economics, as well as other articles that are of broader cultural interest. In general, the articles chosen will be expository or integrative and not focus on original research. They may include survey articles, discussion of related subjects in which economists might have an interest, or analyses of economics from other perspectives. The intention is to publish a selective list of 15 to 20 articles per issue. If you write or read an appropriate article, please send a copy of the article (and possibly a few sentences describing it) to Bernard...
Saffran, c/o Jonn:al of Economic Perspectives, Department of Economics, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081.
Health and Death
As a follow-up to the Symposium on Health Care Reform appearing in this issue, the interested reader might turn to the Spring 1994 issue of Health Affairs, which offers its own symposium by some of the country's leading health economists on "Economic Analyses of the Clinton Health Care Reform Proposal." The editor points out, "Whatever differences of view these practitioners of the `dismal science' may hold, there is little question that, as a group, they are more influential in shaping health policy than are their professional counterparts in medicine, law, political science, religion and sociology." 56-191.
John R. Gist, of the Public Policy Institute of the American Association for Retired Persons, offers another perspective on health care spending and other Bernard Saffran is the Franklin and Betty Barr Professor of Economics, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
entitlements in "Entitlement Spending: Myths and Realities." He concludes, "[T]he conventional wisdom that deficits have been caused by profligate federal spending on entitlements does not square with a closer examination of the data. Entitlement spending reached 11 percent of GDP in 1975, and has averaged that same share since then, with minor variation due to recessions. The only area of explosive growth in entitlements is in health spending . . . In fact, all other entitlements combined are declining as a share of the budget and as a share of the economy." Tax Notes, December 20, 1993, 1515-19.
K. K. Fung presents a...