Public policy,local labor demand,and migration in Sweden, 1979-84

"A model of private local labor demand and interjurisdictional migration is presented and estimated using data from Swedish counties and municipalities for 1979-84. Our goal is to compare the effects on local labor markets of distinctive public-sector programs with those of traditional market variables. We find that local income taxes and tax-equalization grants have important effects on local labor markets; regional development policy measures and geographical-mobility subsidies do not. Thus, recent efforts scaling back some of these programs may not materially alter the regional economy's performance. Wages and other traditional market variables are also often found to influence significantly local labor markets."     

A STRUCTURAL EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF METROPOLITAN LABOR DEMAND*

ABSTRACT. This paper uses a large data base to study metropolitan labor demand functions. The data are disaggregated by two-digit SICs in manufacturing for SMS As, and are corrected for changing SMSA boundaries. Labor demand elasticities are estimated for factor and commodity prices, transportation costs, state and local taxes and expenditures, and production-function shifters. Estimates from different years allow one to test Le Chatelier's principle in the context of interregional change.     

The New South Wales doctors' dispute 1984–85: An interpretation

The NSW doctors’ dispute 1984–85 has had a lasting effect on the Australian health care system. Militant surgeons were effective in securing some modifications to regulations and administrative arrangements governing the role and remuneration of certain groups of doctors in NSW public hospitals and some changes to the federal government's Medicare scheme.

This paper examines the causes, actors, issues and outcome of the dispute. The key to understanding the dispute is a knowledge of both the specific issues debated by militant doctors and the federal and NSW Labor governments and the broader historical forces that have shaped the politics of national health insurance throughout the twentieth century. In contrast to media reports, the outcome of the dispute is interpreted as a compromise rather than a victory for the doctors. It is further argued that a theoretical generalisation formulated by two American political scientists, Marmor and Thomas, about disputes between doctors and governments over payment methods is only partially useful in explaining the outcome.

Two prominent and well‐documented historical themes from the politics of national health insurance in Australia — namely, the resistance of sections of the medical profession to any contraction of the private market for medicine and the fragmentation of the organised medical profession during periods of disputation with governments at the state and federal level — are discussed. These themes, and some generalisations about the capacity of the medical profession to influence public policy outcomes, are illuminated by the study.