Search results

This paper reports the results of a telephone survey to elicit preferences for public or private health insurance. The survey adopted a method described by Hudson and Jones that allows respondents to distinguish between self‐interest and altruistic motivations. A random sample of 403 people drawn from the central Sydney area participated in the survey. The results suggest strong altruistic support for publicly funded health care even among those whose self‐interest is better served by tax‐financed incentives to take out private insurance. This result undermines the assumption in the public choice literature that people will vote for a tax policy only if it is in their self‐interest.

Free trade reform promotes and consolidates businesses’ orientation to international markets. Using a sample of twenty Latin American countries, this study finds support for the hypothesis that higher revealed trade openness implies faster economic growth. However, at low output growth levels, increased revealed trade openness does not translate to faster output growth. Why more trade does not necessarily imply faster growth at all levels of revealed trade openness growth remains a conundrum. Failure to derive faster economic growth may compromise the prospects for sustainable trade reforms and thus the consolidation of new business ventures as engines for further growth.