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Government policy can alleviate inequities in living standards. Disabled people often qualify for government assistance which is one way that their living standard can improve, although arbitrary systems for distributing assistance are not likely to serve equity objectives. The purpose of this paper is to indicate the key variables to which government should direct attention, in order to alleviate both horizontal and vertical inequity in grants to disabled people.

There is no literature, either theoretical or empirical, that specifically addresses this problem. This paper invokes important economic concepts associated with the nineteenth century English philosopher/economist, John Stuart Mill, as well as the 1998 Nobel Laureate in Economics, Amartya Sen. Mill's general conception of how government should behave in treating citizens was elaborated subsequently in the public finance literature on principles of taxation. These notions are about “the equal treatment of equals” and “the unequal treatment of unequals”. Sen's recent discussion of the “conversion handicap” from his general framework of capabilities is highly relevant to the question addressed here.

These concepts, applied with some analytical tools of algebra and geometry, show that Mill's principles can combine with Sen's into a relevant conceptual framework. The central principles and concepts for policy formation on the standard of living for disabled people are not random; they can be specified with clarity.

This paper contributes the relevant conceptual “yardsticks” by which policy for distributing assistance to disabled people can be evaluated. Steps, towards devising better approaches to the distribution of assistance to disabled people can now be taken.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, although there are some unique features associated with mental illness, such special features do not preclude economic analysis.

As a mechanism for understanding how individual economic studies fit into the mental health sector, a conceptual framework of the components of mental health service provision is outlined. Emphasis is placed on, not simply institutional and market resources, but also on the services provided by relatives, self‐help groups, etc.

Australian data on parts of the mental health sector are employed to illustrate that some (and different) economic analyses can be undertaken in mental health. First, time‐series data on public psychiatric hospitals are employed to demonstrate trends associated with deinstitutionalisation. Other data (for Queensland alone) indicate that there are state‐based differences in the provision of such services. Second, attention is then directed to the analysis of time‐series data on private fee‐for‐service psychiatric services. Various concepts and measures from industrial economics are applied to analyse the relative size of this service industry, the pricing behaviour of the profession, the service‐mix of “the psychiatry firms” operating in Australia. In addition, the analysis also sheds some light on the distributional implications of Australia's national (and uniform) system of health funding, Medicare.

Apart from demonstrating that economic analyses can be undertaken in the difficult area of mental health, this paper indicates a number of puzzles (e.g. various regional variations within a unified profession and a uniform national funding scheme) that invite further investigation.

Multiple connotations and conceptions of health need are currently in use. The purpose of this paper is to specify some important distinctions regarding this confusing multiplicity in a taxonomic fashion relevant to the economic problems that arise in addressing health need. Classification is possible with the relevant concepts in conventional economic theory. The classification applies wherever economic considerations bear upon health need.

Initially, some seminal economic ideas about need are presented from Marshall, Pauly, Banfield, Jevons, Deaton and Meullbauer, and Georgescu‐Roegen. Recent discussions of basic needs by Sen and Nussbaum concerning “capabilities” and human flourishing are also considered. Ruger's subsequent developments of these concepts specifically for health are noted. The paper then specifies and classifies the current economic connotations of “health need” by applying positive economic analysis and the framework of economic theory. In particular, the conventional theories of consumer demand and production supply are useful. Geometric tools of analysis along with illustrations from the health sector specify various distinctions and classifications.

The uses of the generic term “need” relate to quite different economic problems. The findings show how diverse interpretations of need can be specified.

Distinctions over health need are important since, in many Western countries, need is one of the “pillars” of the Welfare State. Effective policy requires sound conceptions and measurements of need. Given the relevance of economics for approaching competing resource uses in the face of health need, measurement of need is improved with taxonomy, and confusion reduced.

It is usually unnecessary to define the output of an industry, but this is not the case with mental health services. Following Grossman's conception of health capital, the outputs of mental health care enter a household production function as a commodity vector. Considering the multiple and heterogeneous nature of the services of this industry, preferences exist in multi‐dimensional space. An application of the characteristics theory of consumer demand associated with Ironmonger and Lancaster illustrates the outputs in terms of two characteristics, viz. symptom alleviation and disability reduction. Representing preferences by indifference curves, in the usual way, clarifies the relationship between mental health care inputs and the outputs of mental health care. The theoretical problem in the economics of mental health care of whether, or how, individual preferences can count is also addressed. It is shown on an indifference map what it means when society institutionalises some individuals. This approach also enables the deinstitutionalisation movement to be placed into an economic context. It is noted that empirical work on goods and services that have multiple characteristics involves the application of hedonic price analysis, a technique already applied in the economic literature on mental health.

The production of specialist psychiatric services in Australia reflects the “mixed” system of public and private production of health services generally. This paper, an exercise in descriptive or positive economics, is concerned only with private production, i.e. those services provided by psychiatrists operating in “private practice” on a fee‐for‐service basis. It is shown that there is a sharp distinction in Australian institutional arrangements between psychiatric services produced in‐hospital and out‐of‐hospital. The main differences relate to the general coinsurance rates applied, 75 per cent in the former case and 85 per cent in the latter case. In addition out‐of‐hospital services are subject to a “gap” safety‐net provision. Using both algebraic and geometric expositions, the central relationships between gross prices, net prices, schedule fees and subsidies/rebates are illustrated in general, and in various special cases, e.g. where a psychiatrist “direct bills” or “bulk bills” the Health Insurance Commission.

It is difficult to get an adequate account of human needs but there are known needs which, for hundreds of millions of people, are not met. Can the present economic system meet them? Can any economic system meet them? Is simple economic growth the answer? The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the questions, emphasizing the problems and paradoxes.

The paper looks at India where poverty is rampant despite recent gains, and at Bhutan which ranks low in economic production but quite high on the “happiness scales”. It also looks at questions of the relation of economic inequality to social problems, citing recent studies.

The paper focuses on how well the world's economic systems address, or fail to address, human needs.

This paper is written by a philosopher and writer on social economics (and Editor of International Journal of Social Economics (IJSE )) who works in a variety of fields: metaphysics and its epistemological relations, the theory of the history of philosophy (focusing on the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries), and moral, social, and economic philosophy and their relations to culture and religion. The paper then introduces the papers in this special issue of the IJSE devoted to human needs.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

THIS number will appear at the beginning of the Leeds Conference. Although there is no evidence that the attendance will surpass the record attendance registered at the Birmingham Conference, there is every reason to believe that the attendance at Leeds will be very large. The year is one of importance in the history of the city, for it has marked the 300th anniversary of its charter. We hope that some of the festival spirit will survive into the week of the Conference. As a contributor has suggested on another page, we hope that all librarians who attend will do so with the determination to make the Conference one of the friendliest possible character. It has occasionally been pointed out that as the Association grows older it is liable to become more stilted and formal; that institutions and people become standardized and less dynamic. This, if it were true, would be a great pity.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.