David Coady

Mr. Benedict J. Clements

Mr. Sanjeev Gupta

Health care reform will be a key fiscal policy challenge in both advanced and emerging economies in coming years. In the advanced economies, the health sector has been one of the main drivers of government expenditure, accounting for about half of the rise in total spending over the past forty years. These spending pressures are expected to intensify over the next two decades, reflecting the aging of the population, income growth, and continued technological innovations in health care. These spending increases will come at a time when countries need to undertake fiscal consolidation to reduce public debt ratios in the wake of the global financial crisis. In the emerging economies, health care reform is also a key issue, given substantial lags in health indicators and limited fiscal resources. For these economies, the challenge will be to expand public coverage without undermining fiscal sustainability. This book provides new insights into these challenges and potential policy responses, with cross-country analysis and case studies.

The Economics of Public Health Care Reform in Advanced and Emerging Economies

Mauricio Soto

Frank Eich

Mr. Alvar Kangur

Baoping Shang

Pension reform is high on the policy agenda of many advanced and emerging market economies. In advanced economies the challenge is generally to contain future increases in public pension spending as the population ages. In emerging market economies, the challenges are often different. Where pension coverage is extensive, the issues are similar to those in advanced economies. Where pension coverage is low, the key challenge will be to expand coverage in a fiscally sustainable manner. This volume examines the outlook for public pension spending over the coming decades and the options for reform in 52 advanced and emerging market economies.

The Challenge of Public Pension Reform in Advanced and Emerging Economies

Conspiracy Theories

Margaret E. Grosh

John Hoddinott

Drawing on a database of more than one hundred anti-poverty interventions in 47 countries, 'Targeting of Transfers in Developing Countries' provides a general review of experiences with methods used to target interventions in transition and developing countries. Written for policymakers and program managers in developing countries, in donor agencies, and in NGOs who have responsibility for designing interventions that reach the poor, it conveys what targeting options are available, what results can be expected as well as information that will assist in choosing among them and in their implementation. Key messages are: - While targeting 'works' - the median program transfers 25 percent more to the poor than would a universal allocation - targeting performance around the world is highly variable. - Means testing, geographic targeting, and self-selection based on a work requirement are the most robustly progressive methods. Proxy means testing, community-based selection of individuals and demographic targeting to children show good results on average, but with considerable variation. - Demographic targeting to the elderly, community bidding, and self-selection based on consumption show limited potential for good targeting. - There is no single preferred method for all types of programs or all country contexts. Successful targeting depends critically on how a method is implemented. The CD-ROM includes the database of interventions, an annotated bibliography (PDF) and Spanish and Russian translations of the book (PDFs).

Review of Lessons and Experience

Targeting of Transfers in Developing Countries

What can we know and what should we believe about today′s world? What to Believe Now: Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues applies the concerns and techniques of epistemology to a wide variety of contemporary issues. Questions about what we can know–and what we should believe–are first addressed through an explicit consideration of the practicalities of working these issues out at the dawn of the twenty–first century. Coady calls for an ′applied turn′ in epistemology, a process he likens to the applied turn that transformed the study of ethics in the early 1970s. Subjects dealt with include: Experts–how can we recognize them? And when should we trust them? Rumors–should they ever be believed? And can they, in fact, be a source of knowledge? Conspiracy theories–when, if ever, should they be believed, and can they be known to be true? The blogosphere–how does it compare with traditional media as a source of knowledge and justified belief? Timely, thought provoking, and controversial, What to Believe Now offers a wealth of insights into a branch of philosophy of growing importance–and increasing relevance–in the twenty–first century.

Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues

What to Believe Now

Conspiracy theories have a bad reputation. In the past, most philosophers have ignored the topic, vaguely supposing that conspiracy theories are obviously irrational and that they can be easily dismissed. The current philosophical interest in the subject results from a realisation that this is not so. Some philosophers have taken up the challenge of identifying and explaining the flaws of conspiracy theories. Other philosophers have argued that conspiracy theories do not deserve their bad reputation, and that conspiracy theorists do not deserve their reputation for irrationality. This book represents both sides of this important debate. Aimed at a broad philosophical community, including epistemologists, political philosophers, and philosophers of history. It represents a significant contribution to the growing interdisciplinary debate about conspiracy theories.

The Philosophical Debate

Ms. Stefania Fabrizio

Mr. Trevor Serge Coleridge Alleyne

Mr. Carlo A. Sdralevich

Energy subsidies have wide-ranging economic consequences. Although they are aimed at protecting consumers, subsidies aggravate fiscal imbalances, crowd out priority public spending, and depress private investment, including in the energy sector. Subsidies also distort resource allocation by encouraging excessive energy consumption, artificially promoting capital-intensive industries, reducing incentives for investment in renewable energy, and accelerating the depletion of natural resources. Most subsidy benefits are captured by higher-income households, reinforcing inequality. Even future generations are affected through the damaging effects of increased energy consumption on global warming. This book provides (1) the most comprehensive estimates of energy subsidies currently available for 176 countries and (2) an analysis of “how to do” energy subsidy reform, drawing on insights from 22 country case studies undertaken by the IMF staff and analyses carried out by other institutions.

Lessons and Implications

Energy Subsidy Reform

Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen

Kimberley Brownlee

Applied philosophy has been a growing area of research for the last 40 years. Until now, however, almost all of this research has been centered around the field of ethics. A Companion to Applied Philosophy breaks new ground, demonstrating that all areasof philosophy, including epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind, can be applied, and are relevant to questions of everyday life. This perennial topic in philosophy provides an overview of these various applied philosophy developments, highlighting similarities and differences between various areas of applied philosophy, and examining the very nature of this topic. It is an area to which many of the towering figures in the history of philosophy have contributed, and this timely Companion demonstrates how various historical contributions are actually contributions within applied philosophy, even if they are not traditionally seen as such. The Companion contains 42 essays covering major areas of philosophy; the articles themselves are all original contributions to the literature and represent the state of the art on this topic, as well as offering a map to the current debates.

A Companion to Applied Philosophy

James Chase

While applied epistemology has been neglected for much of the twentieth century, it has seen emerging interest in recent years, with key thinkers in the field helping to put it on the philosophical map. Although it is an old tradition, current technological and social developments have dramatically changed both the questions it faces and the methodology required to answer those questions. Recent developments also make it a particularly important and exciting area for research and teaching in the twenty-first century. The Routledge Handbook of Applied Epistemology is an outstanding reference source to this exciting subject and the first collection of its kind. Comprising entries by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into six main parts: The Internet Politics Science Epistemic institutions Individual investigators Theory and practice in philosophy. Within these sections, the core topics and debates are presented, analyzed, and set into broader historical and disciplinary contexts. The central topics covered include: the prehistory of applied epistemology, expertise and scientific authority, epistemic aspects of political and social philosophy, epistemology and the law, and epistemology and medicine. Essential reading for students and researchers in epistemology, political philosophy, and applied ethics the Handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as law, sociology, and politics.

David Coady

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