Option Value –Weisbrod is acknowledged to have developed the concept and coined the term option value as used in welfare economics to represent a portion of total economic value. His 1964 article introduced the idea that individuals may derive a benefit (referred to as "option value") from having access to use of a publicly provided good or service even if they are uncertain whether or not they will actually use it.[1] That concept has since come to be applied as an important tool in the valuation of parks,natural resources and environmental amenities,as well as access to public transit services.[2][3][4][5][6][7] Economists have further identified the concept of "Weisbrodian public goods" (private goods that also have public option value,such as hospital visits),as distinguished from the classic or pure "Samuelsonian public goods."[8]
Economics of Poverty –Weisbrod conducted research demonstrating the externality (broader societal) benefits of public investment in education and health care in the early 1960s.[9][10] That work,which showed the income growth benefits from investment in human capital,is recognized as advancing the use of benefit-cost analysis considerations in the area of public policy. That provided a justification for President Johnson's War on Poverty in the mid 1960s,which included education and health care as tools for poverty reduction. As a Senior Staff member of the President's Council of Economic Advisors in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations,Weisbrod is credited with helping define the antipoverty program strategy that later led to the Head Start Program for preschool education.[11]
Economics of Health Policy –Weisbrod was a pioneer in the development of benefit-cost analysis for health care. In the 1970s,he led two program evaluations that were considered path-breaking because they brought together economic,social and medical professionals to assess multi-year pilot programs. A study in the Caribbean developed the connection between health,worker productivity and economic development,[12] and it provided support for international aid agencies to invest in disease prevention.[13][14] It was followed by a study in the US that showed net cost savings and medical benefit gains from switching patients out of mental hospitals and into aggressive outpatient programs.[15][16] Over the next thirty years,that finding was used as a basis for a national movement towards closing mental hospitals and replacing them with outpatient services. However,the adequacy of replacement outpatient services in controlling mental illness remains an issue of public discussion.[17]
Nonprofit Sector –Weisbrod developed the theory of why the voluntary sector of nonprofit organizations exist,in a seminal 1975 article.[18] In a series of four books issued each decade from 1977 to 2008,Weisbrod further developed theory to explain the comparative economic behavior of for-profit,government,and private nonprofit organizations,and the causes and consequences of the growing commercialism of nonprofits.[19][20][21][22] As part of this effort,he calculated the value of voluntary labor in the United States,which is a factor considered in the analysis of efficiency wage.
Weisbrod is currently the Cardiss Collins Professor of Economics Emeritus at Northwestern University. From 1990 to 1995,Weisbrod served as director of Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Research (IPR),then known as the Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research. Before that,he spent 26 years on the economics faculty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he was Evjue-Bascom Professor of Economics,Director of the Center for Health Economics and Law,and Director of the National Institute of Mental Health Training Program in Health and Mental Health Economics.
Human Resources,Employment and Development,v.3:The Problems of Developed Countries and the International Economy (B. Weisbrod and H.Hughes,eds;MacMillan,London,1983)
Economics and Mental Health (T. McGuire and B. Weisbrod,eds;National Institute of Mental Health,1981).
Public Interest Law:An Economic and Institutional Analysis (by B. Weisbrod,J. Handler and N. Komesar;Univ. of California Press,1978)
The Voluntary Nonprofit Sector:An Economic Analysis (by B. Weisbrod;Lexington Books,1978).
Disease and Economic Development:The Case of Parasitic Diseases (by B. Weisbrod,R. Andreano,R. Baldwin,E. Epstein,and A. Kelley;University of Wisconsin Press,1974)
American Health Policy:Perspectives and Choices (by R. Andreano and B. Weisbrod;Markham Publishing,1974)
The Daily Economist (H. Johnson and B. Weisbrod,eds;Prentice-Hall,1973).
Benefits,Costs,and Finance of Public Higher Education (by W. L. Hansen and B. Weisbrod;Markham Publishing,1969).
The Economics of Poverty (Burton Weisbrod,ed.;Prentice-Hall,1965).
External Benefits of Public Education (by B. Weisbrod;Princeton University,1964).
Economics of Public Health (by B. Weisbrod;Univ. of Pennsylvania Press,1961).
↑ Weisbrod, Burton A., 1964. "Collective-Consumption Services of Individual-Consumption Goods," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 78(3), available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1853803.
↑ Arrow, Kenneth J and Anthony C. Fisher, 1974. "Environmental Preservation, Uncertainty and Irreversibility," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 88(2), May.
↑ Schmalensee, Richard, 1972. "Option Demand and Consumer's Surplus: Valuing Price Changes under Uncertainty," American Economic Review, 62(5), December.
↑ Bishop, Richard C., 1982. "Option Value: An Exposition and Extension," Land Economics, 58(1), February.
↑ Cicchetti, Charles J. and Freeman, A. Myrick, III. 1971. "Option Demand and Consumer Surplus: Further Comment.1, Quarterly Journal of Economics 85, August.
↑ Hanemann, WM, 1984. On Reconciling Different Concepts of Option Value, Dept. Of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Univ. of California – Berkeley, Pub 07-01-1984.
↑ Freeman, A. Myrick III, 1991. "Welfare Measurement and the Benefit-Cost Analysis of Projects Affecting Risk," Southern Economic Journal, 58(1), July.
↑ Holtmann, Alphonse G., 1999. "Samuelsonian and Weisbrodian Public Goods," Public Finance Review, 27(4), July.
↑ Weisbrod, Burton A. 1961. Economics of Public Health, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.
↑ Weisbrod, Burton A. 1964. External Benefits of Public Education, Princeton University Press.
↑ Vinovskis, Maris A., 2005. The Birth of Head Start, University of Chicago Press.
↑ Weisbrod et al, 1974. Disease and Economic Development: The Case of Parasitic Diseases, University of Wisconsin Press.
↑ Weisbrod et al, 1983. Human Resources, Employment and Development, v.3: The Problems of Developed Countries and the International Economy, MacMillan Press, London.
↑ Weisbrod, Burton A., Benefit-Cost Analysis of a Controlled Experiment: Treating the Mentally Ill (1981). The Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 523-548, available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1850781
↑ Weisbrod, BA, MA Test and LI Stein, 1980. "Alternative to Mental Hospital Treatment, Arch Gen Psychiatry, 37(4).
↑ Weisbrod et al, 1981. Economics and Mental Health, National Institute of Mental Health.
↑ McGuire, Thomas G., 1991. "Measuring the Economic Cost of Schizophrenia," Schizophrenia Bulletin, Oxford Journals, 17(3).
↑ Weisbrod, BA, 1975. Toward a Theory of the Voluntary Nonprofit Sector in a Three-Sector Economy. In: Phelps, E., Ed., Altruism, Morality and Economic Theory, Russell Sage, New York, 171-195.
↑ Weisbrod, Burton, 1977. The Voluntary Nonprofit Sector: An Economic Analysis, Lexington Books, New York.
↑ Weisbrod, Burton. 1988. The Nonprofit Economy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
↑ Weisbrod, Burton, 1998. To Profit or Not to Profit: the Commercial Transformation of the Nonprofit Sector, Cambridge University Press.
↑ Weisbrod, Burton, 2008. Mission and Money: Understanding the University, Cambridge University Press.
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