M.M. Rutten

What economic theory tells us about the impacts of reducing food losses and/or waste: implications for research, policy and practice

BackgroundWhereas the prevalence of hunger and food insecurity is often cited as a motivation for reducing losses and waste in agriculture and food systems, the impacts of such reduction on food security and the wider economy have not yet been investigated. This paper gives insights into these effects, the factors of influence, and derives implications for applied research, policy and practice.MethodsWe used economic theory to analyse the impacts of food loss reductions on the supply side and food waste reductions on the demand side. The analysis is graphical and uses intuitive low-dimension diagrams.ResultsThe impacts of tackling food losses and waste differ from the size of food losses and waste and depend, in addition, on the extent to which they are avoidable, factors that cause them to arise (notably food prices) and the costs associated with measures to reduce them. Interactions within the food supply chain and the broader economy also affect the impacts. Trade-offs occur on the demand side where a reallocation of spending on previously wasted foods causes some producers to be worse off and some to be better off. Over time, producers tackling losses may have to incur welfare losses in the short run with gains in terms of increased revenues, if any, occurring later. Similarly, consumers may delay spending savings on previously wasted foods. As a consequence, the impacts, notably on food security and welfare, are ambiguous.ConclusionsFurther research should quantify the factors that play a role and carry out economy-wide impact analyses, employing a combination of macro, meso and micro-level tools, and presenting a comprehensive set of indicators that adequately capture broader societal impacts of tackling food losses and waste. This allows policy makers to better target policy and resources, identify complementary policies, and move beyond target-setting to addressing the underlying causes, whereby it is important to consider the whole food supply chain. Supply chain actors could contribute in terms of practical and innovative solutions where they matter most, and feed research and policy makers on the bottlenecks that explain why food losses and waste occur, and their relative importance.

The Economic Impact of Medical Migration: A Receiving Country's Perspective

This paper seeks to determine the macroeconomic impacts of migration of skilled medical personnel from a receiving countrys perspective. The resource allocation issues are explored in theory, by developing an extension of the Rybczynski theorem in a low-dimension Heckscher–Ohlin framework, and empirically, by developing a static CGE model for the UK with an extended health sector component. Using simple diagrams, an expansion of the health sector by recruiting immigrant skilled workers in certain cases is shown to compare favorably to the long-term (short-term) alternative of using domestic (unskilled) workers. From a formal analysis, changes in nonhealth outputs are shown to depend on factor-bias and scale effects. The net effects generally are indeterminate. The main finding from the applied model is that importing foreign doctors and nurses into the UK yields higher overall welfare gains than a generic increase in the NHS budget. Welfare gains rise in case of wage protection.

A technical framework for costing health workforce retention schemes in remote and rural areas

BackgroundIncreasing the availability of health workers in remote and rural areas through improved health workforce recruitment and retention is crucial to population health. However, information about the costs of such policy interventions often appears incomplete, fragmented or missing, despite its importance for the sound selection, planning, implementation and evaluation of these policies. This lack of a systematic approach to costing poses a serious challenge for strong health policy decisions.MethodsThis paper proposes a framework for carrying out a costing analysis of interventions to increase the availability of health workers in rural and remote areas with the aim to help policy decision makers. It also underlines the importance of identifying key sources of financing and of assessing financial sustainability.The paper reviews the evidence on costing interventions to improve health workforce recruitment and retention in remote and rural areas, provides guidance to undertake a costing evaluation of such interventions and investigates the role and importance of costing to inform the broader assessment of how to improve health workforce planning and management.ResultsWe show that while the debate on the effectiveness of policies and strategies to improve health workforce retention is gaining impetus and attention, there is still a significant lack of knowledge and evidence about the associated costs. To address the concerns stemming from this situation, key elements of a framework to undertake a cost analysis are proposed and discussed.ConclusionsThese key elements should help policy makers gain insight into the costs of policy interventions, to clearly identify and understand their financing sources and mechanisms, and to ensure their sustainability.

Medical Migration: What Can We Learn from the UK's Perspective?

This paper seeks to determine the macro-economic impacts of migration of skilled medical personnel from a receiving countrys perspective. The resource allocation issues are explored in theory, by developing an extension of the Rybczynski theorem in a low-dimension Heckscher-Ohlin framework, and empirically, by developing a static computable general equilibrium model for the United Kingdom with an extended health sector component. Using simple diagrams, an expansion of the health sector by recruiting immigrant skilled workers in certain cases is shown to compare favorably to the (short-term) long-term alternative of using domestic (unskilled) workers. From a formal analysis, changes in non-health outputs are shown to depend on factor-bias and scale effects. The net effects generally are indeterminate. The main finding from the applied model is that importing foreign doctors and nurses into the United Kingdom yields higher overall welfare gains than a generic increase in the National Health Service budget. Welfare gains rise in case of wage protection.