Stefania Fontana (p), Calogero Guccio, Giacomo Pignataro, Domenica Romeo

Mu-Jeong Kho

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of a direct and unconditional cash transfer program implemented in Italy in 2014, known as the "80-euro bonus", on health outcomes, particularly mortality rates. Leveraging municipal-level data, we employ a difference-in-differences approach to examine the relationship between the 80-euro bonus and mortality indicators across municipalities over time, exploiting geographic variations in the intensity of the program. Our results reveal a significant reduction in overall mortality rates associated with the magnitude of cash transfers received and with higher concentrations of recipients among the municipal population. These findings remain robust across different specifications and sensitivity checks. To further investigate the impact of cash transfers on health outcomes, we also leverage data at the provincial level, where mortality rates by cause are available. The findings suggest that an increased concentration of cash transfer beneficiaries in the population is associated with a sustained and significant decrease in mortality rates, particularly for cancer and cardiovascular diseases. The observed reduction in mortality rates aligns with existing literature emphasizing the positive effects of increased individual financial resources on improved health outcomes. By contributing empirical evidence through a municipal-level analysis, our study not only supports existing findings but also enhances our understanding of the social determinants of health. Although monetary transfers cannot be regarded as the primary tool of healthcare policies, the results presented in this research show that they can serve as effective instruments in improving health outcomes, recognizing the supplementary role of direct cash transfers in the broader landscape of public health policies.

Tünde Olexó (p)

Stefania Fontana

The consumer price index, and its one-dimensional version: inflation, is one of the most important financial indicators in the world (based for example on ILO, EUROSTAT). The concept of a subsistence minima in the USA is tied to this official stability measure, and the size of the domestic pension is also indirectly linked to the pensioner's version. Therefore, it is particularly important to examine the price level according to age and territoriality (this is not the same as inflation) and the change in price level (this is inflation) using one- and multi-dimensional models. The lecture primarily examines depression as a factor shaping consumer habits and society, its greening and creative and cultural industries (Hungary and Korea examples). In our research, we examine the existential minimum instead of the subsistence minimum, which is an extension of the former concept that is easier to interpret from the point of view of the development of society, based on Konüs's work. Non-salaried benefits, for example, can be examined from an "inflationary" point of view, thus the financial aspects of social welfare are questioned as a buffer zone between the axiomatism of Debreu's neowalras theory of general equilibrium and Konüs's theory of optimum. The lecture reflects on the insights of Dusek and Szakolczai, at the level of price index theory aspects of their debates, in accordance with regional science.

Mu-Jeong Kho (p)

Tünde Olexó

In the context of current socioeconomic inequalities deepening in capitalism, major adaptations are necessary, the fundamental challenge must be institutional: existing institutions are improper, and a greater period of experimentation is necessary. This is why we should look at the basics of institutional theory, particularly of Marxist traditions, outside of the ruling ‘neoliberal consensus.’ However, the vulnerability hampering their affluent capability truly to challenge the ruling consensus is the weak integration into radical-theory, particularly of Veblen, on the question, whether capitalist systems of health are truly self-organising, which lead to five sub-questions: (1) how capitalist system of health gets to organisation-structuration in real-world (objectivity); (2) what its origin of disorder is; (3) how capitalist systems of health are self-organising, possibly in the context of institutional variables structurated into: (a) market versus non-market, (b) pro-capital versus anti-capital; (4) whether truly self-organising in value-and-history; (5) if untruly, what the normative solutions are, addressing the duality of ‘reformism’ versus radicalism. This paper, which defines ‘structure’ as ‘order’, ‘capital’ as the ‘result of capitalist law and institutions based on structurated relations of production,’ and ‘self-organisation’ as ‘institutional process of change with struggle to reorganise, reconstitute and restructurate an order out of disorder,’ and ‘evolution’ as ‘self-organising change for survival,’ seeks to answer the question through the application of deeper understanding on Veblen to an empirical case-study (with quantitative data-analysis) on Republic-of-Korea, during the last decade. By doing so, this paper argues: beyond superficial issues of state versus market, Keynesianism versus neoliberalism, there is a deeper real-world issue ‘structuration’ of capitalist systems of health in Korea, which can be addressed well by most institutional theory in Marxist-tradition. But this in turn can be only valid if it is linked to radical theory, especially of Veblenian, looking beyond such capitalist system. Such connection is one of the precondition to deepen Marx.