The effects of ageing on health care spending are uncertain. Some argue that health care expenditures increase substantially with age primarily because mortality rates increase with age, and expenditures increase with closeness to death. The main reason why healthcare costs increase with age is that older people are closer to death than younger people. The pattern of health expenditure by age is considerably influenced by the concentration of expenditure in the final years of life. The greater expenditure on the elderly is a consequence of the heavy weight of so-called death costs. In addition, increases in longevity may be expected to lead to postponement of these costs of the final years of life, and declines in age-specific mortality may be expected to lead to declines in age-specific costs because declining mortality reduces the proportion of those near death. If we overlook this aspect, we envisage a misleading scenario of health expenditure increase.Incorporating the concept of time to death, this paper reexamines the relationship of population aging and healthcare expenditure in Taiwan. Results indicate that different death age groups have similar average expenditures patterns against time to death, but expenditures are higher for younger people than for older people. These imply that increases in longevity delay the high costs associated with the final stage of life. Projections failing to take time to death into account might result in upward biased simulations, while total expenditures will still be raised by the absolute number of elderly people.

Life expectancies of the human male and female have been increasing significantly since the turn of the 20th century, and the trend is expected to continue. The study of elderly mortality has thus become a favorite research topic. However, because there were not enough elderly data before 1990, there is still no conclusion about which mortality model is appropriate for describing elderly mortality. In this study, we modify the regular discount sequence in the Bandit Problem and use it to describe elderly mortality. We found that many frequently used mortality models, such as the Gompertz Law, and famous mortality assumptions (Uniform Distribution of Death, Constant Force, and Hyperbolic assumption) all satisfy the requirement of a regular discount sequence.We also use empirical data from the HMD (Human Mortality Database from University of California, Berkeley), including data from Japan, the US, and Taiwan, to evaluate the proposed approach. The discount sequences of life expectancy and surviving number ratio do satisfy the regularity condition. In addition, we use the Brownian Motion Stochastic Differential Equation to model the discount sequence. Using this model, we predict the future mortality rates and life expectancy. The simulation study shows some promising results.

Excess female mortality during childhood is a distinct and unrelieved phenomenon in India, particularly in the two northern Indian states- Punjab and Haryana. This paper investigates the basic facts of sex differentials in child mortality in a very comprehensive manner using the three rounds of NFHS data sets from 1992 to 2006. More specifically, this paper examines the following three basic questions: (1) Have the sex differentials in child mortality in Punjab and Haryana narrowed down during the past two decades? (2) Does discrimination in food as well as preventive and curative care explain the existing sex differentials in child mortality? And (3) What are factors that explain the sex differentials in child mortality? The determinants of childhood mortality have been studied through Poisson regression. The survival curves resulted from Cox regression reveal two important findings: survival chances for females during neonatal period is higher, while an opposite phenomenon appears in the post-neonatal and childhood ages.

No abstract available

This paper seeks to examine Taiwan's long-term trend in population distribution using the twenty-three-county (hsien) population statistical database from 1897 to 2010, in the hope of aiding any current studies regarding population. The information presented in this paper covers the time span from the Japanese Colonial Period to Early Nationalist Rule in China, providing the rise and fall of county population in Taiwan. That said, this paper can also be of reference for related studies. From records of city and county population ranking, this paper finds the trend in city with largest population developing from south-to-mid and mid-to-north of Taiwan. And from long-term population statistics, this paper finds that from the Japanese Colonial Period to this day, before WWII, the majority of the Taiwanese population changed from migrating northward during Early Japanese Rule, to migrating south during Late Japanese Rule. Then, settling at a steady trend of migrating northward occurred after WWII. In addition, the city with largest population has changed three times in history: first, Changhua County surpassed Tainan County; second, Taipei City outgrew Changhua County; and lastly, Taipei County replaced Taipei City as the largest. Yet, keep in mind that each transition matches a different national population distribution.

Although political and economic circumstances deteriorated in Tainan, its industrial base has since improved with the issuing of industrial law in 1960. The district has since been revived in 2010 with the merger of Tainan City and Tainan County. This paper aims to explore Tainan's historical and special manufacturing changes between 1966 to 2011. We offer to holistically explore Tainan's manufacturing development through four aspects: the growth index, the aggregation trend of symbol ”入”, the interdependency of location-urban development, and Tainan's other potentials.The growth index is computed from the number of factory, labor, and total output value from every district. The aggregation trend of symbol ”入” is obtained by analyzing industrial indexes such as industrial strength, location quotient (L.Q.), and surplus labor-space analysis. The interdependency of location-urban development can be examined from city planning blueprints, distribution of industry maps, land use maps, traffic network maps, etc.Finally, the paper provides suggestions on ”industrial zone-population center village” and ”industrial zone-labor center of manufacturing village” in regards to future development trends in manufacturing in Tainan.

No abstract available.