Yew-Kwang Ng
Yew-Kwang Ng was born in 1942 in
Malaysia. He graduated with a
B.Com. from Nanyang University
(Singapore) in 1966 and a Ph.D. from
Sydney University in 1971. He holds
a personal chair at Monash University
(since 1985) and has been a fellow of
the Academy of Social Sciences in
Australia since 1980. He has worked
in welfare economics, proposed
mesoeconomics (a simplified general
equilibrium analysis with both micro
and macro elements) and welfare
biology. He also collaborates with
Dr. Xiaokai Yang on an inframarginal
analysis of division of labour. He has
published more than a hundred and
fifty refereed articles in economics
and a dozen in biology, mathematics,
philosophy, psychology, and sociology
and more than a hundred articles in
the popular press. Books published
include Welfare Economics (Macmillan,
1979 and 1983), Mesoeconomics: A
Micro-Macro Analysis (Wheatsheaf,
1986), Social Welfare and Economic
Policy (Wheatsheaf, 1990),
Specialization and Economic
Organization (North-Holland, 1993,
with X. Yang), Increasing Returns and
Economic Analysis, ed. (Macmillan,
1998, with Nobel laureate K. Arrow
and X. Yang), Economics and Happiness (Collected papers in Chinese)
(Maw Chang, 1999), Efficiency,
Equality, and Public Policy: With a Case
for Higher Public Spending (Macmillan,
2000).
Papers Published in World Economics:
Is Public Spending Good for You?
Studies by psychologists, sociologists and economists indicate that increases in incomes beyond about US$4,000 are not related to happiness nor significantly with the objective quality-of-life indicators (which increase with scientific and technological breakthroughs at the global level). Yet everyone wants more money.
This may be explained by environmental disruption, relative-income effects, inadequate recognition of adaptation effects, and the materialistic bias due to our accumulation instinct and advertising. These factors cause a bias towards private consumption, making public spending, especially on research and environmental protection (with their long-term and global public-good nature) well below optimal. This is made worse by economists’ emphasis on the excess burden of taxation, ignoring the negative excess burden on the spending side.
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