N30 - Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: General, International, or ComparativeReturn

The paper is focused on history of the concept of consumer surplus presented by Alfred Marshall as an economic tool to measure benefits and losses resulting from changes in market conditions. As it assumes constant marginal utility of money, it was refused by further development of economics. Subsequently, John Hicks redefined the concept using indifference analysis, inducing the use of compensating and equivalent variations in welfare economics. However, we reveal substantial errors in the Kaldor-Hicks-efficiency justification of economic policy and suggest an alternative use for the concept of consumer surplus - in an analysis of economic discrimination.

This paper describes and evaluates the development of social expenditures in the Czech Republic and Austria during the nineties. The authors compare social systems of both countries with the aim to show the main differences as well as some identical and concurring features, and to take lecture from them for future reforms. In the first part, a short comparison of the main macroeconomic indicators and their development as the bases of social systems is presented. Factors influencing the level and structure of social expenditures in both countries are mentioned: different economic level, demographic, systemic, and governmental factors. In the second part, the structure of social expenditures and its development is analysed in detail. Current reforms of pension systems in both countries are mentioned. The growing role of personal expenditures in the Czech Republic in covering different kinds of social needs is demonstrated on the health care expenditures.