PER CAPITA

‘Capita’ comes from a Latin term referring to head. Criminologists and sociologists refer to crimes (or divorce rates etc.) per capita .

For example if there are only 0.01 crimes per capita, this would mean that you have a risk of 1% of being victimised.

Criminologists usually use the idea of a rate per 100,000 rather than the idea of ‘per capita’.

Per capita income is a measure of the wealth of an area’s population as well as an indicator of the economic health of that region or country. Per capita income is determined by dividing the total income of a region or county residents by the total population.

The Effect of State Income Taxation on Per Capita Income Growth - Randall G. Holcombe, Florida State Univ, Donald J. Lacombe, Ohio Univ - Public Finance Review, Vol. 32, No. 3, (2004)
This study examines the impact of changes in marginal state income tax rates on per capita income by comparing income growth in counties on state borders with income growth in adjacent counties across the state border. Compared to a standard cross-sectional analysis, this border-matching technique is a better way to hold constant many factors that can vary for geographical reasons, such as climate, culture, and proximity to markets. The results show that over the 30-year period from 1960 to 1990, states that raised their income tax rates more than their neighbors had slower income growth and, on average, a 3.4% reduction in per capita income.

Demographic destiny, per-capita consumption and the Japanese saving-investment balance, R Dekle, Oxf Rev Econ Policy 2000; 16:46-60 © 2000 Oxford University Press
Abstract: In this paper, we revisit the issue of the impact of demographic change on the Japanese saving investment balance. Using updated government projections, we show that the ageing of the population under way will steadily lower Japan's saving rate from 31 per cent of GDP today to 20 per cent of GDP in 2040. Japan's investment rate will remain close to its current level of 29 per cent. Thus, Japan's saving investment balance, or current account, will steadily decrease from its current level and will turn negative in 2025. In addition, we project the impact of demographic change on the evolution of Japanese consumption per capita, or 'living standards'. Despite the population ageing, we project that per-capita consumption will grow until 2010. However, under certain scenarios, consumption per capita falls in most years after 2010. - oxrep.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/16/2/46

Human capital and per capita product: A comparison of US states
Saurav Dev Bhatta, Jose Lobo
Papers in Regional Science, Volume 79 Issue 4 Page 393 - October 2000
Abstract.This article analyzes the extent to which human capital differences can explain the differences in gross state product (GSP) per capita levels between the richer and poorer states of the US. It uses 1990 Census and Bureau of Economic Analysis data on educational attainment, wage levels of different segments of the labor force, and GSP to compare New York – our representative rich state – with the poorest third of the states. The findings indicate that human capital differences explain at least 49% of the observed difference in GSP per capita between New York and each of the poor states. - 

Growth Rates of Per-Capita Income and Aggregate Welfare: An International Comparison
Nanak Kakwani, University of New South Wales, The Review of Economics & Statistics, May 1997, Vol. 79, No. 2, Pages 201-211 Posted Online March 13, 2006.
This paper is concerned with the measurement of aggregate growth rates, where the aggregation is over time. The paper demonstrates that any mechanical procedures for computing aggregate growth rate has welfare implications, and value judgments implicit in various commonly used procedures are not appealing. A new procedure suggested in the paper captures all the essential properties of a welfare function. The methodology of the paper is applied to an analysis of growth rates of per capita GNP of 83 developing countries during the 1970–1987 period. - mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/003465397556782

Infant mortality, per capita income, and adult illiteracy: an ecological approach
R Tresserras, J Canela, J Alvarez, J Sentis and L Salleras, Health Department, Public Health Services, Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, American Journal of Public Health, Vol 82, Issue 3 435-438, Copyright © 1992 by American Public Health Association 
The ecological association of infant mortality rate (IM) with per capita income (PI) and prevalence of adult illiteracy (AI) has been studied using countries as the unit of analysis. A negative association between IM and PI in 1960 and 1982 has been observed (sample correlation coefficient [r] = -.625 and r = -.729, respectively; P less than .05). A correlation between IM and AI has been found for both men and women (r = .827 and r = .855, respectively; P less than .05). The ecological relative risks were 7.43 for men and 5.82 for women (95% confidence intervals: 5.16-10.71 and 4.36-7.75, respectively). The association of IM and PI shows a slight but not significant improvement between 1960 and 1982. AI can be considered a good predictor of IM in countries. - ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/82/3/435

Working Paper Series, FIEF - Trade Union Institute for Economic Research - No 156: Demographic and Per Capita Income Dynamics: A Convergence Study on Demographics, Human Capital, and Per Capita Income for the US States - Joakim Persson
Abstract: This paper finds that age distribution, educational attainment, and government size converge across the US states at rates rather similar to the convergence rate for per capita income. The main part of the paper takes age distribution variables as exogenous in conditional convergence regressions. Using panel data, the estimated partial relation between age and the subsequent growth rate of per capita income is hump-shaped and of quantitative importance. This result is robust to conditioning on other variables and appear not only to reflect capital-dilution. Another result is that average years of schooling has a positive effect on growth only if age distribution is controlled for. These findings are consistent with an explanation that the age distribution reflects the growth effects of human capital accumulated through experience. - swopec.hhs.se/fiefwp/abs/fiefwp0156.htm

What contributed to the major decline in per capita cigarette consumption during California’s comprehensive tobacco control programme? 
Elizabeth A Gilpin, Karen Messer, Martha M White and John P Pierce 
Tobacco Control 2006;15:308-316; © 2006 by BMJ Publishing Group Ltd 
Cancer Prevention and Control Program, Moores UCSD Cancer Center, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA 
PhD, Cancer Prevention and Control Program, Moores UCSD Cancer Center, University of California, San Diego, 3855 Health Sciences Drive #0901, La Jolla, CA 92093-0901, USA; jppierce@ucsd.edu
Objectives: California experienced a notable decline in per capita cigarette consumption during its comprehensive tobacco control programme. This study examines what proportion of the decline occurred from: (1) fewer ever smokers in the population, (2) more ever smokers quitting, and (3) current smokers smoking less. 
Design, subjects: Per capita cigarette consumption computed from cigarette sales and from adult respondents to the large, cross-sectional, population-based California Tobacco Surveys of 1990 (n = 24 296), 1996 (n = 18 616) and 2002 (n = 20 525) were examined for similar trends. 
Main outcome measure: Changes (period 1: 1990–1996; period 2: 1996–2002) in per capita cigarette consumption from self-reported survey data were partitioned for the entire population and for demographic subgroups into the three components mentioned above. 
Results: In periods 1 and 2, most of the decline in per capita cigarette consumption for the population as a whole was from current smokers smoking less followed by a reduction in ever smokers. The decline from smokers smoking less was particularly evident among young adults (18–29 years) in period 1. While the portion of the decline due to quitting in the entire population in period 1 was negligible, in period 2 it accounted for 22% of the total per capita decline. The decline from quitting in period 2 was mostly observed among women. 
Conclusions: Rather than near-term benefits from smokers quitting, population health benefits from reduced per capita cigarette consumption will likely occur over the longer term from fewer people becoming ever smokers, and more less-addicted smokers eventually quitting successfully. - tc.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/15/4/308