Evaluation and Management of Urban Liveability: A Goal Programming Based Composite Indicator

Social Indicators Research - This paper proposes a composite indicator intended to assess the degree of liveability provided by urban areas. This synthetic index makes two essential contributions...     

农村金融发展与经济增长关系的实证研究

运用内生经济增长模型,结合我国农村地区金融和经济的实际情况,采取1981~2008年的时间序列数据,通过向量自回归检验我国农村金融发展与经济增长之间的某种关系,实证检验结果显示:我国农村金融发展与经济增长保持一种长期稳定关系,农村金融发展促进农村经济的增长。农村金融的介入激发了农村经济增长的潜力,收入是影响农村经济增长的主要因素,但是人均收入并不是金融发展的主要因素。农村投资产出比长期保持一个较低的水平,这种低水平状态表明了农村金融发展的薄弱,投资产出比与经济增长呈现负相关,投资量在产出量得比重太小,没有对经济产生影响;农村中的贷存比保持一个良好的状态,农村储蓄的资金更多流向了农村贷款。因此,在发展农村金融时,应该更加注重农村制度的改革,鼓励和支持民间金融的发展,实现农村金融机构和形式多样化,多渠道促进农村贷款量的增加,有效地促进农村金融体系适应农村经济的发展。     

Existence and Uniqueness of Solutions to the Bellman Equation in the Unbounded Case

We study the problem of the existence and uniqueness of solutions to the Bellman equation in the presence of unbounded returns. We introduce a new approach based both on consideration of a metric on the space of all continuous functions over the state space, and on the application of some metric fixed point theorems. With appropriate conditions we prove uniqueness of solutions with respect to the whole space of continuous functions. Furthermore, the paper provides new sufficient conditions for the existence of solutions that can be applied to fairly general models. It is also proven that the fixed point coincides with the value function and that it can be approached by successive iterations of the Bellman operator.     

Urban risks due to climate change in the Andean municipality of Pasto,Colombia: A Bayesian network approach

The current trends of climate change will increase people's exposure to urban risks related to events such as landslides, floods, forest fires, food production, health, and water availability, which are stochastic and very localized in nature. This research uses a Bayesian network (BN) approach to analyze the intensity of such urban risks for the Andean municipality of Pasto, Colombia, under climate change scenarios. The stochastic BN model is linked to correlational models and local scenarios of representative concentration trajectories (RCP) to project the possible risks to which the municipality of Pasto will be exposed in the future. The results show significant risks in crop yields, food security, water availability and disaster risks, but no significant risks on the incidence of acute diarrheal diseases (ADD) and acute respiratory infections (ARI), whereas positive outcomes are likely to occur in livestock production, influenced by population growth. The advantage of the BN approach is the possibility of updating beliefs in the probabilities of occurrence of events, especially in developing, intermediate cities with information-limited contexts.     

Children's disaster knowledge,risk perceptions,and preparedness: A cross-country comparison in Nepal and Turkey

While children are one of the groups at risk in disasters, they can also take an active part in disaster management, provided that the opportunity is given. This research examined the effect of disaster experience, disaster education, country, and city socioeconomic status on children's perceived risk and preparedness with a survey of 1335 children between 11 and 14 years old, in Nepal and Turkey. The survey used questionnaires and the pictorial representation of illness and self measure (PRISM) tool. Results showed that (1) children's risk perceptions were in line with their country-specific objective risks; (2) there were differences between the countries in relation to perception of risk for all the hazards except wildfire; (3) socioeconomic status had a statistically significant effect on children's perceptions of risk and preparedness for earthquakes, wildfires, that is, children who live in wealthier places had higher perceived risk and preparedness; (4) children in both countries showed similar trends in their knowledge of the correct protective actions to take in the event of a hazard occurrence. However, there is still room to enhance children's knowledge, in terms of safety behaviors, as the children selected many incorrect protective actions. There are important implications in terms of child-centered disaster management which hopefully will make life safer and help to create more resilience to disaster in society as a whole.     

INTERNAL COCAINE TRAFFICKING AND ARMED VIOLENCE IN COLOMBIA

This paper exploits time variations in international cocaine prices and potential trafficking routes within Colombia to estimate the effect of the illegal cocaine trade on changes in municipality homicide rates. I construct the potential internal cocaine-trafficking network and exploit the fact that different regions in Colombia have comparative advantages in serving different international markets. My results suggest that when cocaine prices increase in either the United States or Europe, homicide rates increase in municipalities strategically placed to serve each international market. (JEL D74, K42, F19)     

The Moderating Effect of Countries’ Development on the Characterization of the Social Entrepreneur: An Empirical Analysis with GEM Data

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - The objective of this paper is to analyze the moderating effect that the level of development of countries exerts on the...     

Nonparametric analysis of aggregate loss models

This paper describes a nonparametric approach to make inferences for aggregate loss models in the insurance framework. We assume that an insurance company provides a historical sample of claims given by claim occurrence times and claim sizes. Furthermore, information may be incomplete as claims may be censored and/or truncated. In this context, the main goal of this work consists of fitting a probability model for the total amount that will be paid on all claims during a fixed future time period. In order to solve this prediction problem, we propose a new methodology based on nonparametric estimators for the density functions with censored and truncated data, the use of Monte Carlo simulation methods and bootstrap resampling. The developed methodology is useful to compare alternative pricing strategies in different insurance decision problems. The proposed procedure is illustrated with a real dataset provided by the insurance department of an international commercial company.     

Detecting level shifts in ARMA-GARCH (1,1) Models

The purpose of this article is to present a new method to detect level shifts in the context of conditional heteroscedastic models. First, we define precisely what type of outlier we are referring to, a concept that has been scarcely touched in the field of GARCH (1,1) models, and then we go on to present our methodology based on the nature of the Lagrange multiplier tests. The validity and efficiency of the proposed procedure are demonstrated through different simulation experiments. To conclude, we present a practical application of the method to the time series of returns of US short-term interest rates.