Top Incomes in Chile: A Historical Perspective on Income Inequality, 1964–2017

We present a novel series of Chilean top-income shares covering half a century, mainly based on income-tax declarations and the National Accounts. Such a time frame of analysis is still rare in the literature of developing countries. We distinguish between a fiscal-income series (1964–2017) and an adjusted series (1990–2017). The former covers individual income, while the latter also includes corporate undistributed profits, which affects both levels and trends. The fiscal-income estimates start with low levels and a decreasing trend over the 1960s. They then increase rapidly during the dictatorship years (1973–89). The series ends with a high, yet slowly decreasing, concentration for most of the recent democratic period (1990–2017). By contrast, the adjusted series has followed a U-shape since the return of democracy, contradicting the established consensus on falling inequality over the period. Furthermore, Chile ranks among the most unequal countries in both the OECD and Latin American countries over the period.     

AID,POLICIES, AND GROWTH: WHY SO MUCH CONFUSION?

We revisit the highly debated aid‐policy‐growth association. Our results overturn Burnside and Dollar's original findings by simply using new data over the same countries and years. Marginal effects from the extended sample (1962–2013) provide weak evidence that aid can promote growth in the presence of good policies. Post‐Cold War (1990–2013) analysis, however, reveals that aid can decrease growth at any level of policy. The overwhelming majority of the results suggest aid conditional on policy is ineffective. This debate continues because the results are highly sensitive to country‐year selection, choice of methodology, measurement of institutional quality, and growth rate measurement. (JEL F35, O23, O40)     

Die stochastische Modellierung von Großschäden für den Einsatz in internen Risikomodellen der Schadenversicherung

Along with individual corporate management and regulatory matters for instance within EU regime Solvency II, Internal Risk Models are very important for major general insurance companies. Of crucial importance in building these internal models, is the stochastic modelling of large claims and in particular, the selection and parameterization of suitable probability distributions for the amount and number of claims based on empirical data. To this end, in practice, a visually-based methodology is more appropriate and workable than strict mathematical approaches. Based on a practical case study, this paper provides some insight into a visually-based methodology for internal risk models.     

Wild horse-based tourism as wildlife tourism: the wild horse as the other

Wild horses as the focus of tourism occupy a unique position. This is a consequence of their ambiguous status in the natural and cultural landscape, particularly in North America. Wild horses are ecological agents, cultural icons, economic factors and political pawns. The complexity of their management environment has an impact on the tourism and recreational context. Focusing on the western US and western Canada, this article explores a conceptual framework for wild horse-based tourism and highlights unique characteristics of the encounter between wild horses and visitors, drawing on literature and empirical data. It positions wild horse-based tourism within a framework of wildlife tourism and introduces the wild horse as a charismatic animal which elicits strong reactions from visitors who encounter it. While visitors tend to embrace the wild horse as an integral part of its habitat, as a symbol of the western frontier, and an embodiment of freedom, the animal remains an extremely polarising subject in the management debate of public lands in the USA and Canada. The wild horse's beleaguered status in both countries seriously interferes with the realisation of the true potential of wild horse-based tourism. On the other hand, wild horse supporters pin high hopes on this industry's transformative power.     

Understanding the vulnerability of blind consumers: adaptation in the marketplace,personal traits and coping strategies

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to examine the vulnerability perceived by blind consumers in the marketplace. By analysing the narratives of 16 people that have acquired blindness, we develop an understanding of the internal and external factors that affect their degree of vulnerability and identify their coping strategies. Data analysis consisted of content interpretation and a search for the meaning of the particular experiences, events and states reported by the respondents. Results show how emotional well-being, consumption-facilitating social support, acceptance, autonomy and perceptions about marketplace difficulties all relate to coping mechanisms.     

Electricity spot price modelling with a view towards extreme spike risk

Sums of Lévy-driven Ornstein–Uhlenbeck processes are appropriate for modelling electricity spot price data. In this paper we present a new estimation method with particular emphasis on capturing the high peaks, which is one of the stylized features of such data. After introducing our method we show it at work for the EEX Phelix Base electricity price index. We also present a small simulation study to demonstrate the performance of our estimation procedure.     

Rhetoric versus Reality: The Best and Worst of Aid Agency Practices

Foreign aid critics, supporters, recipients, and donors have produced eloquent rhetoric on the need for better aid practices—has this translated into reality? This paper attempts to monitor the best and worst of aid practices among bilateral, multilateral, and UN agencies. We create aid practice measures based on aid transparency, specialization, selectivity, ineffective aid channels, and overhead costs. We rate donor agencies from best to worst on aid practices. We find that the UK does well among bilateral agencies, the US is below average, and Scandinavian donors do surprisingly poorly. The biggest difference is between the UN agencies, who mostly rank in the bottom half of donors, and everyone else. Average performance of all agencies on transparency, fragmentation, and selectivity is still very poor. The paper also assesses trends in best practices over time—we find modest improvement in transparency and more in moving away from ineffective channels. However, we find no evidence of improvements (and partial evidence of worsening) in specialization, fragmentation, and selectivity, despite escalating rhetoric to the contrary.