Value at Risk and Economic Growth

The improvement of data statistics as well as the econometrician methods have facilitated the introduction the new variables and factors I the economic growth analysis. In this sense, real variables have mainly been considered in the economic growth studies, but not financial or risk management aspects. In this sense, it is interesting to analyze the relationship between economic growth and value at risk and the feed-back process. The goal of the paper is to analyze the relationship between economic growth and risk management and the feed-back process. We will consider economic variables, including economic growth, rule of law, human capital, fiscal policy and monetary policy, among others, in our analysis. We will analyze the theoretical relationships between these variables and risk and the effects of risk on economic growth. We will also develop an empirical analysis considering the case of 15 European Union countries.

The evaluation of a surveillance system for violent and non-intentional injury mortality in Colombian cities

Since 2002, the Institute for Peace Promotion and Injury/Violence Prevention (CISALVA) at the Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia and the Colombia Program at Georgetown University have developed and implemented 21 epidemiologically based municipal crime observatories in intermediate-sized municipalities in Colombia. These crime observatories serve as monitoring centres that provide low cost, geo-referenced methods of data collection and analysis, which allow cities to develop more responsive policies and prevention programmes and enhance governance. This article focuses on the methodology employed and lessons learned that may be applicable to similar settings. Worth noting within the results was a significant decrease in homicides after the first year of the programme. Whether or not such results could be attributed to the method or to the nature of the interventions and policy initiatives stemming from it remains open to conjecture.     

“A profit table or a profit calculator?” A note on the design of Cournot oligopoly experiments

We report on an experiment conducted to evaluate the effects of varying the way in which market information is presented to participants in laboratory Cournot duopolies. We find that the most standard variations, which are the use of a profit table or a profit calculator, yield indistinguishable performance. However, the addition of a best-response option to the profit calculator tends to increase aggregate output to the Cournot level and decrease the incidence of tacit collusion.     

The factor content of regional bilateral trade: The role of technology and demand

The Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek (HOV) model in its strict form has been strongly rejected by the data. Relaxing some assumptions of the standard HOV model is key to find improvements in its performance. We apply the Davis and Weinstein (2001) methodology to analyse the validity of the HOV model using regions rather than countries. Surprisingly, our results using data for 17 Spanish regions are similar to theirs with international data for OECD countries. Accounting for technological differences improves the predictive capacity of the factor proportions model and including trade costs and geography reduces significantly the missing trade problem. However, relaxing the assumption of factor price equalisation does not improve the performance of the HOV model in a regional setting.     

Continuous-time mean-variance portfolio optimization in a jump-diffusion market

In this paper, we take up an approach of (Lindberg, in Bernoulli, 15(2):464–474, 2009) who introduced a new parameterization of the Black–Scholes model that allows for an easy solution of the continuous-time Markowitz mean-variance problem. We generalize the results of (Lindberg, in Bernoulli, 15(2):464–474, 2009) to a jump-diffusion market setting and slightly correct the proof and the assertion of the main result. Further, we demonstrate the implications of the Lindberg parameterization for the stock price drift vector in different market settings, analyse the dependence of the optimal portfolio from jump and diffusion risk and finally indicate how to use the method. We particularly also show how the optimal strategy can be obtained with the restricted use of historical data.     

Environmental impacts of changes to healthier diets in Europe

Food consumption causes, together with mobility, shelter and the use of electrical products, most life cycle impacts of consumption. Meat and dairy are among the highest contributors to environmental impacts from food consumption. A healthier diet might have less environmental impacts. Using the E3IOT environmentally extended input output database developed in an EU study on Environmental Impacts of Products (EIPRO), this paper estimates the difference in impacts between the European status quo and three simulated diet baskets, i.e. a pattern according to universal dietary recommendations, the same pattern with reduced meat consumption, and a ‘Mediterranean’ pattern with reduced meat consumption. Production technologies, protein and energy intake were kept constant. Though this implies just moderate dietary shifts, impact reductions of up to 8% were possible in reduced meat scenarios. The slightly changed food costs do not lead to significant first order rebound effects. Second order rebounds were estimated by applying the CAPRI partial equilibrium model. This analysis showed that European meat production sector will most likely respond by higher exports to compensate for losses on the domestic meat market. Higher impact reductions probably would need more drastic diet changes.     

Equilibrium price formation in markets with differentially informed agents

We consider a pure exchange economy with a finite set of types of agents which have incomplete and asymmetric information on the states of nature. Our aim was to describe the equilibrium price formation and analyze how the lack of information may affect the allocation of resources. To do so, we adapt to an asymmetric information scenario a variant of the Shapley–Shubik game introduced by Dubey and Geanakoplos (J Math Econ 39:391–400, 2003 ).     

PAALiativ: Technik als Chance?

Assistenztechnologie im Wohnumfeld — Die Terminalphase des Lebens in h?uslicher Umgebung verbringen zu k?nnen entspricht dem Wunsch der meisten Menschen. In Oldenburg startete mit PAALiativ ein Projekt, mit dem exemplarisch nach M?glichkeiten der technischen Unterstützung für ein selbstbestimmtes Leben Schwerstkranker gesucht wird.