Sustainability: The search for the integral worldview

The sustainability problem is described as a process of recurrent destabilization of societal value orientations or worldviews. These worldviews represent both value orientations with respect to ‘quality of life’ and mental maps about the surrounding world. The many different worldviews which shape society appear to be part of an overall integral worldview which can be deduced from societal enquiries and from the experiences of history and philosophy over many centuries. This integral worldview is defined by the vertical contrast between idealism and materialism and the horizontal contrast between uniformity and diversity. Due to a number of societal and psychological centrifugal forces, worldviews become one-sided and finally end in fundamentalist value orientations which are synonym with overshoot, collapse and crisis. Examples are religious fundamentalism and related wars, communism, nazism, the ecological crisis as well as the recent financial crisis.The solution to these sustainability problems has to be found in the timely recognition and compensation of the destabilizing centrifugal forces. The resulting integral worldview is synonym with ‘human dignity’. The thus defined time independent notion of human dignity defines a new ethical framework and solves the paradox between the needs of present and future generations in Brundtland's original definition of sustainable development.     

General equilibrium and preference free model for pricing options under transformed gamma distribution

The gamma class of distributions encompasses several important distributions, either as special or limiting cases or through simple transformations. Here we derived closed form and preference free European option pricing formulae for various (transformed) gamma distributions under the general equilibrium RNVR framework. The gamma class of distributions is used historically in hydrology for modelling natural events. Our models can be used to price derivatives associated with these natural phenomena, which will help to encourage greater risk sharing through financial securitization. Our pricing formulae are theoretically sound even if the underlyings and the derivative instruments are not (frequently) traded. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 30:409–431, 2010     

The impact of oil price changes on Spanish and euro area consumer price inflation

This paper assesses the impact of oil price changes on Spanish and euro area consumer price inflation. We find that the inflationary effect of oil price changes in both economies is limited, even though crude oil price fluctuations are a major driver of inflation variability. The impact on Spanish inflation is found to be somewhat higher than in the euro area. In both economies, direct effects have increased in the last decade, reflecting the higher expenditure share of households on refined oil products, whereas indirect and second-round effects seem to be losing importance.     

Economic conditions, enforcement, and criminal activities in the district of Abidjan

Based on 1978?C2007 annual data on crimes recorded by the criminal police division and through a simultaneous equations model, we have shown that the probability of apprehension affects negatively the incidence of thefts and homicides as well as the incidence of aggregate crime. We have also provided evidence that exogenous shocks such as the devaluation of the CFA franc, the military coup d??état, and the civil war have significantly influenced criminal activity in Abidjan. The civil war which occurred in C?te d??Ivoire, while driving to a booming of property crimes, has deterred violent crimes given the crackdown effect of temporary massive presence of military and paramilitary forces in the streets of the city of Abidjan. In addition, using a sample of 1,600 households, our inquiry on the likelihood of crime victimization has pointed out that the risk of being victimized of any kind of crime increases with the income; the fact of being displaced due to the civil war and the decrease in the number of police stations in the neighborhood.     

Choosing between Time and State Dependence: Micro Evidence on Firms' Price‐Reviewing Strategies

Because of recent findings based on survey data, it is now well known that firms differ from each other with respect to their price‐reviewing strategies. While some firms review their prices at fixed intervals of time, others prefer to perform price revisions in response to changes in economic conditions. Some theories have been suggested to explain this. However, empirical evidence on the relative importance of the factors that determine the different strategies of firms is virtually non‐existent. In this paper, we help to fill this gap by investigating the factors that explain why firms follow time‐dependent, state‐dependent, or both time‐ and state‐dependent price‐reviewing rules. We find that the strategies of firms vary with firm characteristics that have a bearing on the importance of information costs, with the variability of the optimal price, and with the sensitivity of profits to non‐optimal prices.     

Comparative Computer Approaches to Multi-Outlet Retail Site Location Decisions

This article explores alternative changes that could take place in the technology, methodology, and most importantly, the practice of locational decision-making, and is part of a larger scale project aimed at investigating the practical value of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques for strategic decision-making. The research involves comparing the effectiveness of a number of AI paradigms and modelling devices, both with each other and with more conventional computer models.     

Convergence of Inflationary Shocks: Evidence from the Caribbean

In this paper, we aim to shed some light on the inflation dynamics in the Caribbean. We analyse the inflation rates for twelve countries using various time series methods. The results show that the inflation rates are mean reverting processes and that there is evidence of a convergence club in inflation rates within the area, which contradicts previous studies. Our contribution implies a high degree of similarity in the dynamics of our target countries' inflation rates.     

Insurance companies in Mozambique: a two-stage DEA and neural networks on efficiency and capacity slacks

This article analyses the efficiency of Mozambique insurance companies using a DEA model. Two DEA models are used and a bootstrap approach adopted. Furthermore, the efficiency scores are predicted based on neural networks. The results reveal that Mozambique insurance companies’ output-increasing potentials are severely constrained, particularly in terms of the ceded reinsurance increasing potentials. Policy implications are derived.     

Serving the poor: Multisided mobile service platforms,openness, competition,collaboration and the struggle for leadership

Four billion people at the base of the economic pyramid live on incomes below $3000 a year in local purchasing power, and more often than not, lack consistent access to services, such as water, healthcare, banking or agricultural know-how. Rapid advances in mobile technology offer the potential to mediate access to essential services. Through this research, the answers to the following question were explored: will mobile service platforms bridge the gap between service providers and people living at the base of the pyramid in developing countries? Anchored in interviews with 31 experts in the field of mobile and ICT, qualitative analysis starting from platform leadership to explain the role of mobile service platforms is presented: how operator, device and service provider centric platforms compete, collaborate and open up (or not) for delivering scalable services to the poor. Based on the analysis in this paper, it is portended that although operator centric platforms are in pole position, device centric platform providers, being astute innovators, are positioned to close the lead by presenting alternatives to bridge the gap in developing countries. This paper frames the current debate on M4D through the lens of platform theory, and aims to provide guidance to policy makers to improve access to services for the poor.