European and world energy perspectives: the 1980s and 1990s

Substantial successes have been achieved since 1973 in increasing energy efficiency and substituting other fuels for oil. However, reliance on oil and oil imports remains high. The temporary easing on the oil market must not lead to complacency as any relaxation in energy policy efforts may well contribute to provoking the next oil price shock.     

Youth leisure careers during post‐communist transitions in the South Caucasus

This paper reports findings from interview surveys with 1215 respondents, split between the capital cities (Yerevan, Baku and Tbilisi) and one non‐capital region (Kotayk, Aran‐Mugan and Shida Kartli) in each of the three South Caucasus countries – Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The respondents, who were drawn from households in larger representative household social surveys, were all born between 1970 and 1976 and were aged 31–37 at the time of the fieldwork in 2007. Their life stage transitions from childhood to adulthood had roughly coincided with their countries’ transitions from communism to post‐communism. Data was collected on the samples’ participation in selected leisure activities from age 16 to 30. Similar data was collected on the samples’ careers in education, the labour market, housing and family relationships. This information enables us to identify typical leisure careers and how their development was affected by events in other life domains, all in the context of the macro‐changes that were in process in each of the research locations. The evidence enables both personal leisure careers and aggregate leisure trends in different socio‐demographic groups to be identified This shows that changes in leisure behaviour between age 16 and 30 were neither widening nor narrowing the differences between the leisure of males and females, or those who married and became parents on the one hand, then, on the other, those who were still single and childless at age 30. In contrast, differences by place, and by social class, grew progressively wider, thus raising the social costs of geographical and social mobility. Changes in leisure behaviour between age 16 and 30 were separating young adults into those who participated in little, if any, structured out‐of‐home leisure, whose main leisure spending, if any, was on alcohol and tobacco (typically consumed in homes and neighbourhoods), and those whose leisure was characterised by relatively high and sustained participation in sport, consumption of high culture, and going out to bars, cafes, cinema, discos, etc.     

Heinrich von Storch's innovative contributions to economics

Heinrich von Storch was a classical economist of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century; he was of German descent and of Russian nationality; his main work was written in French. This paper tries to present the essence of Storch's innovative ideas and contrasts them with contemporary British and French economic thinking on value, land rent, foreign trade, money and currency, “inner goods,” and development. It is argued that Storch was an economist of moderate impact on literature but of high professional relevance.     

IPOs and IFRS in European exchange-regulated markets: A research note

This research note aims to enrich our understanding of reporting incentives of firms listed in European exchange-regulated markets. Many initial public offerings (IPOs) in Europe are within exchange-regulated markets where firms are allowed to choose between local GAAP and IFRS. Therefore, this research note describes the regulatory environment and investigates the choice to voluntarily adopt IFRS within European exchange-regulated markets. Overall, less than 20% of the firms voluntarily adopt IFRS and voluntary IFRS adoption upon IPO is positively associated with firm size, foreign firms, stocks offered to institutional investors prior to the IPO, and a future migration to an EU-regulated market.     

Evaluating Life Expectancy Evaluations

The quality of life expectancy estimates is one key consideration for an investor in life settlements. The predominant metric for assessing this quality is the so-called A-to-E ratio, which relies on a comparison of the actual to the predicted number of deaths. In this article, we explain key issues with this metric: In the short run, it is subject to estimation uncertainty for small and moderately sized portfolios; and, more critically, in the long run, it converges to 100% even if the underwriting is systematically biased. As an alternative, we propose and discuss a set of new metrics based on the difference in (temporary) life expectancies. We examine the underwriting quality of a leading U.S. life expectancy provider based on this new methodology.