The feminization of poverty: the demographic factor and the composition of economic growth

The concept of the feminization of poverty in the United States is examined from a demographic perspective, in particular by a comparative analysis of poverty among female-headed and other-headed households. The author concludes that the growth of female-headed households has been an important factor in the feminization of poverty and that the gap in relative affluence between female-headed and other households is increasing. She also notes that female-headed households suffer most from economic downturns because of sex segregation in the work force.     

A stable climate or economic growth?

The 2015 UN Paris Agreement reinforced and declared compatible the two goals of avoiding dire climate change and maintaining global economic growth, and it specified that technological innovation is ‘critical’ to this joint achievement. Unfortunately, any confidence that near-term global economic growth is consistent with a stabilized climate is severely undermined by empirical evidence. Despite the rapid increase of alternative energies in recent decades, global GDP growth continues to require burning greater quantities of climate-destabilizing fossil fuels. The dim outlook for sufficiently reducing CO₂ while maintaining economic growth is underscored by global data and Germany specific data on the decoupling of GDP from CO₂. This paper summarizes pertinent climate science, substantiates the dependence of economic growth on fossil fuels, and uses the Kaya identity to demonstrate the unfavorable prospects for reducing CO₂ while maintaining GDP growth.     

Stock price distributions with stochastic volatility: an analytic approach

We study the stock price distributions that arise when pricesfollow a diffusion process with a stochastically varying volatilityparameters. We use analytic techniques to derive an explicitclosed-form solution for the case when volatility is drivenby an arithmetic Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (or AR1) process. We thenapply our results to two related problems in the finance literature:(i) options pricing in a world of stochastic volatility, and(ii) the relationship between stochastic volatility and thenature of 'fat tails' in stock price distributions.     

Facilitator‐based interactive video as a means of assisting businesses to foster better relations with neighbouring communities

South Africa's new dynamic social environment calls for innovation to develop interaction between businesses and communities to ensure meaningful corporate social responsibility programmes. This research note examines the use of facilitator‐based interactive video, in the context of the RDP, as a communication channel for stimulating free, informal dialogue between businesses and their neighbouring communities to encourage communities to care for their natural environment and in so doing improve their quality of life.