In this paper authors present a preliminary approach to the evaluation of policies and projects based on current thinking on cost benefit analysis and real option methodology and the authors' recent work on the same subject. Authors start from the assumption that economic agents undertake...

This paper tests the hypothesis that portfolio diversification can increase the threat of systemic financial risk. The paper first provides a theoretical rationale for the possibility that systemic risk may be increased by the proliferation of financial instruments that lead operators to hold...

This article analyzes the causes of the evolution of market forms, starting from the idea that a specific type of non public agents: the “institutional entrepreneurs" may be at the origin of social systems' “push from below” to induce institutional change. This idea is developed in a...

This paper tests the hypothesis that portfolio diversification can increase the threat of systemic financial risk. The paper provides first a theoretical rationale for the possibility that systemic risk may be increased by the proliferation of financial instruments that lead operators to hold...

This report illustrates the application of a (relatively) new method to guide decision making under high (and unknowable) levels of uncertainty. The approach allows for the identification of robust policy options that are economically beneficial under different scenarios and varying levels...

This paper investigates the recent evolution of the oil price, with the objective to analyze the main drivers that during last fifteen years have led the unstable path and the volatility persistence in the international oil market. We assume that the oil price is composed by two components,...

In this paper, we explore the effects of dynamic uncertainty on the risk management of regulated industries and emission market. We consider as major sources of uncertainty the stochastic growth of demand for the industry output (e.g. electric energy) and the ensuing lack of information on the...

The paper illustrates a theoretical model of real option value applied to the problem of land development.Making use of the 1998-2001 Kyrgyz Household Budget Survey, we show that when the hypothesis of decreasing return to scale holds, the relation between the threshold value of revenue per...

Society often sets social standards that define thresholds of damage to society or the environment above which compensation must be paid to the state or other parties. In this paper, we analyze the interdependence between the use of social standards and investment evaluation under dynamic...

This book surveys and discusses some of the main theoretical issues raised by adaptation to climate changes and describes in detail an empirical case study on the metrics and the estimates of related costs and benefits. The book argues that a basic distinction should be made between adaptation...