We analyse both theoretically and empirically, the factors that influence the amount of humanitarian aid which countries receive when they are struck by natural disasters. Our investigation particularly distinguishes between immediate disaster relief which helps the survival of victims and long...

This article provides a simple proof of the Lorenz dominance criterion for two non-decreasing income transformations. The criterion is extended the most general case, with only very mild restrictions on the form of initial income distribution or the properties of the income transformations.

Paroush and Wolf (1989) modeled output hedging in the presence of basis risk. They showed that (in the absence of scale shift) the optimal hedging and output fall in response to basis risk. However, they used a second-order Taylor's approximation of the utility function. Also, they did not show...

This paper develops a general theoretical framework within which a heterogeneous group taxpayers confront a market that supplies a variety of schemes for reducing tax liability, and uses this framework to explore the impact of a wide range of anti-avoidance policies. Schemes differ in their...

We use Malliavin calculus and the Clark-Ocone formula to derive the hedging strategy of an arithmetic Asian Call option in general terms. Furthermore we derive an expression for the density of the integral over time of a geometric Brownian motion, which allows us to express hedging strategy and...

This paper looks at the evolution of the world wine industry in the period 1961-2005. A particular stylized fact is the appearance of non-traditional producing and exporting countries of wine from the beginning of the nineties. We show that the success of these new producing and exporting...

Cecchetti et al. (2006) develop a method for allocating macroeconomic performance changes among the structure of the economy, variability of supply shocks and monetary policy. We propose a dual approach of their method by borrowing well-known tools from production theory, namely the Farrell...

We study the screening problem that arises in a framework where, initially, the agent is privately informed about both the expected production cost and the cost variability and, at a later stage, he learns privately the cost realization. The specifi?c set of relevant incentive constraints, and...

Untreated wastewater being directly discharged into rivers is a very harmful environmental hazard that needs to be tackled urgently in many countries. In order to safeguard the river ecosystem and reduce water pollution, it is important to have an effluent charge policy that promotes the...

We examine the use of subsidies to R&D in a mixed and a private duopoly market. We show that the socially optimal R&D subsidy is increasing in the degree of spillovers but it is lower in the private duopoly. The optimal R&D subsidy leads to an increase in total R&D and production, however, it...