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This article examines the impact of catastrophic hurricane events on income distribution in hurricane states in the United States. Media claims have been made and the perception created that the most damaging impact of hurricanes is on the lowest income population in the affected states. If these claims are true, they may have serious implications for the insurance industry and government policy makers. We develop a panel data, fixed effects econometric model that includes hurricane-impacted states as cross-sections using annual data for a period of almost 100 years. The Gini coefficient is used as a measure of income inequality, and is a function of normalized hurricane economic damages, gross domestic product (GDP), a set of socioeconomic variables that serves as a control, time trend, and cross-sectional dummy variables. Findings indicate that for every 100 billion US dollars in hurricane economic damages there is an increase in income inequality by 5.4 % as measured by Gini coefficient. Political, sociodemographic, and economic variables are also significant. These include such variables as the political party controlling the U.S. Senate, the proportion of nonwhite population by state, and GDP. Time trend is a positive and significant variable, suggesting an increase in income inequality over time. There are significant differences among the states included in the study. Our results demonstrate that different segments of the population are differently impacted by hurricanes and suggest how that differential impact could be considered in future government policies and business decisions, particularly those made by the insurance industry.

This fieldwork looked into historical and cultural traits of the Serbian people and assessed their affect on the integrity of education at the University of Novi Sad, under the scope of the international Bologna Process. The culture is intertwined with specific, ritualized notions of upbringing of formality in its people, as to make the status quo and respect of authority more rigid. The country has been in a downwards spiral ever since the collapse of Yugoslavia, and it has recently been removed from an international body of quality assurance in higher education called ENQA. Before this downfall, education was adamant and absolutist, highly respected and widely recognized. The idea of the fieldwork was to elaborate on how the educational integrity works today at the UoNS, due to so much controversy surrounding it, and to relate it to both the prosperous history it has, and the international Bologna Process.

The public choice model developed in this paper explains how increased external intervention and monitoring may lead to lessening of the intrinsic motivation within transitional economies to pursue reforms as prescribed by the Washington Consensus. This may lead to the slowdown of economic and institutional reforms sometimes followed by a lack of support for reform in popular votes at election time. Conditions under which this situation may occur are identified. The model is empirically tested for the period 1990-2001, encompassing more than fifteen East European countries. Results of the analysis suggest that the impact of external pressure expressed as the amount of U.S. loans on voting outcomes in transitional countries is significant. Consistent with prior expectations, a new class of private landowners and farmers support further privatization and market orientation and consequently vote for Western-oriented parties. Likewise, a new system of market based economies brings along more volatility and uncertainty creating an income based population segmentation and inequality. Higher fertility rates which are typically associated with lower income levels lead to fewer votes going to reformist, pro-market parties. Hence, foreign investors will clearly have to target the more affluent segment of populations in transitional economies for more support.

The paper presents the basic ideas of Aleksandar Bilimovic in the field of economic science which he elaborated in his works in the Serbian language between the two world wars. These are primarily the ideas he developed in his books Drustvo, drzava i privreda (Society, State and Economy) and Uvod u ekonomsku nauku (Introduction to the Economic Science), then in numerous treatises and articles he published in various magazines: Arhiv za pravne i drustvene nauke, Narodno blagostanje, Ekonomist, Srpske knjizevni glasnik and others. Belimovic?s work includes the entire corpus of economic science which is obvious from the review of his most important works in the Serbian language. In them, in addition to the other economic topics, the author specially investigates his opinions about agricultural co-operation. The author also points out to Belimovic?s constant endeavor to take into account the Russian economic thought, too. Due to his great erudition, excellent insight into economic science and profession, richness of ideas, as well as to his understanding and interpretation of economic phenomena, Bilimovic?s opus by far surpassed the national borders and achieved European significance by its value. With his opus, the Serbian economic science was raised above its national boundaries. In the paper in a specific example, the author also points out to Bilimovic?s excellent knowledge of contemporary philosophical theories. At the end, the paper also presents a review of Bilimovic?s scientific and professional engagement outside economic field.

This paper discusses Aleksandar Solovyev?s research which he primarily carried out in Bogisic?s archive in Cavtat, as well as the research including other sources relevant for the legal history of our nation in the Dubrovnik region, in other coastal areas and in the countries in their immediate hinterland; all the documents belong to the period from the 15th till the 19th century. Although he discovered most of these documents in Bogisic?s archive, Solovyev got documents from other sources, too. Solovyev published the greatest part of these materials in the editions of The Serbian Royal Academy, but he also published some treatises and articles in the following magazines: Arhiv za pravne i drustvene nauke, Godisnjica Nikole Cupica and some others. Furthermore, the author particularly underlines the fact that Solovyev - in his introductory texts accompanying his publications - also did the scientific and critical analysis of the collected historical material. Studying Bogisic?s archive in Cavtat, Solovyev also got interested in the very personality of Baltazar Bogisic. In his articles in Arhiv za pravne i drustvene nauke, Solovyev particularly presented his discoveries about Bogisic?s archive, he also found an unknown manuscript of Bogisic?s, the one about a law project written for the rebels from Herzegovina when they rose against the Turks for the liberation of the Serbian nation in 1875. In his collaboration with the Herzegovian rebells, Bogisic expressed his Serbian patriotic feelings, too. As for his nationality, Bogisic felt to be a Serb (?a Serb catholic?, as he used to say), but also a member of the South Slavic nation. Thus Solovyev in one of his articles (in French) described Bogisic?s activity in the elaboration of the law projects for the newly liberated Bulgaria, which remained less known in our country. Discussing Bogisic?s patriotic activity, too, the author also presents other facts about his nationality. Although the results of Solovyev?s research work discussed in this paper were available to our scientific public, our scholars have not written about them so far.