Suchergebnisse

As a result of its hurricane exposure, Florida is probably the part of the industrialised world most prone to natural catastrophes. Over the last 20 years the Florida legislator has tried to maintain a situation, where the private insurance sector plays a major role in providing hurricane-insurance. Its attempts to keep such insurance affordable have, however, led to a situation, where the public sector still ends up bearing a large part of the risk. Drawing on the experience of various European countries with mandatory state run catastrophe insurance schemes, we argue that the cost of hurricane insurance for the population could be substantially reduced, if Florida created a similar institution. The massive reduction in sales costs, loss adjustment costs and general administrative costs would allow such a system to work with premiums that are on average 25% lower. The problems of adverse selection which plague the current situation would of course (by definition) be eliminated.

China's $1 trillion One Belt, One Road (OBOR) infrastructure project has significant landscape, socio-economic, and political implications in recipient countries. To date, investigation has focused on Chinese motivation and plans rather than OBOR impact in host nations. This paper examines the programme from the perspective of two Central Asian states—Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan—that are at the heart of OBOR. We identify geographical factors that constrain infrastructure, recognise geopolitical contestation between Russia and China, address historical and cultural factors, and consider issues of institutional capacity and marginality that may be impediments to China's initiative. The discussion then focuses on how OBOR may play out in Central Asian landscapes and suggests how to conceive and address the unprecedented transformation in the region's built environment. Critical issues are that OBOR has not been grounded in the physical geography, practical understanding of OBOR's impacts is missing, and the state-citizen-China nexus remains unexplored. As pivot nations, OBOR implementation in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan will showcase the Chinese programme's strengths and highlight its weaknesses.

It is widely recognized that "market failure" prevents efficient risk sharing in natural disaster insurance. As a consequence, many countries adopted institutional frameworks presenting public sector participation, often praised as public-private partnerships. We define risk selection as a situation where private companies pass insurance of high risk agents on to the public "partner", arguing that this is a potentially important issue in such situations. In order to illustrate our concerns we look at the case of France. We build a simple model that incorporates the main features of the system, such as the uniform premium rate in both high and low risk regions and the existence of a state reinsurer. We show that in our model, risk selection is likely to be present at equilibrium and discuss the policy options available. When comparing with the actual situation in France we find that the "stylized facts" of the system correspond to our results. Additionally, the policies implemented by the government correspond to policies characterized to reduce the potential of risk selection.

The proposed new law for the Swiss National Bank attempts to establish the SNB as an entity, which is practically uncontrolled by the democratic institutions of our country. The proposal has to be fundamentally remodelled, taking into account the following principles: The more independence the SNB has, the stricter should be the rules on transparency and accountability. Decisions having a direct effect on the tax burden of the citizen cannot be left to the discretion of the SNB. The SNB's excess reserves should be reduced by a one shot transfer of ca. 20 billion francs. In future the SNB should distribute most of its profits (roughly 4 billion francs per year), rather than increase its already excessive stock of foreign exchange reserves.

While the extractive industries and related infrastructures are highlighted as key to economic development, they often come at a cost. Most projects involve a network of stakeholder parties; even though developers are allocating more resources to stakeholder engagement, conflict surrounding infrastructure development continues to rise. Whilst the causes of this paradox are numerous, ranging from the increasing demand for natural resources to the limited regulatory capacity of governments in the global south to oversee developers, they also highlight the lack of engagement with effective conflict resolution mechanisms. This paper undertakes a comparative review of 21 existing frameworks or "toolkits" presented by international organizations for avoiding and resolving mining-related conflicts in emerging markets. This review and analysis has four aims: i) to identify the dominant trends in frameworks that address conflict arising from the extractive industry and related infrastructural systems; ii) to identify the weaknesses and limitations of existing frameworks; iii) to assess opportunities for innovation that might increase the adoption of more effective conflict resolution strategies; iv) to forecast how existing frameworks may need to adapt and respond to emerging global shifts in development investments. Addressing these aims will contribute to a better understanding of how conflict resolution discourses, procedures, and strategies function in a sector that is critical to sustainable and equitable development.