1,721,400 research outputs found
Distortions in aid allocation of United Nations flash appeals: Evidence from the 2015 Nepal earthquake
No full textWe examine the role of local need and various distortions in the design and implementation of United Nations flash appeal triggered in response to the destructive 2015 Nepal earthquake. Specifically, we investigate the extent to which the allocation of this humanitarian assistance follows municipalities' affectedness and their physical and socio-economic vulnerabilities, as rapidly reducing suffering is the intended goal of flash appeals. We then analyze potential ethnic, religious, and political distortions. We alternatively consider the proposed project number, the proposed financial amount, and the subsequent funding decision by aid donors. Our results show that aid allocation is associated with geophysical estimates of the disaster's destructiveness, but shows little regard for the specific socio-economic and physical vulnerabilities conditional on destruction. It is worrisome that the allocation of the flash appeal commitments favors municipalities dominated by higher castes and disadvantages those with a greater distance to the Nepali capital Kathmandu
Distortions in Aid Allocation of United Nations Flash Appeals: Evidence From the 2015 Nepal Earthquake
No full textThe Creative-Destructive Force of Hurricanes Evidence from Technological Adoption in Colonial Jamaican Sugar Estates
No full textWhile in the early part of the 19th century Jamaica was one of the world’s leading sugar producers, the abolition of slavery, the flooding of sugar markets with cheap European beet sugar, and the equalization and finally elimination of sugar import duties across the British empire led to a need for more efficient ways to produce sugar. However, it has been widely noted that Jamaica sugar estates were late in adopting more efficient production techniques, arguably due to inadequate financing. This paper investigates what role the destructive forces of hurricanes may have played in inducing Jamaica to finally modernize its sugar production. To this end we combine a georeferenced exhaustive data set of Jamaican sugar estates with a measure of localized hurricane damage constructed from historical hurricane tracks over the period 1882 to 1930. Our econometric analysis shows that hurricane strikes increased the probability that a surviving estate upgraded its sugar processing technology, particularly when the price of sugar was high and the price of the other main exporting crop (banana) was low. Additionally, while a government hurricane loan program working through local loan banks did help plantations to adopt new machinery, this depended on the damage not being too large
The Ambiguous Effect of Minimum Wages on Workers and Total Hours
Full text linkWe model a standard competitive labour market where firms choose combinations of workers and hours per worker to produce output. If one assumes that the scale of production has no impact on hours per worker, then the change in the number of workers and hours per worker resulting from a minimum wage are inversely related. We also demonstrate that total hours worked at the firm may rise if there are small fixed costs to hiring workers.Minimum wages, hours, employment
A hurricane wind risk and loss assessment of Caribbean agriculture
Full text linkInternational audienceAbstract Hurricanes act as large external shocks potentially causing considerable damage to agriculture in the Caribbean. While a number of studies have estimated their historic economic impact, arguably the wider community and policy makers are more concerned about their future risk and potential losses, since this type of information is useful for disaster preparedness and mitigation strategy and policy. This paper implements a new approach to undertaking a quantitative wind risk and loss assessment of agriculture in Caribbean island economies. The authors construct an expected loss function that uses synthetically generated, and historical, hurricane tracks within a wind field model that takes cropland exposure derived from satellite data into consideration. The results indicate that expected wind losses are potentially large but vary considerably across the region, where the smaller islands are considerably more likely to be negatively impacted. Moreover, we find that the structure of the agricultural sector can be important in terms of vulnerability
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Preserving local biodiversity through crop diversification
Full text linkUsing the case study of birds and food crops, we investigate whether diversifying crop production can enhance preservation of local biodiversity. To this end we combine annual bird survey data, high resolution land use data, and phylogenetic trees to create a landscape level panel data set covering the conterminous United States for over a decade. Our econometric analysis shows that greater local food crop hetereogeneity increases local avian diversity, although this is spatially limited. Supplementary county level data provides evidence that more food crop diversity is unlikely to be at the cost of lower revenues
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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