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Natural Disasters
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Natural Disasters
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What is a 'Complex Humanitarian Emergency'? An Analytical Essay
The prevailing usage of the concept of complex humanitarian emergency, even if valuable, is often fuzzy and misleading, and rarely articulated in a consistent framework, which could be used advantageously for research, interdisciplinary exchange, and policy making and analysis. We analyse critically the prevailing usage of the concept, and end up by setting up a more consistent and all embracing definition. Both the analysis and the proposed definition are based on a general analytical framework, coined disaster situation, we proposed a few years back in connection to natural disasters. The main conclusion is that the mostly implicit conceptual usage of the term, rather than the term itself, is akin to that of a disaster situation. As such, it can be used flexibly enough by various disciplines, especially from a political economy perspective, to design research, advance knowledge and propose policies within an analytical framework which is more consistent and systematic than that currently used.
The Impact of Public Infrastructure on the Productivity of the Chilean Economy
The aim of this study is to assess the effect of the change in infrastructure capital on the cost structure of the Chilean economy, and, thereby, on productivity, differentiating between two key institutional periods. A further aim is to establish the extent to which infrastructure capital formation affects private capital. The authors use an econometric estimation of the cost elasticity of infrastructure. Conclusions indicate that an increased infrastructure capital reduces the production cost of the economy, thereby, increasing productivity, mostly in the second period. In turn, especially in this latter period, infrastructure capital formation appears to assert both a positive cost-share effect on private capital and a negative cost-share effect on labor. These effects can be explained to a large extent by the significant differences between the institutional structures of the two consecutive periods studied.
The Impact of Disaggregated Infrastructure Capital on the Productivity Growth of the Chilean Economy
The aim of this study is to estimate the productivity contribution of the main components of the infrastructure capital to the Chilean economy, over the 1960-2000 period. We develop a cost function framework that allows us to decompose the growth of total factor productivity into relevant contributions, which are then estimated via a translog function. Our estimates indicate that infrastructure capital was on the whole cost saving, but enhanced only moderately the productivity of the Chilean economy. Investment in electricity infrastructure systematically managed to tap such cost savings. This was also important for transport infrastructures over the 1990s, although it systematically failed for telecommunications. But the large contribution of economies of scale to total factor productivity might have also been indirectly stimulated by infrastructure in complex societal and economic ways.
Infrastructure Shortage
We propose a method to estimate both whether there is an overall infrastructure shortage and the optimal share of infrastructure in gross fixed capital formation (GFCF). This is based on a two-gap model and linear programming, and is illustrated with the case of Mexico (1950-1985). The results show that Mexico appears to have started with an appropriate share of core infrastructures in GFCF. Then, there would have been an infrastructure shortage up until 1964, and an infrastructure surplus there after. It also shows that the optimal coefficient of infrastructure investment-to-optimal output would have been around 4.5 per cent, and that each unit of infrastructure would have optimally supported over three units of GFCF. A macroeconomic shortage does not however mean that there would be a shortage everywhere, but it does imply that the economy as a whole would be in a net state of shortage. So our method may at least provide an appropriate context within which more focused analysis may be attempted.
The Epistemology of Disasters and Social Change
An earthquake in Mexico City spurs the rise of democracy. A plague in South Africa lays the foundations for apartheid. A terrorist attack on New York City triggers massive shifts in global security. A global pandemic sets the stage for the largest civil rights protests in generations. Beyond their physical impact, disasters assault our certainty and shape a narrow space to alter the structure of what we believe. That change can lead us toward disinformation and authoritarianism, or it can lead us toward greater solidarity and human rights. It all depends on the choices we make as we live through crisis; on how, in fact, we choose to know each other. The Epistemology of Disasters and Social Change draws on social epistemology, disaster sociology, psychology and feminist philosophy to investigate how disasters function as cauldrons of social transformation, for good and ill. We wrestle with how disasters change us, moment by moment, and provide new strategies to help these tragic eventsproduce positive social transformation, leading to a brighter future during this century of crisis.
The Elgar Companion to Development Studies
If handbooks can be inspiring, this is it! Like a true companion, it takes in its stride conversations both big and small. Its entries do not just present an international and multidisciplinary mix, but true to life they work on several different scales. And, importantly, the book makes its authority evident. For it is like an extended website, but with all the added advantages of an encyclopaedia that actually tells you about the authors and the sources on which they have drawn. The resulting compilation is highly intelligent, thoughtful and above all usable. Dame Marilyn Strathern, University of Cambridge, UK The Elgar Companion to Development Studies is a major production in the developme...
