Does foreign aid reduce extreme poverty in Peru? Under a quatitative analysis the paper shows big doubts for this hypothesis. Donor fragmentation and inadequate planification are two drivers in the explanation. Impact evaluations are necessary and Peru has enough techical capacity to carry on...

Although the literature on aid effectiveness is vast, most of it is based on cross-country studies and does not address the Mediterranean countries as a especial group. To fill this gap, this paper describes the main structural characteristics of overseas development assistance (ODA). ODA is...

Recent studies and approaches to foreign aid effectiveness have concentrated on its impact on economic growth. But aid’s main goal is poverty reduction, not economic growth. In this paper, aid’s impact on poverty, growth, and inequality are analyzed. A 97 country sample is used for the...

This article defines impact assessment and evaluation while comparing three different approaches. First, randomized evaluations or random control trials, which aim to maximize quantitative accuracy and solve selection bias. Second, non-experimental methods, where randomization is not possible....

In explaining economic phenomena, economic analysis concentrates on selected influences and fixes the host of other factors under a ceteris paribus clause. This view, which goes back to Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), is developed in the first part of the book. Aggregation is viewed as a particular...

Life annuities provide a guaranteed income for the remainder of the recipient’s lifetime, and therefore, annuitization presents an important option when choosing an adequate investment strategy for the retirement ages. While there are numerous research articles studying annuities from a...

Even 50 years after Modigliani/Miller’s irrelevance theorem, the basic question of how firms choose their capital structure remains unclear. This survey paper aims at summarizing and discussing corresponding recent developments in empirical capital structure research, which, in our view, are...

In 2003, Swiss Re introduced a mortality-based security designed to hedge excessive mortality changes for its life book of business. The concern was apparently brevity risk, i.e., the risk of premature death. The brevity risk due to a pandemic is similar to the property risk associated with...

New approaches in health care, such as e.g. Integrated Delivery Systems, affect the role and tasks of medical suppliers. More and more, medical suppliers are incorporated into the process of guiding patients to medical specialists and hospitals and thus managing the course of disease. In this...