This paper attempts to show why it is highly unlikely that a disaster can become a catastrophe. We first put forward an economic concept of disaster localization. This shows that a localized disaster is unlikely to affect the macro economy in any significant way and that economic development...

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...

Focusing on core-infrastructure capital vis-à-vis productive capital, we propose a macroeconomic method to determine both which type of capital shortage would be constraining potential output and what would be the optimal composition, or optimal ratio between these two types, of capital in any...

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...

The aim of the present study is to assess the effect of public infrastructures on the cost structure of the Chilean economy, and thereby on productivity, differentiating between two key sequential periods. A derived aim is to establish to what extent infrastructure and non-infrastructure...

There are alternative methods of estimating capital stock for a benchmark year. However, these methods are costly and time-consuming, requiring the gathering of much basic information as well as the use of some convenient assumptions and guesses. In addition, a way is needed of checking whether...

This analysis is based on the optimal consistency method (OCM) proposed by Albala-Bertrand (2003), which enables to estimate a capital stock for a benchmark year. This method, in contrast to most current approaches, pays due regards both to potential output and to the productivity of capital....

This paper deals with some structural indicators and their evolution, in China and regions, over the period 1981-2010. We first produce estimates of the optimal productivities of incremental capital and the optimal incremental income elasticity of capital by means of a linear programming...

This paper deals with some structural indicators and their evolution, in China and regions, over the period 1981-2010. We first produce estimates of the optimal productivities of incremental capital and the optimal incremental income elasticity of capital by means of a linear programming...

This analysis is based on the optimal consistency method (OCM) proposed by Albala-Bertrand (2003), which enables to estimate a capital stock for a benchmark year. This method, in contrast to most current approaches, pays due regards both to potential output and to the productivity of capital....