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Ho Chi Minh City faces significant and growing flood risk. Recent risk reduction efforts may be insufficient as climate and socio-economic conditions diverge from projections made when those efforts were initially planned. This study demonstrates how robust decision making can help Ho Chi Minh City develop integrated flood risk management strategies in the face of such deep uncertainty. Robust decision making is an iterative, quantitative, decision support methodology designed to help policy makers identify strategies that are robust, that is, satisfying decision makers' objectives in many plausible futures, rather than being optimal in any single estimate of the future. This project used robust decision making to analyze flood risk management in Ho Chi Minh City's Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe canal catchment area. It found that the soon-to-be-completed infrastructure may reduce risk in best estimates of future conditions, but it may not keep risk low in many other plausible futures. Thus, the infrastructure may not be sufficiently robust. The analysis further suggests that adaptation and retreat measures, particularly when used adaptively, can play an important role in reducing this risk. The study examines the conditions under which robust decision making concepts and full robust decision making analyses may prove useful in developing countries. It finds that planning efforts in developing countries should at minimum use models and data to evaluate their decisions under a wide range of conditions. Full robust decision making analyses can also augment existing planning efforts in numerous ways.

Adaptation --- Climate change --- Decision-making under uncertainty --- Flood risk management --- Long-lived infrastructure investments --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth

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Transport corridors can generate wider economic benefits and costs through their effects on a potentially diverse set of development outcomes, such as economic growth, poverty, jobs, equity, environmental quality, and economic resilience. To advance understanding of how corridors could generate wider economic benefits, this paper undertakes a quantitative review of the literature that estimates the economic benefits of large transport infrastructure projects. It conducts a meta-analysis of 234 estimated impacts found in 78 studies. It focuses on roads, rails, and waterways because transport corridors based on these modes have clearer potential for economic spillovers than, for example, airline routes. The conceptual structure for the review is guided by a simple canonical model describing the policy maker's problem in maximizing the net wider economic benefits of corridors. The meta-analysis confirms that characteristics of individual studies, as well as the placement and design of the transport infrastructures systematically influence the findings of the corridor studies. It also shows that, on average, estimated impacts of corridor interventions on economic welfare and equity tend to be beneficial, while they are often detrimental for environmental quality, and possibly also for social inclusion. Because, around this average, impacts vary widely, policy makers could use complementary policies and institutions to mitigate potential trade-offs and support losers. To clarify the nature and extent of these trade-offs and varied impacts across locales and population groups, much more research is required.

Economic Growth --- Equity --- Infrastructure Investments --- International Economics and Trade --- Job Creation --- Meta-Analysis --- Resilience --- Technology Industry --- Technology Innovation --- Trade & Transport --- Trade Facilitation --- Transport --- Transport Economics Policy and Planning --- Transport Indicators

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The purpose of this dissertation is to show to what extent the Solvency II regulation has impacted the insurers in Belgium by looking at their costs and net worth, but also at the impact Solvency II had on the real performance of insurers portfolios and their ability to remain attractive for the insured. The study is designed to reflect how affected the returns of insurers are by management fees in comparison with a market portfolio of similarly risky characteristics, composed of ETFs. Some major finds are that the insurers performance are way below those of the market and that the government tax incentives are too small in order to make a significant difference. Also, Belgium stands out as the country in western Europe in which returns of funds are the most affected by fees. As solutions, measures should be taken by the regulators in order to make the impact of fees more easily comprehensible by pension products subscribers. Also, an answer which would benefit both the insured, the insurers and the economy as a whole is presented; through the use of infrastructure investments.

Solvency II --- Pension --- Retirement --- Insurance companies --- Long-term investment --- Alternative investment --- Fees impact --- Government incentives --- Tax reliefs --- Infrastructure investments --- Economic growth --- Performance comparison --- Risk comparison --- branch 21 --- branch 23 --- guaranteed returns --- long-term savings products --- pension funds --- real returns --- real performance --- management fees of pension products --- ETF --- ETF portfolio --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Finance

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Since we introduced the term "middle-income trap" in 2006, it has become popular among policy makers and researchers. In May 2015, a search of Google Scholar returned more than 3,000 articles including the term and about 300 articles with the term in the title. This paper provides a (non-exhaustive) survey of this literature. The paper then discusses what, in retrospect, we missed when we coined the term. Today, based on developments in East Asia, Latin America, and Central Europe during the past decade, we would have paid more attention to demographic factors, entrepreneurship, and external institutional anchors. We would also make it clearer that to us, the term was as much the absence of a satisfactory theory that could inform development policy in middle-income economies as the articulation of a development phenomenon. Three-quarters of the people in the world now live in middle-income economies, but economists have yet to provide a reliable theory of growth to help policy makers navigate the transition from middle- to high-income status. Hybrids of the Solow-Swan and Lucas-Romer models are not unhelpful, but they are poor substitutes for a well-constructed growth framework.

Advanced countries --- Advanced country --- Agriculture --- Balance sheet --- Banking --- Bankruptcy --- Barriers --- Benchmark --- Benchmarks --- Capital --- Capital account --- Capital accumulation --- Capital flow --- Capital investment --- Capital investments --- Capital markets --- Carbon emissions --- Central bank --- Climate change economics --- Closed economies --- Comparative advantage --- Competition --- Competitiveness --- Currency --- Currency risk --- Customers --- Decentralization --- Democracy --- Demographic --- Deregulation --- Developing countries --- Development --- Development economics --- Development policy --- Dividend --- Economic development --- Economic developments --- Economic geography --- Economic growth --- Economic outlook --- Economic performance --- Economic progress --- Economic rents --- Economic research --- Economic structures --- Economic theory & research --- Economics --- Economy --- Efficient capital --- Elasticity --- Emerging economies --- Emerging markets --- Entry point --- Environmental sustainability --- Equity --- Exchange --- Exchange rate --- Exchange rates --- Expectations --- Exports --- External finance --- Externalities --- Federal reserve --- Financial crisis --- Financial markets --- Financial sector --- Flexible exchange rates --- Foreign direct investment --- Foreign investors --- Foreign markets --- Free trade --- Future --- GDP --- GDP per capita --- Global economic prospects --- Globalization --- Goods --- Governance --- Growth models --- Growth potential --- Growth rate --- Growth rates --- Growth theories --- Growth theory --- Human capital --- Incentives --- Income --- Income levels --- Incomes --- Industrialization --- Inequality --- Infrastructure investments --- Institutional capacity --- Institutional infrastructure --- Intellectual property --- Interest --- International finance --- International trade --- Investment --- Investments --- Investors --- Knowledge economy --- Labor market --- Labor markets --- Labor policies --- Liberalization --- Liquidity --- Low-income countries --- Macroeconomic management --- Macroeconomic performance --- Macroeconomics and economic growth --- Market conditions --- Market prices --- Markets --- Mic traps --- Middle income countries --- Middle-income countries --- Middle-income country --- Middle-income economies --- Monetary policy --- Money market --- National income --- Natural resources --- Open economies --- Patents --- Per capita income --- Per capita incomes --- Political economy --- Political power --- Poverty reduction --- Price --- Prices --- Private sector development --- Productivity --- Productivity growth --- Property rights --- Protectionism --- Public policy --- Rapid growth --- Real estate --- Regional integration --- Rent --- Risk management --- Safety nets --- Share --- Social capital --- Social protections and labor --- Social safety nets --- Startups --- Structural change --- Sustainable development --- Taxes --- Technological change --- Theory --- Total factor productivity --- Total factor productivity growth --- Trade --- Trade diversion --- Trade liberalization --- Trade negotiations --- Trade policy --- Trends --- Unemployment --- Unemployment rates --- Urbanization --- Value --- Value added --- Variables --- Venture capital --- Volatility --- Wage growth --- Wages --- World development indicators --- WTO