Current changes in Latin America include the abandonment of the economic pattern of import substitution, a growing opening of the national economies, a continental wave of political democratization, an apparent economic recovery from the "lost decade" (the 1980s), a growing social polarization,...

An important problem in environmental economics arises from te irreversibility of consuming or destroying certain resources. Extractive resources like oil are a clear example. Even for environmental resources the same seems to be true in a number of environmental cases, for example biodiversity,...

Complexity theory is designed to bring order out of a rough-and- tumble world, something close to every insurance professional's or actuary's heart. Whether applied in the laboratory or as part of a mathematical model, it can do wonderful things . But in the real world it's just what its name...

It has been said that insurance is the last of the financial services to accept radical change (Denney [1995-1996]). Yet there has been a fundamental shift in the geographic location and in the organization of the reinsurance industry in the last six years (Chichilnisky [19966]). Global...

The property catastrophe reinsurance industry faces a major challenge. Since 1989, climatic volatility has produced unprecedented insured losses of $43 billion, $18 billion of which were from Hurricane Andrew alone. A surge of insurer defaults and dramatic changes in capacity and pricing have...

This chapter focusses on global environmental risks such as climate change, an issue that must be confronted as we move into the future. It proposes sound principles of risk management that make sense in today's society generally, going beyond their role of averting and hedging climate risks....

"The global environment is a matter of great importance to all nations.... Yet differences of opinions prevail about the main problems, and about the institutions to manage cooperation....The problem of finding carbon abatement policies is complicated by the scientific uncertainty about the...

This paper reviews a range of issues relating to tradable carbon dioxide quotas. It considers the economic principles on which they are based, compares them with alternative carbon abatement policies, and reviews many aspects of how tradable quotas would be implemented in practice.