https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.2307%2F3343168.pdf

Development as Freedom

In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Thinking fast and slow.

We investigate whether income inequality affects subsequent growth in a cross-country sample for 1965-90, using the models of Barro (1997), Bleaney and Nishiyama (2002) and Sachs and Warner (1997), with negative results. We then investigate the evolution of income inequality over the same period and its correlation with growth. The dominating feature is inequality convergence across countries. This convergence has been significantly faster amongst developed countries. Growth does not appear to influence the evolution of inequality over time. Outline

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/81822/1/02-28.pdf

Economic growth and income inequality

NUDGE: IMPROVING DECISIONS ABOUT HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein Penguin Books, 2009, 312 pp, ISBN 978-0-14-311526-7This book is best described formally as a general explanation of and advocacy for libertarian paternalism, a term coined by the authors in earlier publications. Informally, it is about how leaders, systems, organizations, and governments can nudge people to do the things the nudgers want and need done for the betterment of the nudgees, or of society. It is paternalism in the sense that "it is legitimate for choice architects to try to influence people's behavior in order to make their lives longer, healthier, and better", (p. 5) It is libertarian in that "people should be free to do what they like - and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so", (p. 5) The built-in possibility of opting out or making a different choice preserves freedom of choice even though people's behavior has been influenced by the nature of the presentation of the information or by the structure of the decisionmaking system. I had never heard of libertarian paternalism before reading this book, and I now find it fascinating.Written for a general audience, this book contains mostly social and behavioral science theory and models, but there is considerable discussion of structure and process that has roots in mathematical and quantitative modeling. One of the main applications of this social system is economic choice in investing, selecting and purchasing products and services, systems of taxes, banking (mortgages, borrowing, savings), and retirement systems. Other quantitative social choice systems discussed include environmental effects, health care plans, gambling, and organ donations. Softer issues that are also subject to a nudge-based approach are marriage, education, eating, drinking, smoking, influence, spread of information, and politics. There is something in this book for everyone.The basis for this libertarian paternalism concept is in the social theory called "science of choice", the study of the design and implementation of influence systems on various kinds of people. The terms Econs and Humans, are used to refer to people with either considerable or little rational decision-making talent, respectively. The various libertarian paternalism concepts and systems presented are tested and compared in light of these two types of people. Two foundational issues that this book has in common with another book, Network of Echoes: Imitation, Innovation and Invisible Leaders, that was also reviewed for this issue of the Journal are that 1 ) there are two modes of thinking (or components of the brain) - an automatic (intuitive) process and a reflective (rational) process and 2) the need for conformity and the desire for imitation are powerful forces in human behavior. …

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Sustainable Development Goals

Fisheries (in particular small-scale fisheries) provide a vital source of food, employment, and economic well-being for rural people throughout the world. In West Africa several million households along the coast and also inland are critically dependent on fishing for their livelihoods. However, fishing communities are often characterised as being amongst “the poorest of the poor”. The main objective of this paper is to review the major issues relating to the development and management of smallscale fisheries in West Africa and to examine their impacts on the livelihoods of the fisheries-dependent communities of the region. Several major issues are identified, discussed and briefly illustrated using numerical examples or extracts of official documents. Globally, it appears that the fisheries sector, despite its potential role as a powerful lever for poverty reduction, is often neglected by national or supra-national decision-makers. Since 1999, however, a number of international initiatives (sponsored by Donor Agencies) have attempted to overturn this negative perception.

Fisheries development issues and their impacts on the livelihoods of fishing communities in West-Africa: An overview

At present, no clear consensus exists on how to assess resilience interventions in the field. In this paper we propose to measure the impact of the ECOFISH project, the objective of which was to strengthen the resilience of local fishing communities affected by recurrent crises in Bangladesh. The evaluation was based on a difference-in-difference (DiD) framework. The DiD analysis indicates that households who benefited from ECOFISH have a higher propensity to adopt positive responses than non-beneficiaries when hit by a shock. Those beneficiaries also report a statistically higher recovery rate (resilience). The analysis indicates however that the project did not manage to reduce the propensity of households to engage in detrimental coping strategies and that the long-term food and nutritional security of the beneficiaries has not yet visibly improved compared to the control group. Those different results are discussed in the light of the wider literature on resilience evaluation.

/pdf/strengthening-the-resilience-of-vulnerable-communities-1yedmxkecx.pdf

Strengthening the Resilience of Vulnerable Communities: Results from a Quasi-experimental Impact Evaluation in Coastal Bangladesh

In the last two decades resilience has emerged as a promising concept that can help societies and more generally social-ecological systems become less vulnerable to shocks and stressors. As such it has been adopted by a large number of disciplines -from psychology, physics and ecology, to disaster risk reduction, climate change adaption, and humanitarian and food security interventions. However although numerous definitions or measures of resilience have been proposed, those were mainly discipline-centered and, as such, failed to provide an adequate overarching framework. This paper explores the question of the formalisation and measurement of resilience, with the objective to develop a generic metric that applies across the disciplines and to the different interpretations of resilience. Building on the different definitions found in the literature, a typology of five generic categories of resilience responses is proposed, including resistance, coping/absorptive strategies, adaptation, adaptive preference and transformation. Those categories are then reframed into a generic metric, using the viability analysis -a mathematical formalism which builds on dynamic systems and control theory. Theoretical and empirical analyses are then conducted, looking in particular at how inertia and costs associated with the types of responses influence the level of resilience. To illustrate this we draw on two models widely discussed in the resilience literature: the exploitation of renewable resources and the case of lake eutrophication. Both theoretical and numerical analyses demonstrate the relevance of the response typology as a generic framework for resilience but also highlight transformation as a particular case of resilience response to shocks.

A generic metric of resilience from resistance to transformation

Among the many factors that contribute to overexploitation of marine fisheries, the role played by uncertainty is important. This uncertainty includes both the scientific uncertainties related to the resource dynamics or assessments and the uncontrollability of catches. Some recent works advocate for the use of marine reserves as a central element of future stock management. In the present paper, we study the influence of protected areas upon fisheries sustainability through a simple dynamic model integrating non-stochastic harvesting uncertainty and a constraint of safe minimum biomass level. Using the mathematical concept of invariance kernel in a robust and worst-case context, we examine through a formal modeling analysis how marine reserves might guarantee viable fisheries. We also show how sustainability requirement is not necessarily conflicting with optimization of catches. Numerical simulations are provided to illustrate the main findings. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Christophe Béné

Papers

Fisheries development issues and their impacts on the livelihoods of fishing communities in West-Africa: An overview

Strengthening the Resilience of Vulnerable Communities: Results from a Quasi-experimental Impact Evaluation in Coastal Bangladesh

A generic metric of resilience from resistance to transformation

Sustainability of fisheries through marine reserves: a robust modeling analysis

Review of tropical reservoirs and their fisheries in developing countries: The cases of the Lake Nasser Lake Volta and Indo-Gangetic basin reservoirs