Farmers operate within hazardous environments while conducting their day-to-day tasks, potentially resulting in injury or disability. Disability can serve as a major life-changing event for the farmer, the farm family, and the farm business. In Ireland, the agricultural sector reported the highest incidence of disability, yet there is relatively little known on the impact of agricultural-based disability. In 2007, a questionnaire was appended to the Teagasc (Irish Agricultural and Food Development Authority) National Farm Survey to obtain some metric of the prevalence and impact of disability on Irish farms, in addition to quantifying service/support requirements of farm operators experiencing disability. Almost 5.9% (approximately 6611) of Irish farm operators reported disability, primarily caused through illness/disease. Arthritis (31.4%), back problems (17%), and heart circulatory problems (12.5%) were most frequently reported. The lowest prevalence of disability was found among tillage (1.4%) and dairy (4.1%) farms, with the highest prevalence among cattle farms (7.1%). Family farm income was lower on disability-experiencing farms relative to nondisability farms (123 euros per hectare), with a lower participation in off-farm employment also identified. Many farm operators (approximately 20%) ceased off-farm employment following disability. Discontinuation of off-farm employment can further precipitate family farm income decline, but also place additional pressures on the farm business if quality services/supports are not available. The current provision of services/supports to farm operators experiencing disability is perceived largely insufficient across the entire service/support spectrum from when disability was first experienced through to retirement. Awareness and issues surrounding eligibility were the primary reasons for failing to avail of currently available service/supports.
Private property requires laws for its protection, and laws require a state with enforcing powers. However, governors of states can become too powerful and subjugate individuals and expropriate property. So, as economic historians argue, there is a degree of power of the state, somewhere between all-powerful and completely powerless, that offers the individual just enough protection from both other individuals and the state itself. States with this intermediate degree of power encourage private wealth creation and hence economic growth (Olson, 1993).States over the course of history have typically been too strong to sustain economic growth. Ever since the first civilisations allowed by the agricultural revolution, the power needed to protect the crops and livestock was usurped by those wheedling it to pursue their own ambitions over the ambitions of their populace -first by protecting their power from challenges within and without and then in vanity projects such as palaces, pyramids and plunder. So the consensual form of governance typical in the small hunter-gather tribes gave way after the agricultural revolution to states where very few held power over a great many.Very untypical conditions of a stalemate of power amongst different groups, where neither could gain the upper-hand, developed in England after the Glorious Revolution of 1689 (De Long, 2000). This impasse led the parties to agree a stand-off: they enshrined mutual rights, appointed independent arbiters when in dispute and independent enforcers. So began the first and very limited form of democracy: a 'Bill of Rights' and institutions, such as a judiciary and police, to enforce it. These institutions, designed to protect an individual and his property, were also the institutions to protect the future accrual of wealth. Hence individuals were incentivised to grow their wealth for the first time since the agrarian revolution.England after 1689 witnessed man's extraordinary ability to better his own circumstances
This paper is divided into three parts. Taken together, the three parts intend to provide the reader with an overview of the first 101 years of financial economics, with particular attention on those developments that are of special interest to actuaries. In Section 1, S.F. Whelan attempts to capture the flavour of the subject and, in particular, to give an overview or road map of this discipline, highlighting actuarial input. In Section 2, D.C. Bowie gives a concise and self-contained overview of the Modigliani and Miller insights (or MM Theorems, as they are often known). In Section 3, A.J. Hibbert considers the novel option pricing method proposed by Black, Merton, and Scholes. These two insights are highlights of this newscience, and, in both cases, contradict our intuition.T.S. Elliot, the mathematically trained poet, described the darkness that intercedes between the idea and the action as the ‘shadow’. There is a shadow to be considered between these insights and their application. The demonstration of the results requires, of course, some idealised circumstances, and therefore the extent and degree of their applicability to the non- idealised problems encountered by actuaries requires some delicate considerations. An attempt is made to outline these further considerations.
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