Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimal Sequential Investment When Capital is Not Readily Reversible

When investment opportunities arrive one at a time and are reviewed sequentially, a corporation's optimal policy differs from a standard net present value rule if the corporation exercises control over an industry state variable and control is costly. The first condition presupposes a degree of market power for the firm; the second occurs if corporate investment decisions are imperfectly reversible. To address the problem of optimal investment in this context, a firm's investment decisions are modeled as a Markov reward process. The causes of economic irreversibility are discussed and general propositions concerning the optimal investment policy are derived. These propositions are then applied to the optimization of an exploration program by an oligopolistic firm (a price leader). Under particular demand and distributional assumptions, solutions for the optimal decision rule and the value of the exploration program are obtained and their properties examined. CURRENT INVESTMENT MAY AFFECT future opportunities by creating "growth opportunities" (as defined by Myers [16]; see also Spence [25]), or by reducing the value of an existing opportunity set. Despite the known potential for these interactions, capital budgeting techniques such as net present valuation, scenario planning, and Monte Carlo simulation focus exclusively on the "stand alone" value of an investment. The capacity for modeling interactions is present in the multiperiod models of Merton [16], Bogue and Roll [5], and others. ' The absence of applications however, is evidence that actual economic interactions between current and future opportunities are not well understood. This paper develops a model of a firm facing a sequence of interdependent growth opportunities. Opportunities have positive net present values because the firm exercises market power in its product market; current investment changes the value of future opportunities through its effect on a product market variable. The model is used to examine the impact of demand, industry structure, and technology on optimal investment rules and on the value of aggregate growth
Working Capital Management Practices and Profitability of AIM Listed SMEs

This paper reports the results of an investigation of the effect of Working Capital Management (WCM) practices on profitability of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), from the perspective of financial directors. Specifically, I look at their WCM target level practices, WCM alteration frequency and WCM strategy practices. The analyses are based on questionnaire distributed to 248 AIM listed SMEs. The paper employs OLS regression on responses from 72 managers of AIM listed SMEs. The results show that the WCM practices of AIM listed SMEs managers have an effect on profitability. However, the results show that given the limited resources of SMEs, the main focus of managers should be on the setting of specific target level for WCM so as to increase profitability.
The Profitability and Size of United Kingdom Companies, 1960-74

I. The time period studied is I960-74. 2. Greater attention is paid to the inter-temporal variability of profitability, which was previously studied only for a restricted range of industries and for one measure variability. 3. A greater variety of profitability and size measures is used. This is due to the fact that, since the I967 Companies Act, companies have had a statutory obligation to publish aggregate sales and wages, the latter enabling us to estimate value added.
The emerging EU peacebuilding framework: confirming or transcending liberal peacebuilding?

The European Union (EU) is now emerging as a major actor in regional and global peacebuilding. Yet its peacebuilding approach and practices are subject to some significant and familiar contradictions. In this article, we identify the basis for what may become an ‘EU peacebuilding framework’ (EUPF), and argue that, while it aspires to a ‘just and durable peace’ including practical tools and a normative framework, these need to be set in critical relief. The EU's nascent approach to building peace is compared and contrasted with the evolving liberal peacebuilding consensus and the much criticized statebuilding project which has recently emerged. This is evaluated against recent research focusing on developing a more sophisticated form of contextually relevant peacebuilding. Finally, we assess how the embryonic EUPF might contribute to the development of a just and durable peace, and ask what sorts of issues and dimensions this raises.
Analysing Heterogeneity in Global Production Technology and TFP: The Case of Manufacturing

In this paper we ask how technological differences in manufacturing production across countries can best be modeled when using a standard production function approach. We emphasise the importance of allowing for differences in the impact of observables and unobservables across countries, as well as of data time-series properties. Our novel twostage estimator, similar to the Pesaran (2006) Common Correlated Effects approach, can account for these matters. Empirical results and diagnostic testing provide strong support for technology heterogeneity. Results are supported when we adopt an econometric approach allowing for reverse causality. In the light of these findings the interpretation of regression intercepts as TFP levels collapses and we introduce an alternative measure.
Measuring the New Economy: An International Comparative Perspective

The advances made in the production and use of information and communication technology (ICT) during the past decades may have potentially large effects for long term economic growth. Indeed the substantial acceleration in real GDP growth in many OECD countries, but in particular in the United States, during the second half of the 1990s has led to suggestions that a “new economy” has emerged. In this new economy the old economic rules were supposed to have become invalid. For example, traditional concerns about the limits of maximum production capacity might disappear as the marginal costs of producing ICT goods and services are virtually nil. Moreover, the trade-off between inflation and unemployment could be reduced due to a more efficient inventory management.
The South African risk-free rate anomaly

International tests of the suitability of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) found that the minimum return required by investors implied by the model exceeded the risk-free proxy yield. In contrast, similar tests in South Africa found that the minimum required return was not significantly different from the risk-free proxy return. This study sought to resolve this apparent anomaly by employing direct and indirect approaches to estimate the minimum return required by investors. It found that, in keeping with international evidence, the minimum required rate of return exceeded that of the risk-free rate proxy; whilst the minimum-variance zero-beta portfolio return closely approximated the minimum required return. The implications of these findings for researchers and practitioners using the CAPM are discussed. Key words: Capital Asset Pricing Model, zero-beta portfolio, risk-free rate, required rate of return.
Institutional roots of economic decline: lessons from Italy

Abstract The economic decline of Italy between the mid-1990s and the outset of the financial crisis is a critical case in European political economy because its model of capitalism was deeply reformed at the time when its decline commenced. This paper argues that the Italian economic stagnation cannot be attributed to the lack of market-friendly reforms in a globalized economic context, as argued by previous literature. Instead, Italian economic decline is a consequence of institutional change which on the one hand has destroyed previous institutional complementarities, and on the other hand has led to an incoherent, or ‘hybrid,’ capitalist setting. Under the lenses of the Varieties of Capitalism approach, this paper reviews the main reforms in the fields of corporate governance and finance as well as in the labor market. It shows that such reforms established new institutions alternatively apt to support both strategic coordination and market coordination, resulting in institutional incoherence, and mixed incentives. In the short-run, incoherent reforms have reduced the availability of capital to SMEs; in the longer-run, they failed to give actors incentives to pursue innovation. This paper contributes theories of economic growth/decline focused on the supply-side of the economy and it is compatible with other – non-rival – explanations focused on the demand-side.
The firms that feed industrial districts: A return to the Italian source

Italian industrial districts comprise a great variety of firms and are criss-crossed by various networks and business groups. Although the vast majority of industrial district firms are relatively small, it is a mistake to assume that they are organizationally symmetrical and that they mimic the supposedly dominant norms of the communities in which they are located. Larger firms frequently organize production among groups of smaller firms, introduce technological innovations and expand existing markets. Copyright 1999 by Oxford University Press.
Friendship Patterns between International and Local Undergraduates in a Malaysian Public Institution of Higher Learning

The number of international students choosing Malaysia as a destination to further their studies is steadily growing. This phenomenon has urged researchers to look for ways to make their study experience in foreign countries more fruitful. One significant area of research has focused on the friendship patterns between international and local students. Research has found that international students often have more friends from their home country and other countries and not the host country. The current study examined the friendship patterns between these groups of students based a survey completed by 63 international undergraduates. It is hoped that this study would be able to provide insights to the local students on the needs of international students in their desire to make friends with local students. Furthermore, the education institutions can be called upon to ensure international undergraduates have a satisfying experience in the context of their friendships with local students.
“Certain Death” from Storm Surge: A Comparative Study of Household Responses to Warnings about Hurricanes Rita and Ike

AbstractThis study examines the effect of an unusual “certain death” warning message on Galveston, Harris, and Jefferson County, Texas, residents’ expectations of storm surge damage and evacuation decisions during Hurricane Ike. The effect of this message was tested by comparing questionnaire data collected after Hurricane Ike to similar data collected 3 yr earlier after Hurricane Rita. If the certain death message had an effect, one would expect nonsignificant differences in perceptions of the two storms’ surge threats because the category 2 storm (Ike) had a surge that was more characteristic of a category 5 storm (Rita). However, the ratings of the storm surge threat for Ike were significantly lower than those for Rita in Galveston County—the point of landfall. Moreover, evacuation rates for Ike were consistently lower than those for Rita in all three counties, and there were no statistically significant differences between storms in the correlations of expected storm surge damage with evacuation decis.
Increase in urinary markers during the acute phase reflects the degree of chronic tubulointerstitial injury after ischemia-reperfusion renal injury

Abstract Context: Acute kidney injury (AKI) could lead to progressive chronic kidney disease (CKD). Objectives: To demonstrate that urinary markers in AKI are associated with the degree of persistent renal injury. Material and methods: Human L-FABP chromosomal transgenic (Tg) mice were subjected to ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) clamping renal pedicle for 20 min or 30 min. Kidneys were obtained at one and 40 days after I/R. Results: Urinary L-FABP, NGAL, Kim-1 and albumin levels increased during the acute phase and were significantly correlated with the degree of tubulointerstitial fibrosis during the chronic phase. Discussion and conclusion: These markers could detect higher risk of progression to CKD.
A Welfare‐Based Approach to Aggregating Growth Rates Across Countries

Aggregating per capita gross domestic product growth across countries has always been a technical problem because of the complexities in the relative movements of exchange rates, economic output and populations. As such, the conventional approach to aggregating growth across countries suffers from sensitivity to exchange rates, as well as from the possibility of aggregate growth rates not being convex combinations of individual growth rates. This article introduces a new methodology in aggregating per capita growth rates that does not suffer from the drawbacks of the conventional approach. Using a welfare‐based approach, it is shown that the proposed methodology is robust w.r. t. exchange rates and generates weights that always add up to unity, thus avoiding the anomalies that are inherent in the conventional approach. The methodology proposed in the article is applied to calculate aggregate growth rates of 33 developing member countries as well as five regional groupings, and the results are compared with those arising from the conventional approach. A number of insights arise that were previously hidden or inaccessible.
Does a firm's political connection to government have economic value?

This paper reports new findings about differential impacts political events have on share prices of firms connected to government in power compared to firms with no political connections. Political connection has been alleged as valuable in popular press in this mid-income economy studied, so it is worth an investigation. Significant share price increases of 4% or more abnormal returns accrue to connected firms relative to unconnected firms when identical political events occur. The impact is very pronounced during a severe economic crisis, when the stakes were high about an incumbent government being re-elected. Our finding of higher value of politically connected firms is due to the expected value of preferential treatments, preference in project selections and access to state benefits. Thus, share prices of politically connected firms react with greater impacts than non-politically connected firms to announcements of identical political events.
A multi-agent framework for the coordination and integration of information systems

This paper describes a framework for the coordination and integration of information systems. By modeling typical enterprise information systems as consisting of multiple agents with different functionalities, the methodology provides the representational formalism, coordination mechanisms, and control schemes necessary for integrating heterogeneous units of an information system while meeting such performance criteria as overall effectiveness, efficiency, responsiveness, and robustness. The framework is applied to the development of a manufacturing information system for managing the production processes for making printed circuit boards. Performance results confirm that the system integration framework is important to support complex business processes that involve multiple steps of activities processed by a group of agents across a variety of functionalities.
The effect of group level variables on fertility in a rural Indian sample

ILO pub-WEP pub. Working paper, emanating from the WEP, to examine the effect of selected socio-economic variables on fertility among the rural population of India - presents data derived from a sample survey of 11 villages in which different castes and economic conditions were dominant, including some poverty-stricken villages, etc., and concludes that social group level variables are of significance in determining fertility. References and statistical tables.
Assessing Sea-Level Rise Impacts: A GIS-Based Framework and Application to Coastal New Jersey

The impact of sea-level rise on coastal properties depends critically on the human response to the threat, which in turn depends on several factors, including the immediacy of the risk, the magnitude of property value at risk, options for adapting to the threat and the cost of those options, and in some cases, land-use or regulatory restrictions that apply to the property. This article reports on a new effort to model the response to and economic impacts of sea-level rise on coastal properties using a spatially comprehensive Geographic Information System (GIS)-based modeling approach that considers each of the aforementioned factors. The approach is applied to a multi-county section of New Jersey's Atlantic coast to provide estimates of the costs of protection, elevation, and abandonment. The new model yields impact estimates higher than prior estimates, resulting from recent increases in the value of coastal property at risk, the spatially comprehensive nature of the approach, and our use of more recent and accurate elevation data. The approach will ultimately yield two types of results: national-level estimates of the benefits of reducing sea-level rise through control of greenhouse gas emissions; and local-level results assessing management actions that could facilitate adaptation to sea-level rise risks.
Board demographic diversity, independence, and corporate social performance

– Drawing on agency theory and resource dependence theory, the study aims to link board demographic diversity and independence to corporate social performance. , – Data were collected from various sources for a sample of 475 publicly traded Fortune 500 companies between the years 2007 and 2008. , – It is found that board gender diversity is positively related to institutional and technical strength ratings, while board racial diversity is positively related to institutional strength rating only. Both the proportion of outside directors and CEO non‐duality were negatively associated with institutional and technical weakness ratings. , – The sample was predominantly large, publicly traded national and international corporations, which might limit the generalizability of the findings. , – Management personnel should be cognizant of how board configurations and leadership structure may influence their corporate reputation for social responsibility. Efforts should be made to foster a group dynamic that is conducive to effective board functioning. , – Few empirical studies have examined the relationship between board characteristics and corporate social performance. This study contributes to the literature by examining such associations.
Disinflation and the Recession-Now-Versus-Recession-Later Hypothesis: Evidence from Uruguay

Both analytical models and casual empiricism suggest that the timing of the recessionary costs associated with inflation stabilization in chronic inflation countries may depend on the nominal anchor that is used. Under money-based stabilization, the recession occurs at the beginning of the program, while under exchange-rate-based stabilization the recession occurs later in the program. This paper provides a first attempt to formally test this hypothesis using a vector-autoregression model for Uruguay. The impulse response of output to different stabilization policies is broadly consistent with the "recession-now-versus-recession-later" hypothesis.
A panel data test for poverty traps

This article develops a threshold panel data nonlinearity test for poverty traps. The new testing strategy extends the work on nonlinearity tests for panel data by considering threshold nonlinearities in the fixed-effects components. Monte Carlo simulations are conducted to evaluate the finite-sample performance of these tests. The tests are applied to the relationship between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and capital stock per capita. Our application to a panel of countries for the period 1973 to 2007 uncovers the presence of two regimes determined by the level of capital stock per capita. The conclusions from our test also support the existence of a poverty trap determined by a capital stock per capita level at the 11% quantile of its pooled worldwide distribution.
CEO Bonus Compensation and Bank Default Risk: Evidence from the U.S. and Europe

We investigate the link between the incentive mechanisms embedded in CEO cash bonuses and the riskiness of banks. For a sample of U.S. and European banks, we employ the Merton distance to default model to show that increases in CEO cash bonuses lower the default risk of a bank. However, we find no evidence of cash bonuses exerting a risk-reducing effect when banks are financially distressed or when banks operate under weak bank regulatory regimes. Our results link bonus compensation in banking to financial stability and caution that attempts to regulate bonus pay need to tailor CEO incentives to the riskiness of banks and to regulatory regimes.
Total Iron-Overload Measurement in the Human Liver Region by the Magnetic Iron Detector

An accurate assessment of body iron accumulation is essential for the diagnosis and therapy of iron overload in diseases, such as hemochromatosis, thalassemia and other forms of severe anemias. The magnetic iron detector (MID) is a room-temperature susceptometer, which measures the total iron overload in the liver. Since February 2005, about 600 patients have been assessed using this device. The iron overload is obtained by calculating the difference between the measured magnetization signal of the patient and the patient's background signal. The latter is the magnetization signal that the patient would generate with normal iron content. This study presents the method for calculating the background signal of healthy volunteers and the application of the same method to patients with iron burden in order to evaluate their overload. The present MID sensitivity is 0.8 g and the reproducibility of the iron overload measurement of the same patients is lower than 0.5 g. The MID does not require calibration with liver biopsies. We correlated the MID measurements with the results of 26 biopsies (R = 0.62), 64 superconducting quantum interference device susceptometer measurements (R = 0.79), 666 serum ferritin concentration measurements (R = 0.72), and 41 MRI-R2* measurements (R = 0.71).
Homosexuality: Mental health and quality of life in a Brazilian socio-cultural context

Background: The following study has focused on the production of empirical knowledge regarding homosexuality in the Brazilian social-cultural context. Little is known about this population in Brazil or in others in Latin America. Aims: Investigation and comparison of prevalence of mental disorder, search for mental health services and quality of life between a group of homosexual individuals and a heterosexual control group. Methods: A cross-sectional study, using ‘snowball’ sampling was carried out in order to form both groups, matched according to gender, age and educational degree. Instruments: Data were gathered in individual interviews, through the Brazilian versions of MINI Plus and WHOQOL Bref. Statistical analysis was used to identify frequencies and make comparisons concerning the dimensions that were investigated. Conclusion: A higher prevalence of mental disturbance and attendance at mental health services by the homosexual group was verified, when compared to the control. The negative impact on the mental health of homosexuals as a result of discrimination in the Brazilian socio-cultural context is suggested.