A direct approach to the discounted penalty function

This paper provides a new and accessible approach to establishing certain results concerning the discounted penalty function. The direct approach consists of two steps. In the first step, closed-form expressions are obtained in the special case in which the claim amount distribution is a combination of exponential distributions. A rational function is useful in this context. For the second step, one observes that the family of combinations of exponential distributions is dense. Hence, it suffices to reformulate the results of the first step to obtain general results. The surplus process has downward and upward jumps, modeled by two independent compound Poisson processes. If the distribution of the upward jumps is exponential, a series of new results can be obtained with ease. Subsequently, certain results of Gerber and Shiu [H. U. Gerber and E. S. W. Shiu, North American Actuarial Journal 2(1): 48–78 (1998)] can be reproduced. The two-step approach is also applied when an independent Wiener process is added to the surplus process. Certain results are related to Zhang et al. [Z. Zhang, H. Yang, and S. Li, Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics 233: 1773–1 784 (2010)], which uses different methods.

Local Public-Services Provision under Public-Private Partnerships : Contractual Design and Contracting Parties Incentives

When deciding to resort to a PPP contract for the provision of a local public service, local governments have to consider the demand risk allocation between the contracting parties. In this article, I investigate the effects of demand risk allocation on the accountability of procuring authorities regarding consumers changing demand, as well as on the cost-reducing effort incentives of the private public-service provider. I show that contracts in which the private provider bears demand risk motivate more the public authority from responding to customer needs. This is due to the fact that consumers are empowered when the private provider bears demand risk, that is, they have the possibility to oust the private provider in case of non-satisfaction with the service provision, which provides procuring authorities with more credibility in side-trading and then more incentives to be responsive. As a consequence, I show that there is a lower matching with consumers' preferences over time when demand risk is on the public authority rather than on the private provider, and this is corroborated in the light of two famous case studies. However, contracts in which the private provider does not bear demand risk motivate more the private provider from investing in cost-reducing efforts. I highlight then a tradeoff in the allocation of demand risk between productive and allocative efficiency. The striking policy implication of this article for local governments would be that the current trend towards a greater resort to contracts where private providers bear little or no demand risk may not be optimal. Local governments should impose demand risk on private providers within PPP contracts when they expect that consumers' preferences over the service provision will change over time.

Leniency programs, antitrust enforcement and multimarket contact : three essays in industrial organization

The Layout of My Thesis This thesis contains three chapters in Industrial Organization that build on the work outlined above. The first two chapters combine leniency programs with multimarket contact and provide a thorough analysis of the potential effects of Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus. The third chapter puts the whole discussion on leniency programs into perspective by examining other enforcement tools available to an antitrust authority. The main argument in that last chapter is that a specific instrument can only be as effective as the policy in which it is embedded. It is therefore important for an antitrust authority to know how it best accompanies the introduction or modification of a policy instrument that helps deterrence. INTRODUCTION Chapter 1 examines the efféct of Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus on the incentives of firms to report cartel activities. The main question is whether the inclusion of these policies in a leniency program undermine the effectiveness of the latter by discouraging the firms to apply for amnesty. The model is static and focus on the ex post incentives of firms to desist from collusion. The results suggest that, because Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus encourage the reporting of a second cartel after a first detection, a firm, anticipating this, may be reluctant to seek leniency and to report in the first place. However, the effect may also go in the opposite direction, and Amnesty Plus and Penalty Plus may encourage the simultaneous reporting of two cartels. Chapter 2 takes this idea further to the stage of cartel formation. This chapter provides a complete characterization of the potential anticompetitive and procompetitive effects of Amnesty Plus in a infinitely repeated game framework when the firms use their multimarket contact to harshen punishment. I suggest a clear-cut policy rule that prevents potential adverse effects and thereby show that, if policy makers follow this rule, a leniency program with Amnesty Plus performs better than one without. Chapter 3 characterizes the socially optimal enforcement effort of an antitrust authority and shows how this effort changes with the introduction or modification of specific policy instruments. The intuition is that the policy instrument may increase the marginal benefit of conducting investigations. If this effect is strong enough, a more rigorous detection policy becomes socially desirable.

An algebraic operator approach to the analysis of Gerber-Shiu functions

We introduce an algebraic operator framework to study discounted penalty functions in renewal risk models. For inter-arrival and claim size distributions with rational Laplace transform, the usual integral equation is transformed into a boundary value problem, which is solved by symbolic techniques. The factorization of the differential operator can be lifted to the level of boundary value problems, amounting to iteratively solving first-order problems. This leads to an explicit expression for the Gerber-Shiu function in terms of the penalty function.

Un partenariat public-privé rigide ou flexible ? Théorie et application aux concessions routières à péage

In this article, we explore the contractual design of toll road concession contracts. We highlight the fact that contracting parties try to sign not only complete rigid contracts in order to avoid renegotiations but also flexible contracts in order to adapt contractual framework to contingencies and to create incentives for cooperative behavior. This gives rise to multiple toll adjustment provisions and to a tradeoff between rigid and flexible contracts. Such a tradeoff is formalized using an incomplete contract framework - including ex post maladaptation and renegotiation costs - and propositions are tested using an original database of 71 concession contracts. Our results suggest an important role for economic efficiency concerns, as well as politics, in designing such public-private contracts. Codes JEL : D23, H11, H54, L14, L9.

Spatially selective implementation of the adiabatic T2 prep sequence for magnetic resonance angiography of the coronary arteries.

In coronary magnetic resonance angiography, a magnetization-preparation scheme for T2 -weighting (T2 Prep) is widely used to enhance contrast between the coronary blood-pool and the myocardium. This prepulse is commonly applied without spatial selection to minimize flow sensitivity, but the nonselective implementation results in a reduced magnetization of the in-flowing blood and a related penalty in signal-to-noise ratio. It is hypothesized that a spatially selective T2 Prep would leave the magnetization of blood outside the T2 Prep volume unaffected and thereby lower the signal-to-noise ratio penalty. To test this hypothesis, a spatially selective T2 Prep was implemented where the user could freely adjust angulation and position of the T2 Prep slab to avoid covering the ventricular blood-pool and saturating the in-flowing spins. A time gap of 150 ms was further added between the T2 Prep and other prepulses to allow for in-flow of a larger volume of unsaturated spins. Consistent with numerical simulation, the spatially selective T2 Prep increased in vivo human coronary artery signal-to-noise ratio (42.3 ± 2.9 vs. 31.4 ± 2.2, n = 22, P < 0.0001) and contrast-to-noise-ratio (18.6 ± 1.5 vs. 13.9 ± 1.2, P = 0.009) as compared to those of the nonselective T2 Prep. Additionally, a segmental analysis demonstrated that the spatially selective T2 Prep was most beneficial in proximal and mid segments where the in-flowing blood volume was largest compared to the distal segments. Magn Reson Med, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Le travail des sans-emploi : analyse sociologique de l'assignation à un programme d'emploi temporaire

RESUMECette recherche empirique porte sur les emplois temporaires subventionnés (ETS) instaurés dans le cadre du chômage et de l'aide sociale en Suisse depuis une dizaine d'années. La mise en place de politiques d'activation dans le cadre de la protection sociale met l'accent sur les liens explicites, souvent réglementaires, qu'entretiennent actuellement la protection sociale, les politiques de l'emploi et le marché du travail dans les pays industrialisés. Ces transformations ont largement contribué au développement d'activités exercées en marge du marché de l'emploi. Dans le cadre du chômage, comme dans celui de l'aide sociale, une mise au travail peut être exigée en contrepartie du versement des indemnités ; en Suisse, on nomme ce procédé l'assignation au travail. L'assignation est le processus par lequel un-e conseiller?ère en placement peut contraindre, sous peine de sanction (suppression des indemnités pour un temps déterminé) une personne au chômage (inscrit-e auprès d'un office régional de placement) à souscrire à une mesure du marché du travail (MMT), particulièrement les ETS.Cette recherche propose une analyse de l'assignation à un programme d'emploi temporaire sous l'éclairage de la sociologie du travail. Elle adopte une perspective compréhensive attentive aux tensions que vivent les individus pris dans une situation de travail hybride et inédite qui les place aux frontières des différentes catégories administratives de chômage, d'inactivité et de population occupée. Partant d'une étude empirique auprès de personnes assignées, cette recherche mène une analyse qualitative des conditions et de l'organisation du travail en ETS, des modalités contractuelles et statutaires des personnes assignées à une activité de travail contrainte et matériellement non reconnue, puisque non salariée. Elle s'attache également à cerner le vécu de l'assignation au travail, ainsi que le sens que les personnes lui attribuent dans leur trajectoire biographique et professionnelle.SUMMARYThis research investigates a specific and new form of labor, namely «temporary subsidized jobs» {emplois temporaires subventionnés, ETS) that have been developed since the late 1990s in Switzerland in the context of unemployment and social assistance benefits. Although ETS are specific to Switzerland, they echo similar «workfare» measures imposed on unemployed and welfare recipients introduced in recent years in almost all industrialized countries. Indeed, the evolution of public policies and the generalization of «active labour-market policies» {politiques d'activation) have become central to social protection in the majority of Western countries and have emerged in parallel to the expansion of work activities situated at the margins of traditional wage- labor.My analysis of the ETS phenomenon is informed by labor sociology and discusses the pertinence of a classical approach in grasping this hybrid and new work situation, which sets individual persons at the border between various administrative categories such as «unemployed», «inactive» and «at work». I investigate in particular the issue of contractual and statutory modalities imposed on persons who have been assigned to a form of activity that is both constraining as well as materially non-recognized (as it remains outside of traditional wage-labor forms). In order to understand ETS conditions and labor organization, my fieldwork consist of interviews of persons who have been assigned to it and observations. I investigate their personal experience, as well as the meaning that these individuals attribute to the ETS experience in the context of their biographical and professional trajectory.

Less Risk, More Effort : Demand Risk Allocation in Incomplete Contracts

This article investigates the allocation of demand risk within an incomplete contract framework. We consider an incomplete contractual relationship between a public authority and a private provider (i.e. a public-private partnership), in which the latter invests in non-verifiable cost-reducing efforts and the former invests in non-verifiable adaptation efforts to respond to changing consumer demand over time. We show that the party that bears the demand risk has fewer hold-up opportunities and that this leads the other contracting party to make more effort. Thus, in our model, bearing less risk can lead to more effort, which we describe as a new example of âeuro~counter-incentivesâeuro?. We further show that when the benefits of adaptation are important, it is socially preferable to design a contract in which the demand risk remains with the private provider, whereas when the benefits of cost-reducing efforts are important, it is socially preferable to place the demand risk on the public authority. We then apply these results to explain two well-known case studies.

Sequential therapist interventions and the therapeutic alliance: a pilot study

(from the journal abstract) Scientific interest for the concept of alliance has been maintained and stimulated by repeated findings that a strong alliance is associated with facilitative treatment process and favourable treatment outcome. However, because the alliance is not in itself a therapeutic technique, these findings were unsuccessful in bringing about significant improvements in clinical practice. An essential issue in modern psychotherapeutic research concerns the relation between common factors which are known to explain great variance in empirical results and the specific therapeutic techniques which are the primary basis of clinical training and practice. This pilot study explored sequences in therapist interventions over four sessions of brief psychodynamic investigation. It aims at determining if patterns of interventions can be found during brief psychodynamic investigation and if these patterns can be associated with differences in the therapeutic alliance. Therapist interventions where coded using the Psychodynamic Intervention Rating Scale (PIRS) which enables the classification of each therapist utterance into one of 9 categories of interpretive interventions (defence interpretation, transference interpretation), supportive interventions (question, clarification, association, reflection, supportive strategy) or interventions about the therapeutic frame (work-enhancing statement, contractual arrangement). Data analysis was done using lag sequential analysis, a statistical procedure which identifies contingent relationships in time among a large number of behaviours. The sample includes N = 20 therapist-patient dyads assigned to three groups with: (1) a high and stable alliance profile, (2) a low and stable alliance profile and (3) an improving alliance profile. Results suggest that therapists most often have one single intention when interacting with patients. Large sequences of questions, associations and clarifications were found, which indicate that if a therapist asks a question, clarifies or associates, there is a significant probability that he will continue doing so. A single theme sequence involving frame interventions was also observed. These sequences were found in all three alliance groups. One exception was found for mixed sequences of interpretations and supportive interventions. The simultaneous use of these two interventions was associated with a high or an improving alliance over the course of treatment, but not with a low and stable alliance where only single theme sequences of interpretations were found. In other words, in this last group, therapists were either supportive or interpretative, whereas with high or improving alliance, interpretations were always given along with supportive interventions. This finding provides evidence that examining therapist interpretation individually can only yield incomplete findings. How interpretations were given is important for alliance building. It also suggests that therapists should carefully dose their interpretations and be supportive when necessary in order to build a strong therapeutic alliance. And from a research point of view, to study technical interventions, we must look into dynamic variables such as dosage, the supportive quality of an intervention, and timing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved)

Venture capital financing : screening and contracting under assymetric information

Structure of the Thesis This thesis consists of 5 sections. Section 1 starts with the problem definition and the presentation of the objectives of this thesis. Section 2 introduces a presentation of the theoretical foundations of Venture financing and a review of the main theories developed on Venture investing. It includes a taxonomy of contracting clauses relevant in venture contracting, the conflicts they address, and presents some general observations on contractual clauses. Section 3 presents the research findings on the analysis of a European VC's deal flow and investment screening linked to the prevailing market conditions. Section 4 focuses an empirical study of a European VC's investment process, the criteria it uses to make its investments. It presents empirical findings on the investment criteria over time, business cycles, and investment types. It also links these criteria to the VC's subsequent performance. Finally, section 5 presents an empirical research on the comparison of the legal contracts signed between European and United States Venture Capitalists and the companies they finance. This research highlights some of the contracting practices in Europe and the United States.

Surface reconstruction from microscopic images in optical lithography.

This paper presents a method to reconstruct 3D surfaces of silicon wafers from 2D images of printed circuits taken with a scanning electron microscope. Our reconstruction method combines the physical model of the optical acquisition system with prior knowledge about the shapes of the patterns in the circuit; the result is a shape-from-shading technique with a shape prior. The reconstruction of the surface is formulated as an optimization problem with an objective functional that combines a data-fidelity term on the microscopic image with two prior terms on the surface. The data term models the acquisition system through the irradiance equation characteristic of the microscope; the first prior is a smoothness penalty on the reconstructed surface, and the second prior constrains the shape of the surface to agree with the expected shape of the pattern in the circuit. In order to account for the variability of the manufacturing process, this second prior includes a deformation field that allows a nonlinear elastic deformation between the expected pattern and the reconstructed surface. As a result, the minimization problem has two unknowns, and the reconstruction method provides two outputs: 1) a reconstructed surface and 2) a deformation field. The reconstructed surface is derived from the shading observed in the image and the prior knowledge about the pattern in the circuit, while the deformation field produces a mapping between the expected shape and the reconstructed surface that provides a measure of deviation between the circuit design models and the real manufacturing process.

Structural macro factors and the affine term structure of interest rates

This work consists of three essays investigating the ability of structural macroeconomic models to price zero coupon U.S. government bonds. 1. A small scale 3 factor DSGE model implying constant term premium is able to provide reasonable a fit for the term structure only at the expense of the persistence parameters of the structural shocks. The test of the structural model against one that has constant but unrestricted prices of risk parameters shows that the exogenous prices of risk-model is only weakly preferred. We provide an MLE based variance-covariance matrix of the Metropolis Proposal Density that improves convergence speeds in MCMC chains. 2. Affine in observable macro-variables, prices of risk specification is excessively flexible and provides term-structure fit without significantly altering the structural parameters. The exogenous component of the SDF is separating the macro part of the model from the term structure and the good term structure fit has as a driving force an extremely volatile SDF and an implied average short rate that is inexplicable. We conclude that the no arbitrage restrictions do not suffice to temper the SDF, thus there is need for more restrictions. We introduce a penalty-function methodology that proves useful in showing that affine prices of risk specifications are able to reconcile stable macro-dynamics with good term structure fit and a plausible SDF. 3. The level factor is reproduced most importantly by the preference shock to which it is strongly and positively related but technology and monetary shocks, with negative loadings, are also contributing to its replication. The slope factor is only related to the monetary policy shocks and it is poorly explained. We find that there are gains in in- and out-of-sample forecast of consumption and inflation if term structure information is used in a time varying hybrid prices of risk setting. In-sample yield forecast are better in models with non-stationary shocks for the period 1982-1988. After this period, time varying market price of risk models provide better in-sample forecasts. For the period 2005-2008, out of sample forecast of consumption and inflation are better if term structure information is incorporated in the DSGE model but yields are better forecasted by a pure macro DSGE model.