Maximum-revenue tariff under Bertrand duopoly with unknown costs

This paper considers an international trade under Bertrand model with differentiated products and with unknown production costs. The home government imposes a specific import tariff per unit of imports from the foreign firm. We prove that this tariff is decreasing in the expected production costs of the foreign firm and increasing in the production costs of the home firm. Furthermore, it is increasing in the degree of product substitutability. We also show that an increase in the tariff results in both firms increasing their prices, an increase in both expected sales and expected profits for the home firm, and a decrease in both expected sales and expected profits for the foreign firm.

Get a GRIP: Should Area Revenue Coverage Be Offered through the Farm Bill or as a Crop Insurance Program? 2007

The successful expansion of the U.S. crop insurance program has not eliminated ad hoc disaster assistance. An alternative currently being explored by members of Congress and others in preparation of the 2007 farm bill is to simply remove the “ad hoc” part of disaster assistance programs by creating a standing program that would automatically funnel aid to hard-hit regions and crops. One form such a program could take can be found in the area yield and area revenue insurance programs currently offered by the U.S. crop insurance program. The Group Risk Plan (GRP) and Group Risk Income Protection (GRIP) programs automatically trigger payments when county yields or revenues, respectively, fall below a producer-elected coverage level. The per-acre taxpayer costs of offering GRIP in Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa for corn and soybeans through the crop insurance program are estimated. These results are used to determine the amount of area revenue coverage that could be offered to farmers as part of a standing farm bill disaster program. Approximately 55% of taxpayer support for GRIP flows to the crop insurance industry. A significant portion of this support comes in the form of net underwriting gains. The expected rate of return on money put at risk by private crop insurance companies under the current Standard Reinsurance Agreement is approximately 100%. Taking this industry support and adding in the taxpayer support for GRIP that flows to producers would fund a county target revenue program at the 93% coverage level.

Network revenue management with product-specific no-shows

Revenue management practices often include overbooking capacity to account for customerswho make reservations but do not show up. In this paper, we consider the network revenuemanagement problem with no-shows and overbooking, where the show-up probabilities are specificto each product. No-show rates differ significantly by product (for instance, each itinerary andfare combination for an airline) as sale restrictions and the demand characteristics vary byproduct. However, models that consider no-show rates by each individual product are difficultto handle as the state-space in dynamic programming formulations (or the variable space inapproximations) increases significantly. In this paper, we propose a randomized linear program tojointly make the capacity control and overbooking decisions with product-specific no-shows. Weestablish that our formulation gives an upper bound on the optimal expected total profit andour upper bound is tighter than a deterministic linear programming upper bound that appearsin the existing literature. Furthermore, we show that our upper bound is asymptotically tightin a regime where the leg capacities and the expected demand is scaled linearly with the samerate. We also describe how the randomized linear program can be used to obtain a bid price controlpolicy. Computational experiments indicate that our approach is quite fast, able to scale to industrialproblems and can provide significant improvements over standard benchmarks.

Additional revenue opportunities in pulp mills and their impacts on the kraft process

Although the concept of multi-products biorefinery provides an opportunity to meet the future demands for biofuels, biomaterials or chemicals, it is not assured that its implementation would improve the profitability of kraft pulp mills. The attractiveness will depend on several factors such as mill age and location, government incentives, economy of scale, end user requirements, and how much value can be added to the new products. In addition, the effective integration of alternative technologies is not straightforward and has to be carefully studied. In this work, detailed balances were performed to evaluate possible impacts that lignin removal, hemicelluloses recovery prior to pulping, torrefaction and pyrolysis of wood residues cause on the conventional mill operation. The development of mill balances was based on theoretical fundamentals, practical experience, literature review, personal communication with technology suppliers and analysis of mill process data. Hemicelluloses recovery through pre-hydrolysis of chips leads to impacts in several stages of the kraft process. Effects can be observed on the pulping process, wood consumption, black liquor properties and, inevitably, on the pulp quality. When lignin is removed from black liquor, it will affect mostly the chemical recovery operation and steam generation rate. Since mineral acid is used to precipitate the lignin, impacts on the mill chemical balance are also expected. A great advantage of processing the wood residues for additional income results from the fact that the pulping process, pulp quality and sales are not harmfully affected. For pulp mills interested in implementing the concept of multi-products biorefinery, this work has indicated possible impacts to be considered in a technical feasibility study.

Revenue-neutral tax policy under price uncertainty

The firm's response to revenue-neutral taxation is investigated under price uncertainty. Revenue-neutral policies adjust simultaneously the marginal tax rate and the level of exemptions while keeping expected tax receipts constant. Nonincreasing absolute risk aversion is sufficient to sign the firm's response: a reduction in the marginal rate causes the firm to contract output. Implications are established for the equilibrium level of treasury receipts.

Revenue Management in Make-To-Order Manufacturing: Case Study of Capacity Control at ThyssenKrupp VDM

While revenue management (RM) is traditionally considered a tool of service operations, RM shows considerable potential for application in manufacturing operations. The typical challenges in make-to-order manufacturing are fixed manufacturing capacities and a great variety in offered products, going along with pronounced fluctuations in demand and profitability. Since Harris and Pinder in the mid-90s, numerous papers have furthered the understanding of RM theory in this environment. Nevertheless, results to be expected from applying the developed methods to a practical industry setting have yet to be reported. To this end, this paper investigates a possible application of RM at ThyssenKrupp VDM, leading to considerable improvements in several areas.

South Carolina general fund revenue monitor October fiscal year 2016-17

This document is a summary of revenues from various sources in the state as well as giving expected revenues, based on income, corporation and other taxes received,

What Is Expected From A Facial Trauma Caused By Violence?

The aim of this retrospective study was to compare the peculiarities of maxillofacial injuries caused by interpersonal violence with other etiologic factors. Medical records of 3,724 patients with maxillofacial injuries in São Paulo state (Brazil) were retrospectively analyzed. The data were submitted to statistical analysis (simple descriptive statistics and Chi-squared test) using SPSS 18.0 software. Data of 612 patients with facial injuries caused by violence were analyzed. The majority of the patients were male (81%; n = 496), with a mean age of 31.28 years (standard deviation of 13.33 years). These patients were more affected by mandibular and nose fractures, when compared with all other patients (P < 0.01), although fewer injuries were recorded in other body parts (χ(2) = 17.54; P < 0.01); Victims of interpersonal violence exhibited more injuries when the neurocranium was analyzed in isolation (χ(2) = 6.85; P < 0.01). Facial trauma due to interpersonal violence seem to be related to a higher rate of facial fractures and lacerations when compared to all patients with facial injuries. Prominent areas of the face and neurocranium were more affected by injuries.

[comparative Study Between Fast And Slow Induction Of Propofol Given By Target-controlled Infusion: Expected Propofol Concentration At The Effect Site. Randomized Controlled Trial].

studies have shown that rate of propofol infusion may influence the predicted propofol concentration at the effect site (Es). The aim of this study was to evaluate the Es predicted by the Marsh pharmacokinetic model (ke0 0.26min(-1)) in loss of consciousness during fast or slow induction. the study included 28 patients randomly divided into two equal groups. In slow induction group (S), target-controlled infusion (TCI) of propofol with plasma, Marsh pharmacokinetic model (ke0 0.26min(-1)) with target concentration (Tc) at 2.0-μg.mL(-1) were administered. When the predicted propofol concentration at the effect site (Es) reached half of Es value, Es was increased to previous Es + 1μg.mL(-1), successively, until loss of consciousness. In rapid induction group (R), patients were induced with TCI of propofol with plasma (6.0μg.ml(-1)) at Es, and waited until loss of consciousness. in rapid induction group, Tc for loss of consciousness was significantly lower compared to slow induction group (1.67±0.76 and 2.50±0.56μg.mL(-1), respectively, p=0.004). the predicted propofol concentration at the effect site for loss of consciousness is different for rapid induction and slow induction, even with the same pharmacokinetic model of propofol and the same balance constant between plasma and effect site.

The Genomic Ancestry of Individuals from Different Geographical Regions of Brazil Is More Uniform Than Expected

Based on pre-DNA racial/color methodology, clinical and pharmacological trials have traditionally considered the different geographical regions of Brazil as being very heterogeneous. We wished to ascertain how such diversity of regional color categories correlated with ancestry. Using a panel of 40 validated ancestry-informative insertion-deletion DNA polymorphisms we estimated individually the European, African and Amerindian ancestry components of 934 self-categorized White, Brown or Black Brazilians from the four most populous regions of the Country. We unraveled great ancestral diversity between and within the different regions. Especially, color categories in the northern part of Brazil diverged significantly in their ancestry proportions from their counterparts in the southern part of the Country, indicating that diverse regional semantics were being used in the self-classification as White, Brown or Black. To circumvent these regional subjective differences in color perception, we estimated the general ancestry proportions of each of the four regions in a form independent of color considerations. For that, we multiplied the proportions of a given ancestry in a given color category by the official census information about the proportion of that color category in the specific region, to arrive at a ""total ancestry"" estimate. Once such a calculation was performed, there emerged a much higher level of uniformity than previously expected. In all regions studied, the European ancestry was predominant, with proportions ranging from 60.6% in the Northeast to 77.7% in the South. We propose that the immigration of six million Europeans to Brazil in the 19(th) and 20(th) centuries - a phenomenon described and intended as the ""whitening of Brazil"" -is in large part responsible for dissipating previous ancestry dissimilarities that reflected region-specific population histories. These findings, of both clinical and sociological importance for Brazil, should also be relevant to other countries with ancestrally admixed populations.

Risk premiums and benefit measures for generalized-expected-utility theories

Standard tools for the analysis of economic problems involving uncertainty, including risk premiums, certainty equivalents and the notions of absolute and relative risk aversion, are developed without making specific assumptions on functional form beyond the basic requirements of monotonicity, transitivity, continuity, and the presumption that individuals prefer certainty to risk. Individuals are not required to display probabilistic sophistication. The approach relies on the distance and benefit functions to characterize preferences relative to a given state-contingent vector of outcomes. The distance and benefit functions are used to derive absolute and relative risk premiums and to characterize preferences exhibiting constant absolute risk aversion (CARA) and constant relative risk aversion (CRRA). A generalization of the notion of Schur-concavity is presented. If preferences are generalized Schur concave, the absolute and relative risk premiums are generalized Schur convex, and the certainty equivalents are generalized Schur concave.

Response to price and production risk: The case of Australian wheat

A model of Australian wheat grower supply response was specified under the constraints of price and yield uncertainty, risk aversion, partial adjustment, and quadratic costs. The model was solved to obtain area planted. The results of estimation indicate that risk arising from prices and climate have had a significant influence on producer decision making. The coefficient of relative risk aversion and short-run and long-run elasticities of supply with respect to price were calculated. Wheat growers' risk premium, expected at the start of the season for exposed price and yield risk, was 2.8 percent of revenue or 10.4 percent of profit as measured by producer surplus. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Production under uncertainty and choice under uncertainty in the emergence of generalized expected utility theory

This paper presents a personal view of the interaction between the analysis of choice under uncertainty and the analysis of production under uncertainty. Interest in the foundations of the theory of choice under uncertainty was stimulated by applications of expected utility theory such as the Sandmo model of production under uncertainty. This interest led to the development of generalized models including rank-dependent expected utility theory. In turn, the development of generalized expected utility models raised the question of whether such models could be used in the analysis of applied problems such as those involving production under uncertainty. Finally, the revival of the state-contingent approach led to the recognition of a fundamental duality between choice problems and production problems.

Background risk in generalized expected utility theory

In this paper, it is shown that, for a wide range of risk-averse generalized expected utility preferences, independent risks are complementary, contrary to the results for expected utility preferences satisfying conditions such as proper and standard risk aversion.