The Cost of Co-viability in the Australian Northern Prawn Fishery

Fisheries management must address multiple, often conflicting objectives in a highly uncertain context. In particular, while the bio-economic performance of trawl fisheries is subject to high levels of biological and economic uncertainty, the impact of trawling on broader biodiversity is also a major concern for their management. The purpose of this study is to propose an analytical framework to formally assess the trade-offs associated with balancing biological, economic and non-target species conservation objectives. We use the Australian Northern Prawn Fishery (NPF), which is one of the most valuable federally managed commercial fisheries in Australia, as a case study. We develop a stochastic co-viability assessment of the fishery under multiple management objectives. Results show that, due to the variability in the interactions between the fishery and the ecosystem, current management strategies are characterized by biological and economic risks. Results highlight the trade-offs between respecting biological, economic and non-target species conservation constraints at each point in time with a high probability and maximizing the net present value of the fishery.

Portuguese health care costs related to asbestos exposure: a cost-of-illness study on mesothelioma hospital admission in the period 2000-2015

Background: Portugal has a temperate climate and low industrialization levels existing in the period after World War II, when asbestos materials were used worldwide, has contributed to the generalized belief of low usage of those materials. - Such supposition lacks confirmation; - There is no specific registry of asbestos-related diseases, workers asbestos exposure or asbestos industrial use; - Mesotheliomas are rare neoplasms strongly related to asbestos exposure so they can be used to understand the possible dimension of past exposure to asbestos; - It was estimated that professional diseases under notification was up to 90% for asbestos-related diseases, mainly mesotheliomas.

Corporate governance and cost of capital: evidence from Pakistani listed firms

This thesis investigates the effectiveness of Corporate Governance (CG) reforms in Pakistan. Using a sample of 160 Pakistani firms from 2003 to 2013 and governance data collected manually from the annual reports, this thesis investigates seven closely related and important corporate issues that are related to the compliance of governance rules. Specifically, it aims to : (i) investigate the degree of CG compliance with 2002 Pakistani Code of CG (PCCG); (ii) determine whether the introduction of 2002 PCCG has improved Pakistani CG practices; (iii) investigate the determinants of CG compliance and disclosure for Pakistani listed firms; (iv) test the nexus between CG compliance with the 2002 PCCG and firms’ cost of capital (COC); (v) investigate the impact of different individual CG mechanisms on listed firms COC; (vi) examine how different ownership structures impact on firms’ COC; and (vii) analyse relationship between CG structures and Cost of Equity (COE) as well as Cost of Debt (COD) for Pakistani listed firms. These empirical investigations report some important results. First, the reported findings suggest that Pakistani firms have responded positively to governance disclosure requirements over the eleven year period from 2003 to 2013. The results also show that the introduction of the PCCG in 2002 has improved CG standards by Pakistani listed firms. Second, the reported results related to the determinants of CG compliance demonstrate that significant and positive association between institutional, government and foreign ownership with CG compliance. However, findings relating to the determinants of CG compliance show a negative and significant association between board size and block ownership with CG compliance and disclosure. The study finds no significant relationship between director ownership, audit firm size and the presence of female board members with the constructed Pakistan Corporate Governance Index (PCGI). Third, the investigation on the relationship between CG and COC report a significantly negative nexus between PCGI and firms’ COC. The investigation on the association between ownership structures and COC report a negative and significant nexus between block ownership with firms’ COC. Further, a number of robustness analyses performed in this study suggest that the empirical results reported in this study are generally robust to the alternative CG variables, alternative COC variables and potential endogeneity problems.

Evidence that risk adjustment is unnecessary in estimates of the User cost of money

Investors value the special attributes of monetary assets (e.g., exchangeability, liquidity, and safety) and pay a premium for holding them in the form of a lower return rate -- The user cost of holding monetary assets can be measured approximately by the difference between the returns on illiquid risky assets and those of safer liquid assets -- A more appropriate measure should adjust this difference by the differential risk of the assets in question -- We investigate the impact that time non-separable preferences has on the estimation of the risk-adjusted user cost of money -- Using U.K. data from 1965Q1 to 2011Q1, we estimate a habit-based asset pricing model with money in the utility function and find that the risk adjustment for risky monetary assets is negligible -- Thus, researchers can dispense with risk adjusting the user cost of money in constructing monetary aggregate indexes

Numerical enclosures of the optimal cost of the Kantorovitch’s mass transportation problem

International audience

Inter-industry analysis and monetary policy evaluations in the Korean flow of funds accounts

This study mainly aims to provide an inter-industry analysis through the subdivision of various industries in flow of funds (FOF) accounts. Combined with the Financial Statement Analysis data from 2004 and 2005, the Korean FOF accounts are reconstructed to form "from-whom-to-whom" basis FOF tables, which are composed of 115 institutional sectors and correspond to tables and techniques of input–output (I–O) analysis. First, power of dispersion indices are obtained by applying the I–O analysis method. Most service and IT industries, construction, and light industries in manufacturing are included in the first quadrant group, whereas heavy and chemical industries are placed in the fourth quadrant since their power indices in the asset-oriented system are comparatively smaller than those of other institutional sectors. Second, investments and savings, which are induced by the central bank, are calculated for monetary policy evaluations. Industries are bifurcated into two groups to compare their features. The first group refers to industries whose power of dispersion in the asset-oriented system is greater than 1, whereas the second group indicates that their index is less than 1. We found that the net induced investments (NII)–total liabilities ratios of the first group show levels half those of the second group since the former's induced savings are obviously greater than the latter.

Public health implications of dietary fiber intake to reduce the cost of chronic diseases

Objective: To assess the epidemiological evidence on dietary fiber intake and chronic diseases and make public health recommendations for the population in Romania based on their consumption. Populations that consume more dietary fiber from cereals, fruits and vegetables have less chronic disease. Dietary Reference Intakes recommend consumption of 14 g dietary fiber per 1,000 kcal, or 25 g for adult women and 38 g for adult men, based on epidemiologic studies showing protection against cardiovascular disease, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, gastrointestinal disorders, colorectal -, breast -, gastric -, endometrial -, ovarian - and prostate cancer. Furthermore, increased consumption of dietary fiber improves serum lipid concentrations, lowers blood pressure, blood glucose leads to low glycemic index, aids in weight loss, improve immune function, reduce inflammatory marker levels, reduce indicators of inflammation. Dietary fibers contain an unique blend of bioactive components including resistant starches, vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and antioxidants. Dietary fiber components have important physiological effects on glucose, lipid, protein metabolism and mineral bioavailability needed to prevent chronic diseases. Materials and methods: Data regarding diet was collected based on questionnaires. We used mathematical formulas to calculate the mean dietary fiber intake of Romanian adult population and compared the results with international public health recommendations. Results: Based on the intakes of vegetables, fruits and whole cereals we calculated the Mean Dietary Fiber Intake/day/person (MDFI). Our research shows that the national average MDFI was 9.8 g fiber/day/person, meaning 38% of Dietary Requirements, and the rest of 62% representing a “fiber gap” that we have to take into account. This deficiency predisposes to chronic diseases. Conclusions and recommendations:The poor control of relationship between dietary fiber intake and chronic diseases is a major issue that can result in adverse clinical and economic outcomes. The population in Romania is at risk to develop such diseases due to the deficient fiber consumption. A model of chronic diseases costs is needed to aid attempts to reduce them while permitting optimal management of the chronic diseases. This paper presents a discussion of the burden of chronical disease and its socio-economic implications and proposes a model to predict the costs reduction by adequate intake of dietary fiber.

A data-mining-based methodology for transmission expansion planning

In recent decades, all over the world, competition in the electric power sector has deeply changed the way this sector’s agents play their roles. In most countries, electric process deregulation was conducted in stages, beginning with the clients of higher voltage levels and with larger electricity consumption, and later extended to all electrical consumers. The sector liberalization and the operation of competitive electricity markets were expected to lower prices and improve quality of service, leading to greater consumer satisfaction. Transmission and distribution remain noncompetitive business areas, due to the large infrastructure investments required. However, the industry has yet to clearly establish the best business model for transmission in a competitive environment. After generation, the electricity needs to be delivered to the electrical system nodes where demand requires it, taking into consideration transmission constraints and electrical losses. If the amount of power flowing through a certain line is close to or surpasses the safety limits, then cheap but distant generation might have to be replaced by more expensive closer generation to reduce the exceeded power flows. In a congested area, the optimal price of electricity rises to the marginal cost of the local generation or to the level needed to ration demand to the amount of available electricity. Even without congestion, some power will be lost in the transmission system through heat dissipation, so prices reflect that it is more expensive to supply electricity at the far end of a heavily loaded line than close to an electric power generation. Locational marginal pricing (LMP), resulting from bidding competition, represents electrical and economical values at nodes or in areas that may provide economical indicator signals to the market agents. This article proposes a data-mining-based methodology that helps characterize zonal prices in real power transmission networks. To test our methodology, we used an LMP database from the California Independent System Operator for 2009 to identify economical zones. (CAISO is a nonprofit public benefit corporation charged with operating the majority of California’s high-voltage wholesale power grid.) To group the buses into typical classes that represent a set of buses with the approximate LMP value, we used two-step and k-means clustering algorithms. By analyzing the various LMP components, our goal was to extract knowledge to support the ISO in investment and network-expansion planning.

Análise do mercado de serviços de regulação de frequência secundária e terciária no sistema eléctrico português

Dissertação para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica Ramo Energia

The Instrumental voter goes to the news-agent: demand for information, election closeness, and the media

This paper studies the impact of instrumental voting on information demand and mass media behaviour during electoral campaigns. If voters act instrumentally then information demand should increase with the closeness of an election. Mass media are modeled as profit-maximizing firms that take into account information demand, the value of customers to advertisers and the marginal cost of customers. Information supply should be larger in electoral constituencies where the contest is expected to be closer, there is a higher population density, and customers are on average more profitable for advertisers. The impact of electorate size is theoretically undetermined. These conclusions are then tested with comfortable results on data from the 1997 general election in Britain.

Non-cooperative incentives to share knowledge in competitive environments

In this paper we study a model where non-cooperative agents may exchange knowledge in a competitive environment. As a potential factor that could induce the knowledge disclosure between humans we consider the timing of the moves of players. We develop a simple model of a multistage game in which there are only three players and competition takes place only within two stages. Players can share their private knowledge with their opponents and the knowledge is modelled as in uencing their marginal cost of e¤ort. We identify two main mechanisms that work towards knowledge disclosure. One of them is that before the actual competition starts, the stronger player of the rst stage of a game may have desire to share his knowledge with the "observer", be- cause this reduces the valuation of the prize of the weaker player of that stage and as a result his e¤ort level and probability of winning in a ght. Another mechanism is that the "observer" may have sometimes desire to share knowledge with the weaker player of the rst stage, because in this way, by increasing his probability of winning in that stage, he decreases the probability of winning of the stronger player. As a result, in the second stage the "observer" may have greater chances to meet the weaker player rather than the stronger one. Keywords: knowledge sharing, strategic knowledge disclosure, multistage contest game, non-cooperative games

Bertrand and the long run

We propose a new model of simultaneous price competition, based on firms offering personalized prices to consumers. In a market for a homogeneous good and decreasing returns, the unique equilibrium leads to a uniform price equal to the marginal cost of each firm, at their share of the market clearing quantity. Using this result for the short-run competition, we then investigate the long-run investment decisions of the firms. While there is underinvestment, the overall outcome is more competitive than the Cournot model competition. Moreover, as the number of firms grows we approach the competitive long-run outcome.

¿Es posible reducir el gasto sanitario a través del subsidio a los seguros sanitarios privados? La doble cobertura sanitaria en Catalunya. Estimación de patrones de utilización de servicios sanitarios y simulación de costes asociados a la asistencia sanit

The objective of this study consists in quantifying in money terms the potential reduction in usage of public health care outlets associated to the tenure of double (public plus private) insurance. In order to address the problem, a probabilistic model for visits to physicians is specified and estimated using data from the Catalonian Health Survey. Also, a model for the marginal cost of a visit to a physician is estimated using data from a representative sample of fee-for-service payments from a major insurer. Combining the estimates from the two models it is possible to quantify in money terms the cost/savings of alternative policies which bear an impact on the adoption of double insurance by the population. The results suggest that the private sector absorbs an important volume of demand which would be re-directed to the public sector if consumers cease to hold double insurance.

A Simple Access Pricing Rule to Achieve the Ramsey Outcome in Two-Way Access

In this paper, I consider a general and informationally effcient approach to determine the optimal access rule and show that there exists a simple rule that achieves the Ramsey outcome as the unique equilibrium when networks compete in linear prices without network-based price discrimination. My approach is informationally effcient in the sense that the regulator is required to know only the marginal cost structure, i.e. the marginal cost of making and terminating a call. The approach is general in that access prices can depend not only on the marginal costs but also on the retail prices, which can be observed by consumers and therefore by the regulator as well. In particular, I consider the set of linear access pricing rules which includes any fixed access price, the Efficient Component Pricing Rule (ECPR) and the Modified ECPR as special cases. I show that in this set, there is a unique access rule that achieves the Ramsey outcome as the unique equilibrium as long as there exists at least a mild degree of substitutability among networks' services.

¿Es posible reducir el gasto sanitario a través del subsidio a los seguros sanitarios privados? La doble cobertura sanitaria en Catalunya. Estimación de patrones de utilización de servicios sanitarios y simulación de costes asociados a la asistencia

The objective of this study consists in quantifying in money terms thepotential reduction in usage of public health care outlets associatedto the tenure of double (public plus private) insurance. In order to address the problem, a probabilistic model for visits to physicians is specified and estimated using data from the Catalonian Health Survey. Also, a model for the marginal cost of a visit to a physician is estimated using data from a representative sample of fee-for-service payments from a major insurer. Combining the estimates from the two models it is possible to quantify in money terms the cost/savings of alternative policies which bear an impact on the adoption of double insurance by the population. The results suggest that the private sector absorbs an important volumeof demand which would be re-directed to the public sector if consumerscease to hold double insurance.