Estudio del sistema de agronegocios del jabalí en Argentina : antecedentes y situación actual desde la perspectiva de los negocios agroalimentarios

La carne de jabalí es apreciada por sus características organolépticas y nutricionales. El principal consumidor es Europa (Italia, Alemania y Francia), seguido por Japón. En Argentina, esta especie se adaptó en gran parte del territorio y a diferentes situaciones ecológicas. Asimismo, la crianza en cautiverio, aprovechamiento, elaboración, distribución, precios y características nutricionales no son de amplio conocimiento. El propósito de este trabajo es realizar un diagnóstico del sistema de agronegocios del jabalí en Argentina a fin de identificar los puntos fuertes y débiles y a partir de allí, proponer acciones para dar soluciones a las problemáticas actuales. Se utiliza como metodología el abordaje de la epistemología fenomenológica y el método EPESA, lo cual permite contar con abordaje amplio y sistémico del agronegocio bajo análisis. También, se utiliza el marco teórico de la nueva economía institucional, siguiendo el abordaje de Joskow y sus tres vías de aproximación. Si bien es una producción que posee ventajas comparativas (clima, suelo, extensión, alimento)que permitirían el desarrollo productivo y comercial del sistema, se observa que la informalidad limita la implementación de planteos productivos con mayores niveles de tecnología, registros y datos genéticos, lo que imposibilita la exportación. Por otra parte, existe un problema de reglamentaciones con respecto a la faena, dado que debe ser aprobada por FAUNA y por SENASA, teniendo distintos requerimientos y tiempos de carga y transporte. Esto genera incompatibilidades para la comercialización formal, incentivando a transacciones ilegales, baja transparencia, oportunismo ex ante y ex post de las transacciones y altos costos de transacción. Dado este ambiente de negocios descripto, las empresas bajo estudio en general trabajan con nichos de mercado y no tienen un panorama de ampliación productiva y comercial. Por tanto, la mejora del ambiente institucional es la primera acción a seguir a fin de vencer las limitaciones mencionadas.

Are they adicctied to college students social networks?

The development of the Internet and in particular of social networks has supposedly given a new view to the different aspects that surround human behavior. It includes those associated with addictions, but specifically the ones that have to do with technologies. Following a correlational descriptive design we present the results of a study, which involved university students from Social and Legal Sciences as participants, about their addiction to the Internet and in particular to social networks. The sample was conformed of 373 participants from the cities of Granada, Sevilla, Málaga, and Córdoba. To gather the data a questionnaire that was design by Young was translated to Spanish. The main research objective was to determine if university students could be considered social network addicts. The most prominent result was that the participants don’t consider themselves to be addicted to the Internet or to social networks; in particular women reflected a major distance from the social networks. It’s important to know that the results differ from those found in the literature review, which opens the question, are the participants in a phase of denial towards the addiction?

Coordination, Efficiency and Two-Sided Cheap Talk

We consider the Battle of the Sexes game with incomplete information and allow two-sided cheap talk before the game is played. We characterise the set of fully revealing symmetric cheap talk equilibria. The best fully revealing symmetric cheap talk equilibrium, when exists, has a desirable characteristic. When the players' types are different, it fully coordinates on the ex-post efficient pure Nash equilibrium. We also analyse the mediated communication equilibria of the game. We find the range of the prior for which this desirable equilibrium exists under unmediated and mediated communication processes.

Do Foreign Greenfields Outperform Foreign Acquisitions or Vice Versa? An Institutional Perspective.

Prior studies of the comparative performance of greenfields and acquisitions have advanced competing arguments, with some arguing that greenfields should outperform acquisitions because acquisitions are costlier to integrate, and others that acquisitions should outperform greenfields because greenfields suffer from a liability of newness. Moreover, while the costs of integration and the liability of newness are at their greatest during a subsidiary's first years, prior studies have tested their competing arguments on samples containing older subsidiaries. We extend these prior studies by (1) developing an institutional theory-based framework that simultaneously considers the costs of integration and the liability of newness, (2) recognizing that both types of costs vary with the level of subsidiary integration, and (3) focusing on the stage of their life during which subsidiaries predominantly incur these costs. To measure subsidiary performance, we ask managers of Dutch multinationals how their ex ante performance expectations compare to the subsidiary's ex post performance during its first two years. Analysing a sample of 191 foreign subsidiaries and controlling for entry mode self-selection and other factors, we find that acquisitions outperform greenfields at low and intermediate levels of subsidiary integration, but that greenfields outperform acquisitions at higher integration levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hospitalization in Geriatric Wards: Considerations on the Evaluation of the Outcome

Within a defined law framework, the Italian central health system dictates the standards for hospitalization to local care units, which are in turn allowed to establish their own effectiveness criteria. The appropriateness of the hospitalization decision is therefore predetermined at patients admission, whereas its effectiveness relies on the ex post patient well-being as a result of the complex system of reciprocal relations between patients and healthcare agents at the ward level. We consider the outcomes in geriatric wards referring to the national health system, with respect both to patients traits at the individual level and wards/hospital settings. The risk that models the healthcare outcome is accordingly adjusted for covariates at the different levels of analysis (Goldstein & Spiegelhalter, 1996), thus allowing to differentiate among outcomes in terms of the hospitalization structure and, when appropriate, of territorial aggregation.

Essays on energy derivatives pricing and financial risk management

This thesis consists of an introductory chapter (essay I) and five more empirical essays on electricity markets and CO2 spot price behaviour, derivatives pricing analysis and hedging. Essay I presents the structure of the thesis and electricity markets functioning and characteristics, as well as the type of products traded, to be analyzed on the following essays. In the second essay we conduct an empirical study on co-movements in electricity markets resorting to wavelet analysis, discussing long-term dynamics and markets integration. Essay three is about hedging performance and multiscale relationships in the German electricity spot and futures markets, also using wavelet analysis. We concentrate the investigation on the relationship between coherence evolution and hedge ratio analysis, on a time-frequency-scale approach, between spot and futures which conditions the effectiveness of the hedging strategy. Essays four, five and six are interrelated between them and with the other two previous essays given the nature of the commodity analyzed, CO2 emission allowances, traded in electricity markets. Relationships between electricity prices, primary energy fuel prices and carbon dioxide permits are analyzed on essay four. The efficiency of the European market for allowances is examined taking into account markets heterogeneity. Essay five analyzes stylized statistical properties of the recent traded asset CO2 emission allowances, for spot and futures returns, examining also the relation linking convenience yield and risk premium, for the German European Energy Exchange (EEX) between October 2005 and October 2009. The study was conducted through empirical estimations of CO2 allowances risk premium, convenience yield, and their relation. Future prices from an ex-post perspective are examined to show evidence for significant negative risk premium, or else a positive forward premium. Finally, essay six analyzes emission allowances futures hedging effectiveness, providing evidence for utility gains increases with investor’s preference over risk. Deregulation of electricity markets has led to higher uncertainty in electricity prices and by presenting these essays we try to shed new lights about structuring, pricing and hedging in this type of markets.

Flexibility in a Stackelberg leadership with differentiated goods

We study the effects of product differentiation in a Stackelberg model with demand uncertainty for the first mover. We do an ex-ante and ex-post analysis of the profits of the leader and of the follower firms in terms of product differentiation and of the demand uncertainty. We show that even with small uncertainty about the demand, the follower firm can achieve greater profits than the leader, if their products are sufficiently differentiated. We also compute the probability of the second firm having higher profit than the leading firm, subsequently showing the advantages and disadvantages of being either the leader or the follower firm.

Bertrand oligopoly when rivals' costs are unknown

We study a Bertrand oligopoly model with incomplete information about rivals' costs, where the uncertainty is given by a uniform distribution. We compute the Bayesian-Nash equilibrium of this game, the ex-ante expected profit and the ex-post profit of each firm. We see that, even though only one firm produces in equilibrium, all firms have a positive ex-ante expected profit.

Bertrand and Cournot oligopolies when rivals' costs are unknown

We study Bertrand and Cournot oligopoly models with incomplete information about rivals’ costs, where the uncertainty is given by a uniform distribution. We compute the Bayesian- Nash equilibrium of both games, the ex-ante expected profits and the ex-post profits of each firm. We see that, in the price competition, even though only one firm produces in equilibrium, all firms have a positive ex-ante expected profit.

Disposição para pagar uma intervenção para melhorar o controlo da hipertensão em hipertensos não controlados : um estudo-piloto

RESUMO - A valorização económica de intervenções preventivas pode contribuir para melhorar a afetação de recursos em saúde. A hipertensão, primeira causa de morte em Portugal, é um grave problema de saúde Pública e o principal fator de risco para a ocorrência de Acidente Vascular Cerebral (AVC). O presente estudo é um primeiro ensaio para quantificar a disposição para pagar (DPP) da sociedade por uma intervenção de promoção da adesão à terapêutica em hipertensos não controlados. Foi aplicado um questionário presencial a uma amostra de conveniência (n=93), numa perspetiva ex post, sendo o questionário constituído por dois formatos de questões e dois cenários de diferentes reduções de pressão arterial sistólica (cenário 1 corresponde à redução de 10 mmHg e cenário 2 à redução de 20 mmHg). O risco de AVC a 10 anos foi adaptado à idade e ao sexo de cada participante. Relativamente ao cenário 1, a DPP média foi de €25,87 e €33,93, dependendo do formato da questão (resposta aberta ou bidding game, respetivamente). Na questão de resposta aberta, 78,3% dos participantes estavam dispostos para pagar pela intervenção, no bidding game 75,6% dos participantes referiram estar dispostos para pagar pelo menos €10. No cenário 2, a DPP média foi de €26,81 e €34,79, dependendo se o formato da questão era do tipo resposta aberta ou bidding game, respetivamente. Na questão de resposta aberta, 84,3% dos participantes estavam dispostos para pagar pela intervenção, no bidding game 76,1% dos participantes referiram estar dispostos para pagar pelo menos €10. Ao contrário do bidding game, nas questões de resposta aberta verificou-se 25,8% e 24,7% de respostas “não sei”, para o cenário 1 e cenário 2 respetivamente, diretamente relacionada com a baixa escolaridade dos participantes (p=0,004). Também se verificou uma maior tendência para respostas às questões de bidding game com valores mais elevados, comparativamente às questões de resposta aberta. Identificaram-se duas variáveis explicativas para os valores DPP: o rendimento e a ocupação principal. A sensibilidade dos respondentes à magnitude dos ganhos em saúde foi verificada internamente em cada questionário (os participantes referiram DPP mais elevadas no cenário 2 relativamente ao cenário 1), no entanto, os participantes que beneficiariam mais da intervenção não demonstraram DPP superiores aos restantes. Para confirmar os efeitos identificados neste estudo e extrapolá-los para a população portuguesa é necessário realizar um estudo representativo de população portuguesa.

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.

Somewhere between illusion of control and powerlessness : trying to situate the pathological gambler's locus of control

It has been suggested that pathological gamblers develop illusory perceptions of control regarding the outcome of the games and should express higher Internal and Chance locus of control. A sample of 48 outpatients diagnosed with pathological gambling disorder who participated in this ex post facto study, completed the Internality, Powerful Others, and Chance scale, the South Oaks Gambling Screen questionnaire, and the Beck Depression Inventory. Results for the locus of control measure were compared with a reference group. Pathological gamblers scored higher than the reference group on the Chance locus of control, which increased with the severity of cases. Moreover, Internal locus of control did show a curvilinear relationship with the severity of cases. Pathological gamblers have specific locus of control scores that vary in function of the severity, in a linear fashion or a non-linear fashion according to the scale. This effect might be caused by competition between "illusion of control" and the tendency to attribute adverse consequence of gambling to external causes.

Contracts, Reference Points, and Competition - Behavioral Effects of the Fundamental Transformation

In this paper we study the role of incomplete ex ante contracts for ex post trade. Previous experimental evidence indicates that a contract provides a reference point for entitlements when the terms are negotiated in a competitive market. We show that this finding no longer holds when the terms are determined in a non-competitive way. Our results imply that the presence of a "fundamental transformation" (i.e., the transition from a competitive market to a bilateral relationship) is important for a contract to become a reference point. To the best of our knowledge this behavioral aspect of the fundamental transformation has not been shown before.

Ambiguity on the insurer's side: the demand for insurance

Empirical evidence suggests that ambiguity is prevalent in insurance pricing and underwriting, and that often insurers tend to exhibit more ambiguity than the insured individuals (e.g., [23]). Motivated by these findings, we consider a problem of demand for insurance indemnity schedules, where the insurer has ambiguous beliefs about the realizations of the insurable loss, whereas the insured is an expected-utility maximizer. We show that if the ambiguous beliefs of the insurer satisfy a property of compatibility with the non-ambiguous beliefs of the insured, then there exist optimal monotonic indemnity schedules. By virtue of monotonicity, no ex-post moral hazard issues arise at our solutions (e.g., [25]). In addition, in the case where the insurer is either ambiguity-seeking or ambiguity-averse, we show that the problem of determining the optimal indemnity schedule reduces to that of solving an auxiliary problem that is simpler than the original one in that it does not involve ambiguity. Finally, under additional assumptions, we give an explicit characterization of the optimal indemnity schedule for the insured, and we show how our results naturally extend the classical result of Arrow [5] on the optimality of the deductible indemnity schedule.