Welfare and distribution effects of water pricing policies

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ruijs, A.J.W.

2007-01-01

In this paper, distribution and welfare effects of changes in block price systems are evaluated. A method is discussed to determine, for a Marshallian demand function, equivalent variation in case of a block price system. The method is applied to analyze welfare and distribution effects of changing

Strategies to increase the ownership and use of insecticide-treated bednets to prevent malaria.

Science.gov (United States)

Augustincic Polec, Lana; Petkovic, Jennifer; Welch, Vivian; Ueffing, Erin; Tanjong Ghogomu, Elizabeth; Pardo Pardo, Jordi; Grabowsky, Mark; Attaran, Amir; Wells, George A; Tugwell, Peter

2015-03-30

Malaria is a life-threatening parasitic disease and 40% of the world's population lives in areas affected by malaria. Insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs) effectively prevent malaria, however, barriers to their use have been identified. To assess the evidence on the effectiveness of available strategies that focus on delivery and appropriate use of ITNs. We searched the EPOC Register of Studies, CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, HealthStar, CINAHL, PubMed, Science Citation Index, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, African Index Medicus (AIM), World Health Organization Library and Information Networks for Knowledge (WHOLIS), LILACS, Virtual Health Library (VHL), and the World Health Organization Library Information System (WHOLIS). Initial searches were conducted in May 2011, updated in March 2012 and February 2013. Authors contacted organizations and individuals involved in ITN distribution programs or research to identify current initiatives, studies or unpublished data, and searched reference lists of relevant reviews and studies. Randomized controlled trials, non-randomized controlled trials, controlled before-after studies, and interrupted time series evaluating interventions focused on increasing ITN ownership and use were considered. The populations of interest were individuals in malaria-endemic areas. Two authors independently screened studies to be included. They extracted data from the selected studies and assessed the risk of bias. When consensus was not reached, any disagreements were discussed with a third author. The magnitude of effect and quality of evidence for each outcome was assessed. Of the 3032 records identified, 10 studies were included in this review. Effect of ITN cost on ownership:Four studies including 4566 households and another study comprising 424 participants evaluated the effect of ITN price on ownership. These studies suggest that providing free ITNs probably increases ITN ownership when compared to subsidized ITNs or ITNs offered at full

Identification of Distribution Channels to Create Sustainable Vegetable Prices

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aflit Nuryulia Praswati

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The price of vegetables has a role as a contributor to the rate of inflation. Currently the number of vegetable production in Boyolali region can no longer meet the needs of local communities. The limited amount of vegetable production and the inhibition of the vegetable distribution channel creates a scarcity of vegetables that result in price increases. This study aims to identify the distribution channel and the formation of vegetable prices derived from Boyolali area. The method used in this research is quantitative and qualitative. Respondents from this study consisted of farmers, wholesalers, small trader and end consumers. The type of distribution channel prevailing in Boyolali area are traditional and modern distribution channels. Intermediate distribution channels play a greater role in determining vegetable prices. If farmers want to improve their economic condition, it needs innovation and creativity in the process of planting, harvesting, packaging and marketing vegetable products.

Understanding transmission and distribution pricing options and proposals

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shalaby, A.

1998-01-01

Issues regarding power transmission and distribution pricing were addressed in view of the importance of pricing to electricity restructuring and policy developments. Specific facts, policy directions, options and challenges peculiar to Ontario were highlighted, and recent Ontario legislation affecting the electricity industry was updated. The importance of transmission tariffs to open markets was reviewed with special reference to Canada because of their role in internal restructuring and in gaining fuller access to U.S. markets. The objectives of transmission and distribution pricing, the principles for network pricing, and the range of available options were considered with specific reference to Ontario. In comparing Ontario to other jurisdictions, it was acknowledged that the same problems that plagued other jurisdictions introducing deregulation, are also prominent in Ontario. As has been observed elsewhere, there has been no progress on transmission and distribution pricing options. There are significant implementation and transition challenges waiting for solutions. Issues beyond Ontario, such as trading with the United States, wider reach of the Independent Market Operator, agreements with other IMOs, etc., are still largely unresolved

Distributional incidence of green electricity price subsidies in China

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang, Feng; Zhang, Bing

2016-01-01

Distributional incidences are fundamental to environmental and energy policies, a condition that has led to controversies on the equity of environmental and energy policy. Using data from China's Urban Household Income and Expenditure Survey data from 2007, this study quantified the distributional effects of the green electricity price subsidy policy among Chinese urban household and compared its effects by using lifetime income and annual income to classify households, respectively. The results show that total electricity subsidies are mainly driven by indirect electricity subsidies. By using lifetime income to classify households, subsidies to households in the poorest two groups accounted for less than 10.2% of the total subsidies, whereas money distributed to households in the top two deciles reached 35.4%. The comparison using annual income to group households also demonstrated the similar impact of the green electricity price subsidy policy. China’s future market reforms should allow electricity prices to reflect pollution abatement costs. Additionally, a multi-step block electricity price schedule can reduce the regressivity of the policy. - Highlights: • We quantified the distributional effects of the green electricity price subsidy. • The distributional effects of different income groups were compared. • The poorest two groups accounted for less than 10.2% of the total subsidies. • The green electricity price subsidy policy benefited the rich at household level.

Ownership unbundling in the energy economy - for and against; Pro und Contra Ownership Unbundling in der Energiewirtschaft

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Buedenbender, U. [Lehrstuhl fuer Buergerliches Recht, Energiewirtschaftsrecht und Arbeitsrecht der Technischen Univ. Dresden (Germany); Rosin, P. [Clifford Chance, Duesseldorf (Germany)

2007-08-15

The European Commission intends to boost competition in the energy economy through the concept of ownership unbundling. Aside from the fact that even after a dissolution of ownership the electricity network would remain a monopolistic domain requiring governmental regulation it is also questionable whether now is the right time for such a move. In discussing the main arguments brought forward by the Commission the present contribution shows that there is no necessity in Germany to introduce ownership unbundling. Not only are network operators already under an obligation to expand their networks; the present concept is also more likely to hamper than promote market integration and transnational trade. As for improving transparency, this can be achieved more easily through additional disclosure obligations. Price formation mechanisms on the wholesale markets have only recently come under the control of new regulations and agreements. And not least, the European Union has no legal mandate to unbundle network ownership.

Prediction future asset price which is non-concordant with the historical distribution

Science.gov (United States)

Seong, Ng Yew; Hin, Pooi Ah

2015-12-01

This paper attempts to predict the major characteristics of the future asset price which is non-concordant with the distribution estimated from the price today and the prices on a large number of previous days. The three major characteristics of the i-th non-concordant asset price are the length of the interval between the occurrence time of the previous non-concordant asset price and that of the present non-concordant asset price, the indicator which denotes that the non-concordant price is extremely small or large by its values -1 and 1 respectively, and the degree of non-concordance given by the negative logarithm of the probability of the left tail or right tail of which one of the end points is given by the observed future price. The vector of three major characteristics of the next non-concordant price is modelled to be dependent on the vectors corresponding to the present and l - 1 previous non-concordant prices via a 3-dimensional conditional distribution which is derived from a 3(l + 1)-dimensional power-normal mixture distribution. The marginal distribution for each of the three major characteristics can then be derived from the conditional distribution. The mean of the j-th marginal distribution is an estimate of the value of the j-th characteristics of the next non-concordant price. Meanwhile, the 100(α/2) % and 100(1 - α/2) % points of the j-th marginal distribution can be used to form a prediction interval for the j-th characteristic of the next non-concordant price. The performance measures of the above estimates and prediction intervals indicate that the fitted conditional distribution is satisfactory. Thus the incorporation of the distribution of the characteristics of the next non-concordant price in the model for asset price has a good potential of yielding a more realistic model.

Applying data distribution management and ownership management services of the HLA interface specification

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kuijpers, N.H.L.; Lukkien, J.J.; Brasse, M.H.H.; Huijbrechts, S.

1999-01-01

The HLA Interface Specification defines services for Data Distribution Management (DDM) and Ownership Management (OM). In addition to Declaration Management, DDM is introduced to provide value based filtering on the attribute values to be communicated. The main objectives of DDM are reduction of the

Problems Related to the Abolition of Divided Real Estate Ownership

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dinsberga Jolanta

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Legal relationship between apartment owners in residential buildings and the land owners, that is, divided real estate ownership, was created in the Republic of Latvia in 1990, within the framework of the Land Reform, restoring property rights of the former owners or their heirs or privatising apartments in multi-apartment residential buildings. The existence of such legal relationship created different lease problems and restrictions on the property rights to the owners of both the building and the land. To abolish the legal relationship related to divided real estate ownership, the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Latvia has developed a draft law Regarding the Abolition of Mandatory Divided Real Estate Ownership in Multi-Apartment Buildings (hereinafter referred to as Draft Law. Unfortunately, in the opinion of authors of this article, there are serious shortcomings to the Draft Law which must be corrected. The aim of the research is to identify the problematic issues by selecting and analysing the legislation on the abolition of the divided real estate ownership, which is related to the calculation of redemption price, payment method and consequences of non-payment, which are not regulated by the new Draft Law. The article reflects research on the determination and calculation of redemption price reglamented by the Draft Law and also analyses the Law of December 8, 1938, On the Abolition of Divided Real Estate Ownership and its practical implementation, which may significantly influence the redemption price and the method of its calculation; however, the mentioned law has been disregarded in developing the Draft Law. Thus the research has both theoretical and practical significance. For the research purposes general research methods, such as historical, analytical, inductive, deductive, logical-constructive and descriptive methods, are used. For the interpretation of legislation norms, grammatical, systemic, teleological and historical

Ownership and usage of mosquito nets after four years of large-scale free distribution in Papua New Guinea

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hetzel Manuel W

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Papua New Guinea (PNG is a highly malaria endemic country in the South-West Pacific with a population of approximately 6.6 million (2009. In 2004, the country intensified its malaria control activities with support from the Global Fund. With the aim of achieving 80% ownership and usage, a country-wide campaign distributed two million free long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLINs. Methods In order to evaluate outcomes of the campaign against programme targets, a country-wide household survey based on stratified multi-stage random sampling was carried out in 17 of the 20 provinces after the campaign in 2008/09. In addition, a before-after assessment was carried out in six purposively selected sentinel sites. A structured questionnaire was administered to the heads of sampled households to elicit net ownership and usage information. Results After the campaign, 64.6% of households owned a LLIN, 80.1% any type of mosquito net. Overall usage by household members amounted to 32.5% for LLINs and 44.3% for nets in general. Amongst children under five years, 39.5% used a LLIN and 51.8% any type of net, whereas 41.3% of pregnant women used a LLIN and 56.1% any net. Accessibility of villages was the key determinant of net ownership, while usage was mainly determined by ownership. Most (99.5% of the household members who did not sleep under a net did not have access to a (unused net in their household. In the sentinel sites, LLIN ownership increased from 9.4% to 88.7%, ownership of any net from 52.7% to 94.1%. Usage of LLINs increased from 5.5% to 55.1%, usage of any net from 37.3% to 66.7%. Among children under five years, usage of LLINs and of nets in general increased from 8.2% to 67.0% and from 44.6% to 76.1%, respectively (all p ≤ 0.001. Conclusions While a single round of free distribution of LLINs significantly increased net ownership, an insufficient number of nets coupled with a heterogeneous distribution led to overall

A meta-analysis of the price elasticity of gasoline demand. A SUR approach

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Brons, M.R.E.; Nijkamp, P.; Pels, E.; Rietveld, P.

2008-01-01

Automobile gasoline demand can be expressed as a multiplicative function of fuel efficiency, mileage per car and car ownership. This implies a linear relationship between the price elasticity of total fuel demand and the price elasticities of fuel efficiency, mileage per car and car ownership. In

Day-Ahead Congestion Management in Distribution Systems through Household Demand Response and Distribution Congestion Prices

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Liu, Weijia; Wu, Qiuwei; Wen, Fushuan

2014-01-01

into balancing power might challenge the operation of electric distribution systems and cause congestions. This paper presents a distribution congestion price (DCP) based market mechanism to alleviate possible distribution system congestions. By employing the loca- tional marginal pricing (LMP) model...... is proposed. Finally, a practical Danish 60kV/10.5kV distribution system is employed as the test case to verify the proposed method for mitigating congestion....

House price risk and the hedging benefits of home Ownership

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dröes, M.I.; Hassink, W.H.J.

2013-01-01

Using a repeat-sales methodology, this paper finds that estimates of house price risk based on aggregate house price indices substantially underestimate the true size of house price risk. This is the result of the fact that aggregate house price indices average away the idiosyncratic volatility in

Dynamical Models For Prices With Distributed Delays

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mircea Gabriela

2015-06-01

Full Text Available In the present paper we study some models for the price dynamics of a single commodity market. The quantities of supplied and demanded are regarded as a function of time. Nonlinearities in both supply and demand functions are considered. The inventory and the level of inventory are taken into consideration. Due to the fact that the consumer behavior affects commodity demand, and the behavior is influenced not only by the instantaneous price, but also by the weighted past prices, the distributed time delay is introduced. The following kernels are taken into consideration: demand price weak kernel and demand price Dirac kernel. Only one positive equilibrium point is found and its stability analysis is presented. When the demand price kernel is weak, under some conditions of the parameters, the equilibrium point is locally asymptotically stable. When the demand price kernel is Dirac, the existence of the local oscillations is investigated. A change in local stability of the equilibrium point, from stable to unstable, implies a Hopf bifurcation. A family of periodic orbits bifurcates from the positive equilibrium point when the time delay passes through a critical value. The last part contains some numerical simulations to illustrate the effectiveness of our results and conclusions.

A Meta-analysis of the Price Elasticity of Gasoline Demand. A System of Equations Approach

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Brons, Martijn; Nijkamp, Peter; Pels, Eric; Rietveld, Piet

2006-01-01

Automobile gasoline demand can be expressed as a multiplicative function of fuel efficiency, mileage per car and car ownership. This implies a linear relationship between the price elasticity of total fuel demand and the price elasticities of fuel efficiency, mileage per car and car ownership. In

Market Integration Dynamics and Asymptotic Price Convergence in Distribution

NARCIS (Netherlands)

A. García-Hiernaux (Alfredo); D.E. Guerrero (David); M.J. McAleer (Michael)

2013-01-01

textabstractIn this paper we analyse the market integration process of the relative price distribution, develop a model to analyze market integration, and present a formal test of increasing market integration. We distinguish between the economic concepts of price convergence in mean and in

Stochastic processes in the social sciences: Markets, prices and wealth distributions

Science.gov (United States)

Romero, Natalia E.

The present work uses statistical mechanics tools to investigate the dynamics of markets, prices, trades and wealth distribution. We studied the evolution of market dynamics in different stages of historical development by analyzing commodity prices from two distinct periods ancient Babylon, and medieval and early modern England. We find that the first-digit distributions of both Babylon and England commodity prices follow Benfords law, indicating that the data represent empirical observations typically arising from a free market. Further, we find that the normalized prices of both Babylon and England agricultural commodities are characterized by stretched exponential distributions, and exhibit persistent correlations of a power law type over long periods of up to several centuries, in contrast to contemporary markets. Our findings suggest that similar market interactions may underlie the dynamics of ancient agricultural commodity prices, and that these interactions may remain stable across centuries. To further investigate the dynamics of markets we present the analogy between transfers of money between individuals and the transfer of energy through particle collisions by means of the kinetic theory of gases. We introduce a theoretical framework of how the micro rules of trading lead to the emergence of income and wealth distribution. Particularly, we study the effects of different types of distribution of savings/investments among individuals in a society and different welfare/subsidies redistribution policies. Results show that while considering savings propensities the models approach empirical distributions of wealth quite well the effect of redistribution better captures specific features of the distributions which earlier models failed to do; moreover the models still preserve the exponential decay observed in empirical income distributions reported by tax data and surveys.

Three essays in corporate finance: Examining the influence of government ownership and evaluating crude oil arbitrage

Science.gov (United States)

Holland, Kateryna

The aim of this dissertation is twofold: first, to evaluate how governments influence firms in which they invest (chapters one and two), and second, to examine arbitrage in the crude oil market by investigating the relationship between crude oil inventories, physical prices, and financial prices (chapter three). In the first chapter (The Wealth Effects of Government Investment in Publicly Traded Firms), I study how government share ownership affects shareholder wealth. I find that government investments with higher likelihood of political interference have a negative influence on shareholder wealth, while the opposite is true for government investments with economic objectives. In the second chapter (Government Ownership and the Cost of Debt: Evidence form Government Investment in Publicly Traded Firms), I investigate how government share ownership affects the cost of debt of publicly traded firms. I find that government ownership generally leads to a higher cost of debt, except for times of economic and firm distress, when the value of the implicit government guarantee is associated with a reduction in the cost of debt. In the third chapter (Financial Trading, Spot Oil Prices, and Inventory: Evidence from the U.S. Crude Oil Market), I confirm the existence of an active cash and carry market in crude oil in Cushing, OK, the main U.S. crude oil futures settlement location. In other words, crude oil inventories in Cushing, but not in any other U.S. crude oil storage locations, are explained by the spread between the financial and the physical price of oil in addition to operational factors.

House Prices and Public Debt

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gjedsted Nielsen, Mads; Rzeznik, Aleksandra

By using the 2002 case of fraud in the Danish municipality Farum by then mayor Peter Brixtofte as an exogenous shock to public debt of 1 billion DKK, I estimate the effect of public debt on house prices. I find that the average home ownership lost about 570,000 DKK or as much as 29% of the average...... house price in the municipality. Furthermore, I document that the aggregate house price loss of 2.1 billion DKK greatly exceeds the increase in public debt of 1 billion DKK. I find that the drop in house prices is sustained 1 year, indicating that the housing market initially overreacts...

Brain Activity in Fairness Consideration during Asset Distribution: Does the Initial Ownership Play a Role?

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Yin; Hu, Jie; van Dijk, Eric; Leliveld, Marijke C.; Zhou, Xiaolin

2012-01-01

Previous behavioral studies have shown that initial ownership influences individuals’ fairness consideration and other-regarding behavior. However, it is not entirely clear whether initial ownership influences the brain activity when a recipient evaluates the fairness of asset distribution. In this study, we randomly assigned the bargaining property (monetary reward) to either the allocator or the recipient in the ultimatum game and let participants of the study, acting as recipients, receive either disadvantageous unequal, equal, or advantageous unequal offers from allocators while the event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Behavioral results showed that participants were more likely to reject disadvantageous unequal and equal offers when they initially owned the property as compared to when they did not. The two types of unequal offers evoked more negative going ERPs (the MFN) than the equal offers in an early time window and the differences were not modulated by the initial ownership. In a late time window, however, the P300 responses to division schemes were affected not only by the type of unequal offers but also by whom the property was initially assigned to. These findings suggest that while the MFN may function as a general mechanism that evaluates whether the offer is consistent or inconsistent with the equity rule, the P300 is sensitive to top-down controlled processes, into which factors related to the allocation of attentional resources, including initial ownership and personal interests, come to play. PMID:22761850

Incorporating price-responsive customers in day-ahead scheduling of smart distribution networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mazidi, Mohammadreza; Monsef, Hassan; Siano, Pierluigi

2016-01-01

Highlights: • Proposing a model for incorporating price-responsive customers in day-ahead scheduling of smart distribution networks; this model provides a win–win situation. • Introducing a risk management model based on a bi-level information-gap decision theory and recasting it into its equivalent single-level robust optimization problem using Karush–Kuhn–Tucker optimality conditions. • Utilizing mixed-integer linear programing formulation that is efficiently solved by commercial optimization software. - Abstract: Demand response and real-time pricing of electricity are key factors in a smart grid as they can increase economic efficiency and technical performances of power grids. This paper focuses on incorporating price-responsive customers in day-ahead scheduling of smart distribution networks under a dynamic pricing environment. A novel method is proposed and formulated as a tractable mixed integer linear programming optimization problem whose objective is to find hourly sale prices offered to customers, transactions (purchase/sale) with the wholesale market, commitment of distribution generation units, dispatch of battery energy storage systems and planning of interruptible loads in a way that the profit of the distribution network operator is maximized while customers’ benefit is guaranteed. To hedge distribution network operator against financial risk arising from uncertainty of wholesale market prices, a risk management model based on a bi-level information-gap decision theory is proposed. The proposed bi-level problem is solved by recasting it into its equivalent single-level robust optimization problem using Karush–Kuhn–Tucker optimality conditions. Performance of the proposed model is verified by applying it to a modified version of the IEEE 33-bus distribution test network. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method.

Optimal pricing of transmission and distribution services in electricity supply

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Farmer, E.D.; Cory, B.J.; Perera, B.L.P.P.

1995-01-01

A new strategy for the separate pricing of transmission and distribution services in electricity supply is formulated and evaluated. The proposed methodology is a multivariate transmission generalisation of the method of peak load pricing previously applied to the optimal time-of-use pricing of generation on a power system with diverse generation technologies and with elastic demand. The method allocates both capacity and operational costs on a time-of-use basis, in an optimal manner, that avoids cross-subsidisation both between differing supply system participants and differing times of usage. The method is shown to promote the optimal development of the transmission, distribution or interconnecting systems, rewarding justified investments in transmission capacity and discouraging overinvestment. It also leads to appropriate returns on invested capital without significant 'revenue reconciliation'. This contrasts with SRMC pricing as is shown by a comparative revenue evaluation. It is concluded that the method has wide potential application in electricity supply. (author)

Controlling Price-Responsive Heat Pumps for Overload Elimination in Distribution Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Csetvei, Zsuzsa; Østergaard, Jacob; Nyeng, Preben

2011-01-01

This paper investigates the possibility of applying electric heat pumps with the control-by-price-concept in order to avoid overload in a local distribution system. The proposed control algorithm is based upon a centrally dispatched real-time market price, reflecting the state of a larger power...... system, and is extended with a local price control for overload elimination on the corresponding feeder. The paper presents the mathematical models of a two-node system with price-responsive heat pumps, the chosen methodology of the central price calculation, and the proposed local feedback control...

Distributional impacts of car road pricing. Settlement structures determine divergence across countries

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kalinowska, Dominika; Steininger, Karl W.

2009-01-01

Social questions of distribution and equity are of major importance for the political acceptance of car road pricing. The argument that kilometre-based private vehicle charging disadvantages the poor is often the core reason for opposing its introduction. An article in this journal [Steininger, K.W., Friedl, B., Gebetsroither, B., 2007. Sustainability impacts of car road pricing: a computable general equilibrium analysis for Austria. Ecological Economics 63, pp. 59-69] proved the opposite for one European country, i.e. that the rich bear most of the burden. In the present paper we use the very same model structure and apply it in a simulation to the data of another country. While macroeconomic and environmental conclusions are similar, we find a different distributional impact of car road pricing in our case. This issue is also of relevance in the analysis of the distributional implications concerning (recently significant) gasoline price increases. (author)

A study of the improvement of the district heat price cap system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yoo, S.J. [Korea Energy Economics Institute, Euiwang (Korea)

2001-11-01

This study proposes revision of the price cap mechanism applied to the district heating company, which was introduced in 1999. The revision aims at the provision of the incentives to lower the production cost to the heat producers and preventing the monopoly price from being charged to the consumer. It is proposed to extend the application period of the price cap to 3 or 5 years. 3 year application period is recommended because of lack of the experiences of the price cap mechanism and information of its performance in the public utility industries in Korea. The calculation of the price cap is better to be set based upon the minimum of the full cost of heat production in the last year of the previous application periods or the prices actually charged to the consumer during the previous application period. As the opportunity cost of the equity capital, the interest rate of the 5 year government bond or the actual interest cost of the debt financed capital is recommended to increase the share of the equity capital and to reflect the investment risk of the district heating industry. Production efficiency index applicable to the district heating company is estimated with 3 different methods. Among three different results, 3% is the first choice from a conservative perspective. It is also recommended to adjust production efficiency index as the data are accumulated and to be implemented with a profit sharing mechanism between the consumer and the monopoly supplier. In application of the price index, producer price index is applicable if the price cap is calculated from the full production cost. consumer price index is applicable if the price cap is set from the previous year's actual district heat prices (tariffs). Transfer of the ownership either by transferring stocks or by asset selling could affect the price cap determined by the full cost of the district heat production. In order to keep the consumer's welfare from being decreased, it is necessary to set

Bank Financing for SMEs : Evidence Across Countries and Bank-Ownership Types

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Beck, T.H.L.; Demirgüc-Kunt, A.; Martinez Peria, M.

2009-01-01

Using data for 91 large banks from 45 countries, this paper finds few differences in the extent, type, and pricing of SME loans across foreign, private, and government-owned banks, even though different bank ownership types apply different lending technologies and have different organizational

European bond markets: do illiquidity and concentration aggravate price shocks?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Boermans, M.A.; Frost, Jon; Steins Bisschop, Sophie

2016-01-01

We study the effects of market liquidity and ownership concentration of European bonds on price volatility during periods of market stress. Specifically, using security-by-security data from euro area investors we examine if market illiquidity and concentrated holdings explain the large price shocks

Factory Gate Pricing: An Analysis of the Dutch Retail Distribution

NARCIS (Netherlands)

H.M. le Blanc; F. Cruijssen (Frans); H.A. Fleuren; M.B.M. de Koster (René)

2004-01-01

textabstractFactory Gate Pricing (FGP) is a relatively new phenomenon in retail distribution. Under FGP, products are no longer delivered at the retailer distribution center, but collected by the retailer at the factory gates of the suppliers. Owing to both the asymmetry in the distribution networks

Factory Gate Pricing : An Analysis of the Dutch Retail Distribution

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Le Blanc, H.M.; Cruijssen, F.C.A.M.; Fleuren, H.A.; de Koster, M.B.M.

2004-01-01

Factory Gate Pricing (FGP) is a relatively new phenomenon in retail distribution.Under FGP, products are no longer delivered at the retailer distribution center, but collected by the retailer at the factory gates of the suppliers.Owing to both the asymmetry in the distribution networks (the supplier

A Hierarchical Dispatch Structure for Distribution Network Pricing

OpenAIRE

Yuan, Zhao; Hesamzadeh, Mohammad Reza

2015-01-01

This paper presents a hierarchical dispatch structure for efficient distribution network pricing. The dispatch coordination problem in the context of hierarchical network operators are addressed. We formulate decentralized generation dispatch into a bilevel optimization problem in which main network operator and the connected distribution network operator optimize their costs in two levels. By using Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions and Fortuny-Amat McCarl linearization, the bilevel optimization ...

Housing ownership and affordability among low-income society in the poorest sub-district of Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia

Science.gov (United States)

Indrianingrum, Lulut

2017-03-01

The Government has intervened to deal with various affordable public housing programs, as well as financing programs for Low Income society in Indonesia. The characteristics of this society in each region are so diverse, that made the housing programs for this social segment uneasy in reaching the right target. Regulation of Housing and Settlement No. 2/2001 has mandated that the State are obliged to implement a habitable public housing for people, especially for the low income society. The purpose of this study is exploring the low-income residents' preferences and affordability of home ownership for their families in the poorest sub-district of Semarang. Aspects of studies include family conditions, financing, location, housing type and price. The research used a descriptive method to analyze a set of questionnaire data, distributed to low income residents in Sub district Tanjungmas, which isthe poorest sub district in Semarang. The results showed that the respondents developed a vision of home ownership by saving their money for the allocated housing budget and taking a bank installment. They tended to plan to get a house in their current neighborhood or nearby or anywhere else with the same price range. They really understood that, in order to get a better home and neighborhood they have to pay for higher prices. Therefore, their housing criteria or standards were set based on the quality of life in their current residential area, and should be located in a township (kampung).

Heat networks in France in 2014. Heat networks: which price for the consumer?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Reynaud, Didier; Gong, Zheng; Moreau, Sylvain; Bottin, Anne; Reperant, Patricia

2016-04-01

A first document publishes and comments various statistics regarding heat networks in France in 2014: distribution in terms of quantity of supplied heat, main urban units, distribution in terms of urban unit size and in terms of community type (land, isolated town, outskirts, centre town). It also indicates the types, percentages and evolution of energies consumed in these heat networks, the shares of fossil and renewable energies, and the distribution of networks in terms of energy type. Some regional data are briefly commented (energy shares in each region, number of primary housing connected to an urban heating network). This publication also indicates methodological aspects and the definitions of the main components and characteristics of a heat network. Notably based on some of these data, the second document comments the price of heat supplied in these heat networks in 2014 as these prices are not regulated and depend on agreements between clients and providers. These prices are analysed in terms of linear thermal density, of heat quantity supplied by delivery point, of sector (industry, housing, office building), of rate of renewable energy, and of operator status (public service delegation or private ownership)

Price and access charge discrimination in electricity distribution: an application to the Chilean case

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Raineri, R.; Giaconi, P.

2005-01-01

This paper presents and analyzes a model of electricity distribution in Chile with three alternative regulatory pricing contract schemes for assigning a common capacity cost to final customers and competitive energy sellers. The first scheme involves Ramsey Pricing, while under the second and third schemes the monopoly chooses final prices and access charges subject either to a peak-load Physical Cap or a total revenue Price Cap constraint. In addition, we consider circumstances in which the regulator does not know consumer demand, the monopoly cannot price discriminate beyond a range defined by the marginal cost as a floor and the stand-alone cost as a ceiling, and access charges are set at the fully distributed cost allocation level currently in force. The model is calibrated with Chilean data, and demonstrates that in terms of social welfare the fully distributed cost contract scheme currently in effect can be improved by discriminatory pricing complemented by certain of the analyzed constraints. (author)

Price and distribution policies in healthcare marketing in Romania.

Science.gov (United States)

Coculescu, B I; Coculescu, E C; Purcărea, V L

2017-01-01

There is a principle similar to the theory of exchange in the marketing of health services, meaning that what is delivered to the target market (i.e. the beneficiaries) must be equal to or greater than what is to be received (i.e. the price). The price level in the marketing mix is influenced by how the consumer perceives the respective medical service and is quantified in the profit and the turnover of the organization respectively. The cost of the medical act as a whole is the value of all the tangible and intangible variables associated with it, and the planning, distribution and promotion of the product must be taken into account in the price setting.

Concentrated Ownership

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rose, Caspar

2014-01-01

This entry summarizes the main theoretical contributions and empirical findings in relation to concentrated ownership from a law and economics perspective. The various forms of concentrated ownership are described as well as analyzed from the perspective of the legal protection of investors......, especially minority shareholders. Concentrated ownership is associated with benefits and costs. Concentrated ownership may reduce agency costs by increased monitoring of top management. However, concentrated ownership may also provide dominating owners with private benefits of control....

Self-Ownership, World-Ownership, and Initial Acquisition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tristan Rogers

2010-11-01

Full Text Available G.A. Cohen was perhaps libertarianism’s most formidable critic. In Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality he levels several strong criticisms against Robert Nozick’s theory put forth in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. In this paper, I counter several of Cohen’s criticisms. The debate operates at three stages: (1 self-ownership, (2 world-ownership, and (3 initial acquisition. At the first stage, Cohen does not attempt to refute self-ownership, but weaken its force in providing moral grounds for capitalism. Here I argue that Cohen’s attempt to overturn Nozick’s slavery argument is unsuccessful because partial-slavery, while normatively different from full-slavery, is still normatively wrong. At the second stage, Cohen argues for a joint-ownership view of the world’s resources. In particular, he claims that self-ownership is rendered merely formal in a jointly-owned world and in a capitalist world. To rebut this challenge I show that even if Cohen is right about this, libertarian self-ownership is only formal in Cohen’s peculiar case where only two people exist and one owns everything. In contrast, self-ownership in a jointly-owned world is formal in all cases. Lastly, at the third stage, Cohen argues against Nozick’s interpretation of the Lockean proviso, claiming that it is impossible to satisfy. Granting Cohen’s argument here, I go on to defend Jan Narveson’s no-proviso view of acquisition from Cohen’s thus far unanswered criticism. I show that significantly, in his critique, Cohen equivocates between positive and negative rights. Taken jointly, my responses at these three stages ground the anti-egalitarian conclusion that, in Cohen’s words, ‘[e]xtensive inequality of condition is unavoidable, or avoidable only on pain of violating people’s rights to themselves and to things.’ The sequence, then, is from self-ownership, to world-ownership, via initial acquisition.

The distribution of harm in price-fixing cases

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Boone, J.; Müller, W.

2012-01-01

We consider a vertically related industry and analyze how the total harm due to a price increase upstream is distributed over downstream firms and final consumers. For this purpose, we develop a general model without making specific assumptions regarding demand, costs, or the mode of competition. We

The Distribution of Harm in Price-Fixing Cases

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Boone, J.; Müller, W.

2008-01-01

Abstract: We consider a vertically related industry and analyze how the total harm due to a price increase upstream is distributed over downstream firms and final consumers. For this purpose, we develop a general model without making specific assumptions regarding demand, costs, or the mode of

The distribution of harm in price-fixing cases

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Boone, J.; Müller, W.

2008-01-01

We consider a vertically related industry and analyze how the total harm due to a price increase upstream is distributed over downstream firms and final consumers. For this purpose, we develop a general model without making specific assumptions regarding demand, costs, or the mode of competition. We

Rent distribution effect of a price reduction in the Dutch gas transport market. A scenario analysis of regulatory policy, market form and rent allocation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Van Witteloostuijn, A.; Brakman, S.; Van Marrewijk, C.

2005-09-01

As part of the larger energy market deregulation program, the Dutch Office of Energy Regulation (DTe) has developed the habit to force the Dutch gas transport enterprise (Gas Transport Services GTS) to lower its prices. In this report, we simulate the welfare effects of a five per cent transport price reduction. DTe's key argument is that lower gas transport prices will benefit the end-user. Indeed, that might well be the case. However, at least three observations complicate matters substantially: Observation 1: government ownership. GTS is government -owned, and the dominant shipper (Gasunie Trade and Supply) is partly so (50 %). Hence, lost revenues from the gas transport business will all emerge at the debit side of the government's budget, and part of the shippers' rent returns in the government's pockets. Observation 2: imperfect competition. Firms enter into the competitive game to make profits. Shippers are not different. So, apart from in the extreme case of perfect competition (or, more generally, perfect contestability), part of the rents will end up in the pockets of the shippers, rather than the endconsumers. Observation 3: rent export. The Netherlands are not an isolated island in the European gas ocean. Not only is the majority of gas transported in the Netherlands exported to foreign end-users, but apart from that have foreign owners a large stake in Dutch shippers. As a result, given the fact that the Dutch industry is not autarktic, part of the rents will always be distributed, or will always 'leak' away, to foreign consumers and shippers (or their shareholders). These three observations together have three important implications. First, state ownership implies that much rent allocation is simply a matter of circulating money from one government sub-budget to the other (Observation 1). Second, given that the industry is imperfectly competitive, part of the rents will not be passed on to the endconsumers (Observation 2). Third, it is unavoidable

Ownership Restrictions, Tax Competition and Transfer Pricing Policy

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Diaw, K.

2004-01-01

This paper analyzes tax/subsidy competition and transfer pricing regulation between governments involved in trade through a multinational firm and a joint venture using an input provided by the former.The paper takes into account the fact that in absence of bargaining, any model of such JV is

Palm oil price forecasting model: An autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach

Science.gov (United States)

Hamid, Mohd Fahmi Abdul; Shabri, Ani

2017-05-01

Palm oil price fluctuated without any clear trend or cyclical pattern in the last few decades. The instability of food commodities price causes it to change rapidly over time. This paper attempts to develop Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model in modeling and forecasting the price of palm oil. In order to use ARDL as a forecasting model, this paper modifies the data structure where we only consider lagged explanatory variables to explain the variation in palm oil price. We then compare the performance of this ARDL model with a benchmark model namely ARIMA in term of their comparative forecasting accuracy. This paper also utilize ARDL bound testing approach to co-integration in examining the short run and long run relationship between palm oil price and its determinant; production, stock, and price of soybean as the substitute of palm oil and price of crude oil. The comparative forecasting accuracy suggests that ARDL model has a better forecasting accuracy compared to ARIMA.

Bringing "indigenous" ownership back

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kragelund, Peter

2012-01-01

policies thrive again, this time disguised in terms such as ‘empowerment’, but just as politicised as in the 1970s. Zambia is at the heart of this development. In the light of liberalisation, booming commodity prices and the increasing importance of Chinese investors, this article seeks to further our...... understanding of how processes of exclusion interact with domestic politics in Zambia. It argues that the Citizens Economic Empowerment Commission, a new institution to bring ownership back to Zambians, builds on a long tradition of nationalist policies in Zambia, while its actual work is strictly related...... to the critique of the growing foreign dominance over the economy, and in particular of the upsurge in Chinese investments....

Distribution Locational Marginal Pricing through Quadratic Programming for Congestion Management in Distribution Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Huang, Shaojun; Wu, Qiuwei; Oren, Shmuel S.

2015-01-01

) calculates dynamic tariffs and publishes them to the aggregators, who make the optimal energy plans for the flexible demands. The DLMP through QP instead of linear programing as studied in previous literatures solves the multiple solution issue of the ag- gregator optimization which may cause......This paper presents the distribution locational mar- ginal pricing (DLMP) method through quadratic programming (QP) designed to alleviate the congestion that might occur in a distribution network with high penetration of flexible demands. In the DLMP method, the distribution system operator (DSO...

Pricing American Asian options with higher moments in the underlying distribution

Science.gov (United States)

Lo, Keng-Hsin; Wang, Kehluh; Hsu, Ming-Feng

2009-01-01

We develop a modified Edgeworth binomial model with higher moment consideration for pricing American Asian options. With lognormal underlying distribution for benchmark comparison, our algorithm is as precise as that of Chalasani et al. [P. Chalasani, S. Jha, F. Egriboyun, A. Varikooty, A refined binomial lattice for pricing American Asian options, Rev. Derivatives Res. 3 (1) (1999) 85-105] if the number of the time steps increases. If the underlying distribution displays negative skewness and leptokurtosis as often observed for stock index returns, our estimates can work better than those in Chalasani et al. [P. Chalasani, S. Jha, F. Egriboyun, A. Varikooty, A refined binomial lattice for pricing American Asian options, Rev. Derivatives Res. 3 (1) (1999) 85-105] and are very similar to the benchmarks in Hull and White [J. Hull, A. White, Efficient procedures for valuing European and American path-dependent options, J. Derivatives 1 (Fall) (1993) 21-31]. The numerical analysis shows that our modified Edgeworth binomial model can value American Asian options with greater accuracy and speed given higher moments in their underlying distribution.

The comparative advantages of public ownership : evidence from U.S. electric utilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kwoka, J.E.Jr.

2005-01-01

This paper challenged the conventional economic theory that private enterprises result in higher cost and price performance by indicating that several empirical studies have shown equal or better performance by public enterprises. These divergent findings have prompted renewed theoretical attention to the public-private debate. Recent theory has identified possible benefits of public enterprise in certain circumstances. It has been argued that public owners can better secure the information needed to monitor business behaviour for consistency with social objectives. This study tested the relative benefits of public versus private companies in producing outputs with more specifiable and less specifiable quality. The empirical tests were conducted on the electric power industry in the United States because it has structural characteristics that make it ideal for the study. Also, both ownership types perform the similar tasks of electricity generation, transmission and distribution. In addition, all segments of the electric power industry have at some point been regulated and have been non competitive. The study showed that while privately owned systems achieve lower costs in generation, public systems typically have the advantage in the end-user-oriented distribution function with more non-contractible disposition. The study emphasized the importance of identifying product, market and provider characteristics best suited to each ownership type. It cautioned that the search for better performance is not simply a matter of prescribing privatization. Rather, there are identifiable circumstances in which public enterprise is appropriate. 26 refs., 5 tabs

Marketplace pricing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1991-01-01

As discussed in this chapter, interest in marketplace pricing has been increasing in recent years, reflecting the societal trend toward substituting competition for regulation where appropriate. Competition is valuable because it encourages utilities to make efficient decisions with a minimum of regulatory intervention. It enhances efficiency through the incentive for innovation by the regulated companies and by increasing the likelihood they will come forward with proposals for better services, lower prices or both. Ultimately, consumers are beneficiaries. Marketplace pricing is emblematic of the view that the degree of regulation should reflect the degree of market power, that workably competitive markets should be allowed to operate with as little regulatory interference as possible. The Edison Electric Institute has made perhaps the most detailed proposal on marketplace pricing. It and others perceive numerous benefits from this method of pricing transmission services. Given the undeniable market power resulting from line ownership, FERC has emphasized the need to find a workably competitive market before approving such proposals. The ability to make this distinction without a full-blown antitrust review for every transaction is questionable, and FERC has yet to provide generic guidance. Finally, FERC's legal ability to depart from cost-based standards is questionable

Distribution Locational Marginal Pricing for Optimal Electric Vehicle Charging Management

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Li, Ruoyang; Wu, Qiuwei; Oren, Shmuel S.

2013-01-01

This paper presents an integrated distribution locational marginal pricing (DLMP) method designed to alleviate congestion induced by electric vehicle (EV) loads in future power systems. In the proposed approach, the distribution system operator (DSO) determines distribution locational marginal...... shown that the socially optimal charging schedule can be implemented through a decentralized mechanism where loads respond autonomously to the posted DLMPs by maximizing their individual net surplus...

The effect of power distribution privatization on electricity prices in Turkey: Has liberalization served the purpose?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Karahan, Hatice; Toptas, Mehmet

2013-01-01

Various electricity reforms have been adopted by a number of countries within the last 2 decades. Turkey, as one of those countries, has restructured its electricity market and intensively privatized the distribution companies. As one of the main targets of the liberalization efforts in the sector was announced to be reduced consumer prices, it is a matter of interest to look at the related developments after privatizations. Hence, this study attempts to explore the impact of power distribution privatization in Turkey on the national end-user electricity prices. Results of the analysis suggest that privatization of electricity distribution companies has not yielded the expected retail price declines within the first 4 years of the program. Whereas wholesale tariffs exhibit a reduction in the rate of 10%, retail tariffs show an increase of 5.9% within the period in question. Besides, the unstable patterns of the two tariffs imply that the market is not yet ready for the automatic pricing mechanism planned to be implemented based on a cost-reflective methodology. Therefore, results indicate that the factors behind the unsatisfactory outcomes of the program should be explored in order for the privatization efforts in the Turkish electricity distribution market to serve the purpose. - Highlights: • Privatization in electricity distribution has not reduced the retail prices in transition period in Turkey. • Changes in retail prices do not harmonize with those in wholesale prices in the electricity market. • The cost reflectiveness of the pricing system in the market is questionable. • The market does not seem to be ready yet for the automatic pricing mechanism. • The increase in distribution tariffs is not compatible with the targets of the liberalization program adopted for the Turkish electricity market

World oil prices flat to declining

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Adelman, M.A.

1993-01-01

A forecast is presented of the likely trends in world oil prices over the short to medium term. A historical background is presented of the OPEC cartel and its role in influencing oil prices. The incentives and disincentives for OPEC to raise prices, and the tensions within the cartel are explored. Slower demand growth and the expansion of natural gas are expected to put downward pressure on oil prices, which are currently artificially high. The impacts of high taxes on development and exploration are examined, and it is shown that state ownership poses an obstacle to improved performance. Threats of price decline are expected to continue to lead to threats of hasty, or even violent action on the part of OPEC members, as happened in 1990. Privatization and tax codes designed to skim rent are positive trends

A meta-analysis of the price elasticity of gasoline demand. A SUR approach

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brons, Martijn; Rietveld, Piet [Department of Spatial Economics, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam (Netherlands); Tinbergen Institute Amsterdam (TIA), Roetersstraat 31, 1018 WB Amsterdam (Netherlands); Nijkamp, Peter [Department of Spatial Economics, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam (Netherlands); Tinbergen Institute Amsterdam (TIA), Roetersstraat 31, 1018 WB Amsterdam (Netherlands); The Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research (NWO), postbus 93138 - 2509 AC Den Haag (Netherlands); Pels, Eric [Department of Spatial Economics, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam (Netherlands)

2008-09-15

Automobile gasoline demand can be expressed as a multiplicative function of fuel efficiency, mileage per car and car ownership. This implies a linear relationship between the price elasticity of total fuel demand and the price elasticities of fuel efficiency, mileage per car and car ownership. In this meta-analytical study we aim to investigate and explain the variation in empirical estimates of the price elasticity of gasoline demand. A methodological novelty is that we use the linear relationship between the elasticities to develop a meta-analytical estimation approach based on a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) model with Cross Equation Restrictions. This approach enables us to combine observations of different elasticities and thus increase our sample size. Furthermore, it allows for a more detailed interpretation of our meta-regression results. The empirical results of the study demonstrate that the SUR approach leads to more precise results (i.e., lower standard errors) than a standard meta-analytical approach. We find that, with mean short run and long run price elasticities of - 0.34 and - 0.84, respectively, the demand for gasoline is not very price sensitive. Both in the short and the long run, the impact of a change in the gasoline price on demand is mainly driven by responses in fuel efficiency and mileage per car and to a slightly lesser degree by changes in car ownership. Furthermore, we find that study characteristics relating to the geographic area studied, the year of the study, the type of data used, the time horizon and the functional specification of the demand equation have a significant impact on the estimated value of the price elasticity of gasoline demand. (author)

A meta-analysis of the price elasticity of gasoline demand. A SUR approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brons, Martijn; Rietveld, Piet; Nijkamp, Peter; Pels, Eric

2008-01-01

Automobile gasoline demand can be expressed as a multiplicative function of fuel efficiency, mileage per car and car ownership. This implies a linear relationship between the price elasticity of total fuel demand and the price elasticities of fuel efficiency, mileage per car and car ownership. In this meta-analytical study we aim to investigate and explain the variation in empirical estimates of the price elasticity of gasoline demand. A methodological novelty is that we use the linear relationship between the elasticities to develop a meta-analytical estimation approach based on a Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) model with Cross Equation Restrictions. This approach enables us to combine observations of different elasticities and thus increase our sample size. Furthermore, it allows for a more detailed interpretation of our meta-regression results. The empirical results of the study demonstrate that the SUR approach leads to more precise results (i.e., lower standard errors) than a standard meta-analytical approach. We find that, with mean short run and long run price elasticities of - 0.34 and - 0.84, respectively, the demand for gasoline is not very price sensitive. Both in the short and the long run, the impact of a change in the gasoline price on demand is mainly driven by responses in fuel efficiency and mileage per car and to a slightly lesser degree by changes in car ownership. Furthermore, we find that study characteristics relating to the geographic area studied, the year of the study, the type of data used, the time horizon and the functional specification of the demand equation have a significant impact on the estimated value of the price elasticity of gasoline demand. (author)

Choice Overload, Satisficing Behavior, and Price Distribution in a Time Allocation Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Francisco Álvarez

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Recent psychological research indicates that consumers that search exhaustively for the best option of a market product—known as maximizers—eventually feel worse than consumers who just look for something good enough—called satisficers. We formulate a time allocation model to explore the relationship between different distributions of prices of the product and the satisficing behavior and the related welfare of the consumer. We show numerically that, as the number of options becomes large, the maximizing behavior produces less and less welfare and eventually leads to choice paralysis—these are effects of choice overload—whereas satisficing conducts entail higher levels of satisfaction and do not end up in paralysis. For different price distributions, we provide consistent evidence that maximizers are better off for a low number of options, whereas satisficers are better off for a sufficiently large number of options. We also show how the optimal satisficing behavior is affected when the underlying price distribution varies. We provide evidence that the mean and the dispersion of a symmetric distribution of prices—but not the shape of the distribution—condition the satisficing behavior of consumers. We also show that this need not be the case for asymmetric distributions.

Skewed Normal Distribution Of Return Assets In Call European Option Pricing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Evy Sulistianingsih

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Option is one of security derivates. In financial market, option is a contract that gives a right (notthe obligation for its owner to buy or sell a particular asset for a certain price at a certain time.Option can give a guarantee for a risk that can be faced in a market.This paper studies about theuse of Skewed Normal Distribution (SN in call europeanoption pricing. The SN provides aflexible framework that captures the skewness of log return. We obtain aclosed form solution forthe european call option pricing when log return follow the SN. Then, we will compare optionprices that is obtained by the SN and the Black-Scholes model with the option prices of market. Keywords: skewed normaldistribution, log return, options.

The social disutility of software ownership.

Science.gov (United States)

Douglas, David M

2011-09-01

Software ownership allows the owner to restrict the distribution of software and to prevent others from reading the software's source code and building upon it. However, free software is released to users under software licenses that give them the right to read the source code, modify it, reuse it, and distribute the software to others. Proponents of free software such as Richard M. Stallman and Eben Moglen argue that the social disutility of software ownership is a sufficient justification for prohibiting it. This social disutility includes the social instability of disregarding laws and agreements covering software use and distribution, inequality of software access, and the inability to help others by sharing software with them. Here I consider these and other social disutility claims against withholding specific software rights from users, in particular, the rights to read the source code, duplicate, distribute, modify, imitate, and reuse portions of the software within new programs. I find that generally while withholding these rights from software users does cause some degree of social disutility, only the rights to duplicate, modify and imitate cannot legitimately be denied to users on this basis. The social disutility of withholding the rights to distribute the software, read its source code and reuse portions of it in new programs is insufficient to prohibit software owners from denying them to users. A compromise between the software owner and user can minimise the social disutility of withholding these particular rights from users. However, the social disutility caused by software patents is sufficient for rejecting such patents as they restrict the methods of reducing social disutility possible with other forms of software ownership.

Distributional impacts of the 2008 global food price spike in Vietnam

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

McKay, Andy; Tarp, Finn

macro-data, this paper investigates how global price changes appear to have impacted on rural welfare in Vietnam during 2006-12. In this paper we study the case of rice in Vietnam, in the context of the 2008 food price spike. We analyse the responses of domestic producer and consumer prices, and discuss......Agriculture and food cultivation production remains a key sector in the Vietnamese economy in terms of productive activities, income generation, and national export earnings. Higher world market prices should therefore in principle have a beneficial impact on rural farmers. This is based however...... the policy actions taken by the government to help reduce the impact on consumers, as well as to continue to encourage production. We also look at the distributional impact of the resulting domestic price changes, using data from a specialist rural household survey to look at production response. Vietnam...

A survey on the effects of institutional ownership, internal audit and non-executive board members on forecasting crashes: Evidence from Tehran Stock Exchange

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mostafa Sohouli Vahed

2014-11-01

Full Text Available This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of institutional ownership, internal audit system, the number of non-executive board members and having differentiation between chair and general managers’ responsibilities on the likelihood of stock price crash on 110 listed firms on Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2004-2011. The study uses Chen’ model (2001 [Chen, J., Hong, H., & Stein, J. C. (2001. Forecasting crashes: Trading volume, past returns, and conditional skewness in stock prices. Journal of Financial Economics, 61(3, 345-381.] to perform the investigation. Based on the results of the survey, there is a negative and meaningful relationship between stock price crash and institutional ownership when the level of significance is ten percent. In addition, as the number of non-executive board members increases, the chance of stock price crash decreases when the level of significance is five percent. However, separation between the responsibility of chair and general managers did not seem to influence on stock price and also having internal audit system had no impact on the likelihood of stock price change.

Land Market and Price of the Agricultural Land after the End of the Transitional Period

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dirgasová Katarína

2016-11-01

Full Text Available After the end of the transition period for the purchase of the agricultural land by foreigners, the legislation regulating the acquisition of the agricultural land was adopted for the purpose of harmonization of the Slovak legislation with the legislation of the European Union. The Law no. 140/2014 Coll. on the acquisition of ownership to the agricultural land and amending and supplementing determines the subjects that are legitimated to acquire the ownership to the agricultural land. In addition, due to the creation of the Register of Offers of the Agricultural Land, the legislation allows the landowner to set a price on the sale of the agricultural land. In Slovakia, apart from the administrative prices and the market prices, there is a new type of prices, so-called „supply price“. The aim of the paper is to sum up the impact of the current legislation on the land market and the prices of agricultural land.

A comparison of cost-based pricing rules for natural gas distribution utilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Klein, C.C.

1993-01-01

Partial-equilibrium social welfare deadweight losses under uniform Ramsey pricing, a cost allocation pricing method, and the actual average revenues by customer class for two natural gas distribution utilities are calculated and compared. Marginal cost estimates are derived from a multiple-output translog variable cost function and used, along with three sets of demand elasticities, to generate the Ramsey prices and welfare losses. The actual and cost-allocation prices are taken directly from rate case files. The largest social welfare losses are associated with the cost-allocation rule, as high as 10-25% of revenue, despite suggestions in the literature to the contrary. (Author)

The distribution price control and the 'revenue driver'

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Warren, Andrew

1995-01-01

The recent review by the UK electricity Regulator of the electricity companies' distribution price control is analysed. The revenue driver is related to sales volume and number of customers with fifty fifty weighting. This article argues that these are not the appropriate weightings and that peak demand rather than sales is more important. Without such changes, energy efficiency will be disadvantaged. (UK)

17 CFR 270.22c-1 - Pricing of redeemable securities for distribution, redemption and repurchase.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 17 Commodity and Securities Exchanges 3 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Pricing of redeemable securities for distribution, redemption and repurchase. 270.22c-1 Section 270.22c-1 Commodity and Securities... 1940 § 270.22c-1 Pricing of redeemable securities for distribution, redemption and repurchase. (a) No...

A dynamic analysis of motorcycle ownership and usage: a panel data modeling approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Wen, Chieh-Hua; Chiou, Yu-Chiun; Huang, Wan-Ling

2012-11-01

This study aims to develop motorcycle ownership and usage models with consideration of the state dependence and heterogeneity effects based on a large-scale questionnaire panel survey on vehicle owners. To account for the independence among alternatives and heterogeneity among individuals, the modeling structure of motorcycle ownership adopts disaggregate choice models considering the multinomial, nested, and mixed logit formulations. Three types of panel data regression models--ordinary, fixed, and random effects--are developed and compared for motorcycle usage. The estimation results show that motorcycle ownership in the previous year does exercise a significantly positive effect on the number of motorcycles owned by households in the current year, suggesting that the state dependence effect does exist in motorcycle ownership decisions. In addition, the fixed effects model is the preferred specification for modeling motorcycle usage, indicating strong evidence for existence of heterogeneity. Among various management strategies evaluated under different scenarios, increasing gas prices and parking fees will lead to larger reductions in total kilometers traveled. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Gas prices and price process

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Groenewegen, G.G.

1992-01-01

On a conference (Gas for Europe in the 1990's) during the Gasexpo '91 the author held a speech of which the Dutch text is presented here. Attention is paid to the current European pricing methods (prices based on the costs of buying, transporting and distributing the natural gas and prices based on the market value, which is deducted from the prices of alternative fuels), and the transparency of the prices (lack of information on the way the prices are determined). Also attention is paid to the market signal transparency and gas-gas competition, which means a more or less free market of gas distribution. The risks of gas-to-gas competition for a long term price stability, investment policies and security of supply are discussed. Opposition against the Third Party Access (TPA), which is the program to implement gas-to-gas competition, is caused by the fear of natural gas companies for lower gas prices and lower profits. Finally attention is paid to government regulation and the activities of the European Commission (EC) in this matter. 1 fig., 6 ills., 1 tab

Franchise value, ownership structure, and risk at savings institutions

OpenAIRE

Elijah Brewer, III; Marc R. Saidenberg

1996-01-01

This paper examines the relationship between asset risk and franchise values and between asset risk and ownership structure. Stock price data from publicly traded S&L is used to measure portfolio risk and franchise or charter values. The empirical results provide support for the moral hazard hypothesis. The standard deviation of equity returns is negatively related to S&L franchise values, as measured by the market-to-book asset ratio. This research also finds empirical support for models of ...

Regional differences in electricity distribution costs and their consequences for yardstick regulation of access prices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Filippini, M.; Wild, J.

2001-01-01

In this paper we estimate an average-cost function for a panel of 59 Swiss local and regional electricity distribution utilities as a basis for yardstick regulation of the distribution-network access prices. Shleifer (1985) proposed yardstick competition in terms of price to regulate local monopolies producing a homogeneous good. The regulated price for the individual firms depends on the average costs of identical firms. The yardstick competition concept can also be applied to firms that produce heterogeneous goods if these goods differ only in observable characteristics. To correct the yardstick for heterogeneity the regulator can use a multivariate estimation of an average-cost function. In the case of electricity distribution, the heterogeneity of output consists mainly of different characteristics of the distribution service areas. In this paper we follow Shleifer's suggestion to estimate a multivariate average-cost function that can be employed by the regulatory commission to benchmark network access prices at the distribution level. Several exogenous variables measuring the heterogeneity of the service areas were included in the cost model specification. We find that the regional differences of the service areas - e.g. area shares of forests, agricultural areas or unproductive land and population density - significantly influence electricity distribution costs

The value of solar: Prices and output from distributed photovoltaic generation in South Australia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maine, Tony; Chapman, Paul

2007-01-01

The Australian government's Solar Cities Program sees great value in so-called 'cost-reflective pricing', code for valuing solar at pool prices. We test that proposition in South Australia where pool prices and insolation are often high and we show that there were few days in 2004 when the pool price gives better outcomes than if the solar is valued at the regulated and fixed, so-called standing contract price. We also find that the illustrative day used in the Solar Cities Program literature to promote the notion of cost-reflective pricing is highly atypical. Finally, we consider ways in which the incentive to install distributed photovoltaic generation might be improved

A framework for diagnosing the regional impacts of energy price policies. An application to natural gas deregulation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bender, S.; Kalt, J.P.; Lee, H.

1986-03-01

Energy policy debates in the U.S. have frequently centered upon asserted regional effects. 'Consuming' regions are commonly pitted against 'producing' regions, with the latter purportedly gaining/losing at the expense of the former under higher/lower energy prices. Such simple views ignore regional trade linkages, the geographic distribution of ownership in energy using and producing firms, and the microeconomics of the incidence of energy price changes. This study presents a framework which incorporates these factors and allows assessment of the net regional income effects of changing energy prices. When applied to U.S. natural gas policy, the study's results indicate that the income effects of a rise in gas prices tend to be much more evenly spread than a naive assignment of increased costs and revenues to consuming and producing regions, respectively, would indicate. Under a number of plausible scenarios, in fact, it is likely that certain net gas consuming regions (e.g., the Pacific Northwest) have benefitted from the recent deregulation of U.S. gas prices. 14 refs. (A.V.)

Pricing Power of Agricultural Products under the Background of Small Peasant Management and Information Asymmetry

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Dexuan LI

2016-01-01

From the background of small peasant management and information asymmetry,this paper introduced the middle profit sharing model and discussed influence factors and ownership of pricing power of agricultural products. It obtained following results:( i) the transaction scale has positive effect on farmer’s pricing power of agricultural products,while the competitor’s transaction scale has negative effect on it,so does the cost for information search;( ii) under the condition of small peasant management system,farmer is in a relatively weak position in the distribution of pricing power of agricultural products,due to factors such as small transaction scale,information asymmetry and farmer’s weak negotiation ability;( iii) through cooperative game,farmer and buyers can share cooperative surplus at the agreed ratio;( iv) the introduction of self-organizing specialized farmers cooperatives is favorable for solving the problem of pricing power of agricultural products,and possible problems,such as " collective action dilemma" and " fake cooperatives" in the cooperative development process can be solved by internal and external division of labor and specialization of cooperatives.

Consequences of Debt Capitalization: Property Ownership and Debt/Tax Choice

OpenAIRE

Reiner Eichenberger; David Stadelmann

2009-01-01

Public debts capitalize into property prices. Therefore, property owners tend to favor tax over debt financing for government spending. In contrast, tenants do not suffer from debt capitalization. Thus, they tend to favor debt over tax financing. Our model of the resulting democratic fight between property owners and tenants over public debts and taxes predicts that the property ownership rate in a jurisdiction negatively effects the debt level. We provide empirical support for this hypothesi...

Comprehensive evaluation of power grid projects' investment benefits under the reform of transmission and distribution price

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yongli; Wang, Gang; Zuo, Yi; Fan, Lisha; Ling, Yunpeng

2017-03-01

On March 15, 2015, the Central Office issued the "Opinions on Further Deepening the Reform of Electric Power System" (Zhong Fa No. 9). This policy marks the central government officially opened a new round of electricity reform. As a programmatic document under the new situation to comprehensively promote the reform of the power system, No. 9 document will be approved as a separate transmission and distribution of electricity prices, which is the first task of promoting the reform of the power system. Grid tariff reform is not only the transmission and distribution price of a separate approval, more of the grid company input-output relationship and many other aspects of deep-level adjustments. Under the background of the reform of the transmission and distribution price, the main factors affecting the input-output relationship, such as the main business, electricity pricing, and investment approval, financial accounting and so on, have changed significantly. The paper designed the comprehensive evaluation index system of power grid projects' investment benefits under the reform of transmission and distribution price to improve the investment efficiency of power grid projects after the power reform in China.

Comprehensive evaluation of power grid enterprises' credit rating under the reform of transmission and distribution price

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yongli; Wang, Gang; Zuo, Yi; Fan, Lisha; Wei, Jiaxiang

2017-03-01

On March 15, 2015, the central office issued the "Opinions on Further Deepening the Reform of Electric Power System" (in the 2015 No. 9). This policy marks the central government officially opened a new round of electricity reform. As a programmatic document under the new situation to comprehensively promote the reform of the power system, No. 9 document will be approved as a separate transmission and distribution of electricity prices, which is the first task of promoting the reform of the power system. Grid tariff reform is not only the transmission and distribution price of a separate approval, more of the grid company input-output relationship and many other aspects of deep-level adjustments. Under the background of the reform of the transmission and distribution price, the main factors affecting the input-output relationship, such as the main business, electricity pricing, and investment approval, financial accounting and so on, have changed significantly. The paper designed the comprehensive evaluation index system of power grid enterprises' credit rating under the reform of transmission and distribution price to reduce the impact of the reform on the company's international rating results and the ability to raise funds.

CAPM (Capital Asset Pricing Model) and regulation in Brazilian electric distribution sector

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pinto, Rinaldo Caldeira; Parente, Virginia

2010-01-01

The aim of this paper is to analyse the use of Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) Beta in the Brazilian electric distribution sector tariffs review. The betas applied by the Regulatory Agency are defined using data from the American, English and Brazilian markets. These betas will then be compared to the betas obtained in the domestic market. The betas were directly obtained from an economic-financial databank largely employed by the market. The sample is composed of companies' shares, priced at Sao Paulo Stock Market. Their main activity is the distribution of electric energy between July 2002 and July 2007. The results of mean betas obtained for the distribution segment, with values close to the ones applied by the regulatory agency for the cycle of tariff reviews between 2007-2010. (author)

American Option Pricing using GARCH models and the Normal Inverse Gaussian distribution

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Stentoft, Lars Peter

In this paper we propose a feasible way to price American options in a model with time varying volatility and conditional skewness and leptokurtosis using GARCH processes and the Normal Inverse Gaussian distribution. We show how the risk neutral dynamics can be obtained in this model, we interpret...... properties shows that there are important option pricing differences compared to the Gaussian case as well as to the symmetric special case. A large scale empirical examination shows that our model outperforms the Gaussian case for pricing options on three large US stocks as well as a major index...

TECHNOLOGY FORMING PRICE DISTRIBUTION OF FINISHED GOODS OF LOGISTICS SYSTEM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Novikova T. V.

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Modern economics has developed a number of areas of the system for controlling the distribution of finished products. However, in domestic and foreign economic literature the mechanisms of logistics approach are not sufficient to provide higher sales of enterprise-producers, that have sales in remote areas. In this study, first, the importance of company-producers and end-users the methods of rational delivery of finished products is considered, and secondly, the approaches to defining the essence and content of the concept of «distribution» are given, in the third, the logistics processes of the distribution system ready products of a particular company-producer are described, fourthly, the technology of one price product delivery was developed and it was shown the economic efficiency (the possible results of the solution of the problem of distribution logistics of its application in the target company. The study showed that there is an opportunity, based on the development and implementation of technologies to reduce the final price of the goods, to develop the company and increase its competitiveness by minimizing costs and increasing return on investment. The results of research extend the knowledge of methodology of system logistics management in the enterprise.

An EOQ Model with Two-Parameter Weibull Distribution Deterioration and Price-Dependent Demand

Science.gov (United States)

Mukhopadhyay, Sushanta; Mukherjee, R. N.; Chaudhuri, K. S.

2005-01-01

An inventory replenishment policy is developed for a deteriorating item and price-dependent demand. The rate of deterioration is taken to be time-proportional and the time to deterioration is assumed to follow a two-parameter Weibull distribution. A power law form of the price dependence of demand is considered. The model is solved analytically…

Strategic pricing of grid access under partial price-caps. Electricity distribution in England and Wales

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Riechmann, C.

2000-01-01

It is perceived in public debate that monopolistic network operators (who are vertically integrated into competitively organised activities) would raise excessive access charges to derail competition by newcomers. Economic reasoning, however, suggests that the level of access charges is, at least in a simple setting, irrelevant for the intensity of entry by newcomers. In a setting where access charges are price-cap regulated, theoretical considerations and empirical findings for the case of electricity distribution in England and Wales even suggest that inefficiently high access charges correspond with intense market entry. Efficiency concerns remain, nonetheless. If regulated by a practicable partial price-cap, the network operator may enforce monopolistic access charges in certain market segments. Access charges in other segments may be lowered strategically and may even be cross-subsidised. 36 refs

The distribution of cigarette prices under different tax structures: findings from the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation (ITC) Project.

Science.gov (United States)

Shang, Ce; Chaloupka, Frank J; Zahra, Nahleen; Fong, Geoffrey T

2014-03-01

The distribution of cigarette prices has rarely been studied and compared under different tax structures. Descriptive evidence on price distributions by countries can shed light on opportunities for tax avoidance and brand switching under different tobacco tax structures, which could impact the effectiveness of increased taxation in reducing smoking. This paper aims to describe the distribution of cigarette prices by countries and to compare these distributions based on the tobacco tax structure in these countries. We employed data for 16 countries taken from the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project to construct survey-derived cigarette prices for each country. Self-reported prices were weighted by cigarette consumption and described using a comprehensive set of statistics. We then compared these statistics for cigarette prices under different tax structures. In particular, countries of similar income levels and countries that impose similar total excise taxes using different tax structures were paired and compared in mean and variance using a two-sample comparison test. Our investigation illustrates that, compared with specific uniform taxation, other tax structures, such as ad valorem uniform taxation, mixed (a tax system using ad valorem and specific taxes) uniform taxation, and tiered tax structures of specific, ad valorem and mixed taxation tend to have price distributions with greater variability. Countries that rely heavily on ad valorem and tiered taxes also tend to have greater price variability around the median. Among mixed taxation systems, countries that rely more heavily on the ad valorem component tend to have greater price variability than countries that rely more heavily on the specific component. In countries with tiered tax systems, cigarette prices are skewed more towards lower prices than are prices under uniform tax systems. The analyses presented here demonstrate that more opportunities exist for tax avoidance and brand

The distribution of cigarette prices under different tax structures: findings from the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation (ITC) Project

Science.gov (United States)

Shang, Ce; Chaloupka, Frank J; Zahra, Nahleen; Fong, Geoffrey T

2013-01-01

Background The distribution of cigarette prices has rarely been studied and compared under different tax structures. Descriptive evidence on price distributions by countries can shed light on opportunities for tax avoidance and brand switching under different tobacco tax structures, which could impact the effectiveness of increased taxation in reducing smoking. Objective This paper aims to describe the distribution of cigarette prices by countries and to compare these distributions based on the tobacco tax structure in these countries. Methods We employed data for 16 countries taken from the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project to construct survey-derived cigarette prices for each country. Self-reported prices were weighted by cigarette consumption and described using a comprehensive set of statistics. We then compared these statistics for cigarette prices under different tax structures. In particular, countries of similar income levels and countries that impose similar total excise taxes using different tax structures were paired and compared in mean and variance using a two-sample comparison test. Findings Our investigation illustrates that, compared with specific uniform taxation, other tax structures, such as ad valorem uniform taxation, mixed (a tax system using ad valorem and specific taxes) uniform taxation, and tiered tax structures of specific, ad valorem and mixed taxation tend to have price distributions with greater variability. Countries that rely heavily on ad valorem and tiered taxes also tend to have greater price variability around the median. Among mixed taxation systems, countries that rely more heavily on the ad valorem component tend to have greater price variability than countries that rely more heavily on the specific component. In countries with tiered tax systems, cigarette prices are skewed more towards lower prices than are prices under uniform tax systems. The analyses presented here demonstrate that more opportunities

Electricity distribution. Price control, reliability and customer services: response to OFFER

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1994-02-01

This document presents the views of the National Consumer Council to a recent consultation paper from OFFER, the body responsible for regulation of the United Kingdom electric power industry. The financial performance of the Regional Electricity Companies (RECs) is reviewed by examining how it relates to the prices paid by domestic consumers. A critical analysis is presented of OFFER's notion of the revision of the existing price control mechanism for the distribution businesses within the RECs. Standards of performance, debt and consumer disconnection are also examined. (UK)

Productivity growth and price regulation of Slovenian water distribution utilities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jelena Zorić

2010-06-01

Full Text Available This paper aims to analyse the price regulation method and performance of thewater industry in Slovenia. A stochastic cost frontier model is employed to estimate and decompose the total factor productivity (TFP growth of water distribution utilities in the 1997-2003 period. The main goal is to find out whether the lack of proper incentives to improve performance has resulted in the low TFP growth of Slovenian water distribution utilities. The evidence suggests that cost inefficiencies are present in water utilities, which indicates considerable cost saving potential in the analysed industry. Technical change is found to have positively affected the TFP growth over time, while cost inefficiency levels remained essentially unchanged. Overall, the average annual TFP growth in the analysed period is estimated to be only slightly above zero, which is a relatively poor result. This can largely be contributed to the present institutional and regulatory setting that does not stimulate utilities to improve productivity. Therefore, the introduction of an independent regulatory agency and an incentive-based price regulation scheme should be seriously considered in order to enhance the performance of Slovenian water distribution utilities.

Ownership, competition, and the adoption of new technologies and cost-saving practices in a fixed-price environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Hirth, R A; Chernew, M E; Orzol, S M

2000-01-01

Advances in medical technology have been implicated as the primary cause of rising health care expenditures. It is not yet known whether the increasing prevalence of managed care mechanisms, particularly capitation, will change substantially incentives for acquiring and using cost-increasing innovations. We examined the decisions of dialysis units (a set of providers that has faced capitation and real decreases in payment for several decades) with respect to use of cost-increasing technologies that enhance quality of care, cost-cutting practices that reduce quality of care, and amenities desired by patients that are unrelated to quality of care. We found that the dialysis payment system does not appear to have blocked access to a number of new, quality-enhancing technologies that were developed in the 1980s. However, facilities made adjustments along other valuable margins to facilitate adoption of these technologies; use of new technologies varied with numerous facility, regulatory, and case-mix characteristics including ownership, chain membership, size, market competition, and certificate of need programs. Interestingly, the trade-offs made by for-profit and nonprofit facilities when faced with fixed prices appeared quite different. For-profits tended to deliver lower technical quality of care but more amenities, while nonprofits favored technical quality of care over amenities. Our findings may have implications for the response of other types of health care providers to capitation and increasing economic constraints.

Distributional impacts of carbon pricing: A general equilibrium approach with micro-data for households

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rausch, Sebastian; Metcalf, Gilbert E.; Reilly, John M.

2011-01-01

Many policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions have at their core efforts to put a price on carbon emissions. Carbon pricing impacts households both by raising the cost of carbon intensive products and by changing factor prices. A complete analysis requires taking both effects into account. The impact of carbon pricing is determined by heterogeneity in household spending patterns across income groups as well as heterogeneity in factor income patterns across income groups. It is also affected by precise formulation of the policy (how is the revenue from carbon pricing distributed) as well as the treatment of other government policies (e.g. the treatment of transfer payments). What is often neglected in analyses of policy is the heterogeneity of impacts across households even within income or regional groups. In this paper, we incorporate 15,588 households from the U.S. Consumer and Expenditure Survey data as individual agents in a comparative-static general equilibrium framework. These households are represented within the MIT USREP model, a detailed general equilibrium model of the U.S. economy. In particular, we categorize households by full household income (factor income as well as transfer income) and apply various measures of lifetime income to distinguish households that are temporarily low-income (e.g., retired households drawing down their financial assets) from permanently low-income households. We also provide detailed within-group distributional measures of burden impacts from various policy scenarios. - Highlights: → We develop a simulation model with 15,588 households to study the distributional impacts of carbon pricing in the US. → Sources side impacts have typically been ignored in the literature biasing studies towards finding carbon pricing to be regressive. → Our general equilibrium framework allows us to capture uses and sources side impacts from carbon pricing. → We find that variation in impacts within broad socioeconomic groups may

The Effects of Market Structure on Television News Pricing.

Science.gov (United States)

Wirth, Michael O.; Wollert, James A.

Multiple regression techniques were used to examine the business side of local television news operations for November 1978. Research questions examined the effect of several variables on local television news prices (advertising rates), including type of ownership, network affiliation/signal type, market size, cable network penetration, market…

A decision-making framework for total ownership cost management of complex systems: A Delphi study

Science.gov (United States)

King, Russel J.

This qualitative study, using a modified Delphi method, was conducted to develop a decision-making framework for the total ownership cost management of complex systems in the aerospace industry. The primary focus of total ownership cost is to look beyond the purchase price when evaluating complex system life cycle alternatives. A thorough literature review and the opinions of a group of qualified experts resulted in a compilation of total ownership cost best practices, cost drivers, key performance factors, applicable assessment methods, practitioner credentials and potential barriers to effective implementation. The expert panel provided responses to the study questions using a 5-point Likert-type scale. Data were analyzed and provided to the panel members for review and discussion with the intent to achieve group consensus. As a result of the study, the experts agreed that a total ownership cost analysis should (a) be as simple as possible using historical data; (b) establish cost targets, metrics, and penalties early in the program; (c) monitor the targets throughout the product lifecycle and revise them as applicable historical data becomes available; and (d) directly link total ownership cost elements with other success factors during program development. The resultant study framework provides the business leader with incentives and methods to develop and implement strategies for controlling and reducing total ownership cost over the entire product life cycle when balancing cost, schedule, and performance decisions.

Influence of ownership capital structure of Refinery's operation and development

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hadzhi-Mishev, Dimitar

1999-01-01

Refineries are part of the energetic infrastructure of one country. Their significance is dependent on the geographic country position (whether it has sea exit or not), and on structure of primary energy spends in the country. According these facts, country's attitude to the refineries on its territory could be different. The possibility of ownership structure transformation in refineries and necessary legislation in the energetic sector of the state, needed for transformation realization are analyzed in this paper. Essential conditions for transformation fulfilling are protection 'mechanisms for domestic production in crude oil economy, manners of crude oil products price defining, and manners of excise determination and payment. As a function of these conditions, the conditions under which transformation of ownership structure in refineries is possible, as well as their influence on the operation and development of this part of energetic structure in transition country are defined in this paper. (Original)

A counterfactual price analysis of British electricity privatisation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Branston, J.R.

2000-01-01

The aim of this paper is to challenge the widely held view that electricity privatisation in Great Britain (comprised of the markets of England and Wales, and Scotland) was beneficial simply because the price of electricity has subsequently fallen in real terms. This is carried out by comparing the electricity prices actually observed with those that might have been charged had the industry remained in public ownership. In order to do this the paper develops a counterfactual scenario for the likely decisions and effects of a publicly owned industry. This leads the paper to conclude that observed prices are indeed significantly higher than they would have been had privatisation not occurred. (author)

Ownership concentration and bank profitability

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peterson Kitakogelu Ozili

2017-12-01

Full Text Available We investigate whether ownership concentration influences bank profitability in a developing country context. We focus on bank ownership concentration measured as the amount of direct equity held by a majority shareholder categorised into: high ownership concentration, moderate ownership concentration and disperse ownership. We find that banks with high ownership concentration have higher return on assets, higher net interest margin and higher recurring earning power while banks with dispersed ownership have lower return on assets but have higher return on equity. Also, higher cost efficiency improves the return on assets of widely-held banks and the return on equity of banks with moderate ownership. The findings have implications. JEL: Code: G3, G34, G31, Keywords: Corporate governance, Ownership structure, Agency theory, Profitability, Firm performance, Banks, Return on asset, Return on equity

Will cross-ownership reestablish market power in the Nordic power market?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Amundsen, Eirik S.; Bergman, Lars

2000-01-01

The integration of the power markets in Norway and Sweden in 1996 significantly constrained the major power companies' ability to exercise market power within their national borders. In recent years, however, mergers and reciprocal acquisition of shares have reduced the number of independent players on the Norwegian-Swedish power market. The aim of this paper is to explore to what extent increasing cross-ownership among major power companies in Norway and Sweden might re-establish the market power that was lost when the two national power markets were integrated. The analysis is based on a numerical model, assuming Cournot quantity setting behaviour, of the Norwegian-Swedish power market. The simulation results suggest that partial ownership relations between major generators and other power-producing firms tend to increase horizontal market power and thus the market price of electricity. (author)

Three-Phase AC Optimal Power Flow Based Distribution Locational Marginal Price: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yang, Rui; Zhang, Yingchen

2017-05-17

Designing market mechanisms for electricity distribution systems has been a hot topic due to the increased presence of smart loads and distributed energy resources (DERs) in distribution systems. The distribution locational marginal pricing (DLMP) methodology is one of the real-time pricing methods to enable such market mechanisms and provide economic incentives to active market participants. Determining the DLMP is challenging due to high power losses, the voltage volatility, and the phase imbalance in distribution systems. Existing DC Optimal Power Flow (OPF) approaches are unable to model power losses and the reactive power, while single-phase AC OPF methods cannot capture the phase imbalance. To address these challenges, in this paper, a three-phase AC OPF based approach is developed to define and calculate DLMP accurately. The DLMP is modeled as the marginal cost to serve an incremental unit of demand at a specific phase at a certain bus, and is calculated using the Lagrange multipliers in the three-phase AC OPF formulation. Extensive case studies have been conducted to understand the impact of system losses and the phase imbalance on DLMPs as well as the potential benefits of flexible resources.

Pricing Mining Concessions Based on Combined Multinomial Pricing Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chang Xiao

2017-01-01

Full Text Available A combined multinomial pricing model is proposed for pricing mining concession in which the annualized volatility of the price of mineral products follows a multinomial distribution. First, a combined multinomial pricing model is proposed which consists of binomial pricing models calculated according to different volatility values. Second, a method is provided to calculate the annualized volatility and the distribution. Third, the value of convenience yields is calculated based on the relationship between the futures price and the spot price. The notion of convenience yields is used to adjust our model as well. Based on an empirical study of a Chinese copper mine concession, we verify that our model is easy to use and better than the model with constant volatility when considering the changing annualized volatility of the price of the mineral product.

Individual Preference Rankings Compatible with Prices, Income Distributions and Total Resources

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Balasko, Yves; Tvede, Mich

We consider the problem of determining the individual preference rankings that are necessarily implied by a dataset consisting of prices, income distributions and total resources. We show the equivalence between the compatibility with individual preference rankings and the existence of a solution...

Empirical effects of policy induced competition in the electricity industry : the case of district heat pricing in Finland 1996-2002

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Peltola-Ojala, P.; Linden, L.

2007-01-01

Following open-market competition in Finland's household electricity markets, the Electricity Market Authority began regulation of electricity and distribution networks to limit unreasonable pricing and to separate the different business units, notably production, distribution and sales. The district heating industry in Finland is regulated through general Competition Laws. The district heating industry is considered to have a regional monopoly within its distribution network and the level of public ownership within the industry is high. This paper presented the results of a study that analyzed how the policy induced competition in the electricity industry in Finland has affected the district heating industry. Both the electricity and district heating industries compete in the same household heating markets. The impact of competition was studied through pricing behaviour using panel data models. The data was gathered from 76 district district heating companies in Finland from 1996 to 2002. It was shown that the price of district heating decreased slightly as a result of electricity market reform, but the effect was short-term. The price decrease was stronger in apartment buildings than in small houses. The results suggest that the district heat markets are non-competitive and some evidence which supports regulatory threat hypothesis can be found. It was suggested that large and market dominant firms are more responsive to policy reform compared to small firms. 16 refs., 5 tabs., 2 figs., 3 appendices

A fair price for energy? Ownership versus market opening in the EU15

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fiorio, Carlo V.; Florio, Massimo [Milan Univ. (Italy). Dept. of Economics, Business and Statistics

2010-07-15

In the past two decades privatisation and liberalisation of network industries providing services of general economic interest (SGEI), have been particularly significant in the European Union. Wide variations around a common policy trend can, however, be observed across countries and sectors. We focus on electricity and gas sectors because energy sectors have usually been profit makers, not affected by direct government transfers, in contrast to other SGEI. We study the effects of privatisation and other reforms on consumer prices using both subjective data on consumers' perception of utility prices and data on average prices paid. (orig.)

The Distributional Component of the Price of the Tax Avoidance Service

OpenAIRE

Damjanovic, Tatiana

2001-01-01

The traditional avoidance literature undeservedly neglects tax base distribution as a factor affecting the avoidance price, and generally assumed to be equal to the avoidance cost. In reality, avoidance providers are usually either high-skilled specialists or insiders. The strong collusion thus, naturally seems to be an assumption of the behavior of avoidance providers. Within such a framework, income distribution, which forms an avoidance demand together with tax codes, plays a very essentia...

Distributional effects of the Australian Renewable Energy Target (RET) through wholesale and retail electricity price impacts

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cludius, Johanna; Forrest, Sam; MacGill, Iain

2014-01-01

The Australian Renewable Energy Target (RET) has spurred significant investment in renewable electricity generation, notably wind power, over the past decade. This paper considers distributional implications of the RET for different energy users. Using time-series regression, we show that the increasing amount of wind energy has placed considerable downward pressure on wholesale electricity prices through the so-called merit order effect. On the other hand, RET costs are passed on to consumers in the form of retail electricity price premiums. Our findings highlight likely significant redistributive transfers between different energy user classes under current RET arrangements. In particular, some energy-intensive industries are benefiting from lower wholesale electricity prices whilst being largely exempted from contributing to the costs of the scheme. By contrast, many households are paying significant RET pass through costs whilst not necessarily benefiting from lower wholesale prices. A more equitable distribution of RET costs and benefits could be achieved by reviewing the scope and extent of industry exemptions and ensuring that methodologies to estimate wholesale price components in regulated electricity tariffs reflect more closely actual market conditions. More generally, these findings support the growing international appreciation that policy makers need to integrate distributional assessments into policy design and implementation. - Highlights: • The Australian RET has complex yet important distributional impacts on different energy users. • Likely wealth transfers from residential and small business consumers to large energy-intensive industry. • Merit order effects of wind likely overcompensate exempt industry for contribution to RET costs. • RET costs for households could be reduced if merit order effects were adequately passed through. • Need for distributional impact assessments when designing and implementing clean energy policy

Models and strategies for electricity distribution companies in emerging economies

Science.gov (United States)

Zaragocin Espinosa, Leonardo Vicente

Unbundling and privatization have become key elements of restructuring in the Electric Power Industry of Emerging Economies. These processes have concentrated on the Generation and Transmission areas, leaving Distribution as lower priority. Based on a comparison between the old role of Distribution Companies (DISCOS) and its new potential role this study identifies the main issues and challenges that DISCOS will face in the new environment once structural and ownership changes are completed. For the specific case of DISCOS in Emerging Economies, regulatory policies are reviewed and strategies identified in order to facilitate the transition and to assist in the integration of DISCOS with other agents in the evolving electric power market. Of particular importance in this research is the analysis of the role of Energy Efficiency (EE) in the new structural and governance environment. A theoretical study of the effects of energy efficiency measures, specifically loss reduction, on price regulation is developed within a proposed regulatory regime of privatization together with Price-Cap Regulation. This theoretical benchmark is then used as a starting point for a case study, the Electric System of Ecuador, where an analysis of the current Ecuadorian price regulation scheme (the Distribution Value Added Charge, VAD, scheme) is presented and analyzed in detail. General recommendations for improving the application of the VAD pricing approach are advanced, with special reference to the current situation in Ecuador.

Price setting in transition: the effect of takeover on a petroleum firm

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Valachy, Juraj

2002-01-01

Roč. 2002, č. 197 (2002), s. 1-24 ISSN 1211-3298 R&D Projects: GA AV ČR KSK9058117 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z7085904 Keywords : ownership structure * price setting * crude oil Subject RIV: AH - Economics

Regulator preferences and utility prices: evidence from natural gas distribution utilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Klein, C.C.; Sweeney, G.H.

1999-01-01

We investigate the determinants of regulators' relative weighting of the social welfare of customer groups and utilities using panel data on natural gas distribution utilities in the US state of Tennessee. In contrast to previous empirical work on cross-sections of electric utilities, our results are statistically robust and consistent with the interest group theory of regulation. Intervention in rate cases, settlement vs. litigation of cases, and prices of alternative energy sources, as well as the size characteristics of customer groups and the firm, are significant determinants of the elasticity-weighted price-cost margin (Ramsey number) for each group. (Copyright (c) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam. All rights reserved.)

Welfare distribution effect of a price reduction in the Dutch gas transport market: A scenario analysis of regulatory policy, market form and rent allocation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Van Witteloostuijn, Arjen; Van Marrewijk, Charles

2007-01-01

As part of the larger energy market deregulation program, the Dutch energy authority - DTe - has developed the habit to force the Dutch gas transport enterprise - Gas Transport Services, or GTS - to lower its prices. DTe's key argument is that lower gas transport prices will benefit the end-user. Indeed, that might well be the case. This policy, in general, is in line with European legislation on the liberalization of the gas market. We model and simulate the (domestic) welfare effects of a 5 percent transport price reduction. From this, we conclude that at least three observations complicate matters substantially. First, GTS is government-owned, and the dominant shipper - Gasunie Trade and Supply (or GasTerra, as it was recoined recently) - is partly so (50%). Second, shippers enter into the competitive game to make profits. Third, not only is the majority of gas transported in the Netherlands exported to foreign end-users, but also foreign owners have a large stake in Dutch shippers. As a result, part of the rents will always be distributed, or will 'leak' away, to foreign consumers and shippers (or their shareholders). These three observations together have three important implications. First, state ownership implies that much rent allocation is simply a matter of circulating money from one government sub-budget to the other. Second, given that the industry is imperfectly competitive, part of the rents will not be passed on to the end-consumers. Third, it is unavoidable that a substantial part of the rents are transferred abroad. A general conclusion for policy-makers is that market liberalization might not bring ex post what they expected ex ante. (author)

Price sensitive demand with random sales price - a newsboy problem

Science.gov (United States)

Sankar Sana, Shib

2012-03-01

Up to now, many newsboy problems have been considered in the stochastic inventory literature. Some assume that stochastic demand is independent of selling price (p) and others consider the demand as a function of stochastic shock factor and deterministic sales price. This article introduces a price-dependent demand with stochastic selling price into the classical Newsboy problem. The proposed model analyses the expected average profit for a general distribution function of p and obtains an optimal order size. Finally, the model is discussed for various appropriate distribution functions of p and illustrated with numerical examples.

Distributional modeling and short-term forecasting of electricity prices by Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Serinaldi, Francesco

2011-01-01

In the context of the liberalized and deregulated electricity markets, price forecasting has become increasingly important for energy company's plans and market strategies. Within the class of the time series models that are used to perform price forecasting, the subclasses of methods based on stochastic time series and causal models commonly provide point forecasts, whereas the corresponding uncertainty is quantified by approximate or simulation-based confidence intervals. Aiming to improve the uncertainty assessment, this study introduces the Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape (GAMLSS) to model the dynamically varying distribution of prices. The GAMLSS allow fitting a variety of distributions whose parameters change according to covariates via a number of linear and nonlinear relationships. In this way, price periodicities, trends and abrupt changes characterizing both the position parameter (linked to the expected value of prices), and the scale and shape parameters (related to price volatility, skewness, and kurtosis) can be explicitly incorporated in the model setup. Relying on the past behavior of the prices and exogenous variables, the GAMLSS enable the short-term (one-day ahead) forecast of the entire distribution of prices. The approach was tested on two datasets from the widely studied California Power Exchange (CalPX) market, and the less mature Italian Power Exchange (IPEX). CalPX data allow comparing the GAMLSS forecasting performance with published results obtained by different models. The study points out that the GAMLSS framework can be a flexible alternative to several linear and nonlinear stochastic models. - Research Highlights: ► Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale and Shape (GAMLSS) are used to model electricity prices' time series. ► GAMLSS provide the entire dynamicaly varying distribution function of prices resorting to a suitable set of covariates that drive the instantaneous values of the parameters

Partially Overlapping Ownership and Contagion in Financial Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Micah Pollak

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Using historical banking data for the United States from the years 2000 to 2015 we characterize the probability and extent of a financial contagion using a calibrated network model of heterogeneous interbank exposures. Both the probability and the average extent of a contagion begin to rise in 2007 prior to the US financial crisis. Including a common asset in the model increases both the probability and extent of contagion, especially during the years of the financial crisis. Based on rising institutional ownership in the banking industry, we introduce a partially overlapping ownership asset that devalues endogenously. The addition of this asset increases the extent of a financial contagion. Our results show that trends in capital buffers and the distribution and type of assets have a significant effect on the predictions of financial network contagion models and that the rising trend in ownership of banks by banks amplifies shocks to the financial system.

Strategic Audit and Ownership Strategy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mike Franz Wahl

2015-10-01

Full Text Available In the new global economy, ownership has become a central issue for organizational performance. Ownership strategy is where corporate governance meets strategic management. Highlighting a knowledge gap in the field of corporate governance, the author is asking the central research question: “how to develop an ownership strategy?” The main purpose of this paper is to answer this original question and develop a better understanding about ownership strategies. Theoretically there is evidence to indicate that there is a link between strategic audit and ownership strategy. Analyzing firm cases from Estonia allows concluding that the strategic audit is useful for developing systemically ownership strategies, which in turn could be a realistic alternative for complete contracts. The use of strategic audits gives the business owner an opportunity to analyze his own actions and behavior, learning, managing knowledge, and finally clearly expressing his will in the form of an ownership strategy.

Bearing Procurement Analysis Method by Total Cost of Ownership Analysis and Reliability Prediction

Science.gov (United States)

Trusaji, Wildan; Akbar, Muhammad; Sukoyo; Irianto, Dradjad

2018-03-01

In making bearing procurement analysis, price and its reliability must be considered as decision criteria, since price determines the direct cost as acquisition cost and reliability of bearing determine the indirect cost such as maintenance cost. Despite the indirect cost is hard to identify and measured, it has high contribution to overall cost that will be incurred. So, the indirect cost of reliability must be considered when making bearing procurement analysis. This paper tries to explain bearing evaluation method with the total cost of ownership analysis to consider price and maintenance cost as decision criteria. Furthermore, since there is a lack of failure data when bearing evaluation phase is conducted, reliability prediction method is used to predict bearing reliability from its dynamic load rating parameter. With this method, bearing with a higher price but has higher reliability is preferable for long-term planning. But for short-term planning the cheaper one but has lower reliability is preferable. This contextuality can give rise to conflict between stakeholders. Thus, the planning horizon needs to be agreed by all stakeholder before making a procurement decision.

Forest ownership in comparative law

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Üstüner Birben

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Efficient and sustainable use of forest resources depend on various factors. However, one of the most emphasized and discussed topics among these factors is forest ownership. Comparative law is an important way of analyzing and understanding legal systems of different countries, and identifying different aspects of the current legal systems. This study tries to analyze forest ownership with regard to comparative law. France for the Continental-European legal system, Great Britain for the Anglo-Saxon legal system, and Russia Federation for the Socialist legal system are taken respectively as a base. Thus, how right to ownership is evaluated in different legal systems and what are the main features of that are indicated. As a result, private forest ownership is common in the Continental-European legal system and Anglo-Saxon legal system while state ownership is common in the Socialist legal system. Prevalence of private forest ownership in the Continental-European and the Anglo-Saxon legal systems is also closely related to the previous use rights transferred into right to ownership. In addition, it is concluded regarding the historical process that many changes occurred on forest ownership types without considering differences in legal systems.

Optimal pricing and lot-sizing decisions under Weibull distribution deterioration and trade credit policy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Manna S.K.

2008-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we consider the problem of simultaneous determination of retail price and lot-size (RPLS under the assumption that the supplier offers a fixed credit period to the retailer. It is assumed that the item in stock deteriorates over time at a rate that follows a two-parameter Weibull distribution and that the price-dependent demand is represented by a constant-price-elasticity function of retail price. The RPLS decision model is developed and solved analytically. Results are illustrated with the help of a base example. Computational results show that the supplier earns more profits when the credit period is greater than the replenishment cycle length. Sensitivity analysis of the solution to changes in the value of input parameters of the base example is also discussed.

The Future of Electricity Distribution Regulation. Lessons from International Experience

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nillesen, P.H.L.

2008-12-03

This thesis contains five essays on the regulation of electricity distribution networks, each presenting a different point of view. Two essays use US data to demonstrate that incentive-based regulation has valuable application within a management setting and can lead to gaming behaviour within a regulatory setting. One essay discusses the lessons that can be drawn from the failed first electricity distribution price control review in the Netherlands. One essay presents the views of 75 international regulation managers and gives recommendations on ways to improve the regulatory quality and process. The final essay analyses the economic consequences of the forced ownership unbundling of the electricity distribution networks in 1998 in New Zealand, and draws lessons for future structural remedies that may be sought in other countries.

The Future of Electricity Distribution Regulation. Lessons from International Experience

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nillesen, P.H.L.

2008-01-01

This thesis contains five essays on the regulation of electricity distribution networks, each presenting a different point of view. Two essays use US data to demonstrate that incentive-based regulation has valuable application within a management setting and can lead to gaming behaviour within a regulatory setting. One essay discusses the lessons that can be drawn from the failed first electricity distribution price control review in the Netherlands. One essay presents the views of 75 international regulation managers and gives recommendations on ways to improve the regulatory quality and process. The final essay analyses the economic consequences of the forced ownership unbundling of the electricity distribution networks in 1998 in New Zealand, and draws lessons for future structural remedies that may be sought in other countries

Price fairness

OpenAIRE

Diller, Hermann

2013-01-01

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to integrate the various strands of fair price research into a concise conceptual model. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed price fairness model is based on a review of the fair pricing literature, incorporating research reported in not only English but also German. Findings – The proposed fair price model depicts seven components of a fair price: distributive fairness, consistent behaviour, personal respect and regard for the partner, fair dea...

Distribution Locational Marginal Pricing for Optimal Electric Vehicle Charging through Chance Constrained Mixed-Integer Programming

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Liu, Zhaoxi; Wu, Qiuwei; Oren, Shmuel S.

2017-01-01

This paper presents a distribution locational marginal pricing (DLMP) method through chance constrained mixed-integer programming designed to alleviate the possible congestion in the future distribution network with high penetration of electric vehicles (EVs). In order to represent the stochastic...

Hospital ownership: a risk factor for nosocomial infection rates?

Science.gov (United States)

Schröder, C; Behnke, M; Geffers, C; Gastmeier, P

2018-03-26

In some countries, a relationship between hospital ownership and the occurrence of healthcare-associated infection (HCAI) rates has been described. To investigate the association between hospital ownership and occurrence of HCAI in Germany. Five different components of the German national nosocomial infection surveillance system were analysed with regard to the influence of hospital ownership in the period 2014-2016. Endpoints included ventilator-associated pneumonia, central-venous-catheter-associated bloodstream infections, urinary-catheter-associated urinary tract infections, surgical site infections (SSI) following hip prosthesis and colon surgery, meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) and hand rub consumption per 1000 patient-days. Three hospital ownership types (public, non-profit and private) were analysed using univariate and multi-variate methods. The distribution of hospitals according to the three ownership types was similar in all components. In total, 661 intensive care units (ICUs), 149 departments performing colon procedures, and 349 departments performing hip prosthesis were included. In addition, 568 hospitals provided their MRSA rates and 236 provided their CDI rates, and 1833 ICUs and 12,934 non-ICUs provided their hand rub consumption data. In general, the differences between the hospital types were rather small and not significant for the ICUs. In the multi-variate analysis, public hospitals had a lower SSI rate following hip prosthesis (odds ratio 0.80, 95% confidence interval 0.65-0.99). Hospital ownership was not found to have a major influence on the incidence of HCAI in Germany. Copyright © 2018 The Healthcare Infection Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Ownership Barometer

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

2017-01-01

This case describes one of the Ownership Barometer’s (Korsager, 2016) three owner-types, namely the formal owner. The Ownership Barometer is an analytic tool to analyze an owner-manager’s feeling of ownership. The case exemplifies the formal owner-type by describing the character of KALK’s founder......, Mr Michael Jorgensen. His son, Mr Rasmus Jorgensen, explains how his father managed their family business, how he collaborated with the father when he joined the company, and how he eventually managed to take over the company after his father. The case draws on the author’s interviews of Mr Rasmus...

Ownership structure and earnings management

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Farooq, Omar; El Jai, Hind

2012-01-01

Does poor legal protection of minority shareholders provide enough incentives for majority shareholders to expropriate minority shareholders and hide their unscrupulous behavior through accounting manipulations? This paper attempts to study the effect of ownership structure (ownership of the larg......Does poor legal protection of minority shareholders provide enough incentives for majority shareholders to expropriate minority shareholders and hide their unscrupulous behavior through accounting manipulations? This paper attempts to study the effect of ownership structure (ownership...

"Asset Ownership Across Generations"

OpenAIRE

Ngina S. Chiteji; Frank P. Stafford

2000-01-01

This paper examines cross-generational connections in asset ownership. It begins by presenting a theoretical framework that develops the distinction between the intergenerational transfer of knowledge about financial assets and the direct transfer of dollars from parents to children. Its analysis of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) reveals intergenerational correlations in asset ownership, and we find evidence to suggest that parental asset ownership or family-based exposur...

An Emperical Analysis of the Corperate Ownership Concentration on the Operation Performance after IPOs of Chinese listed SMEs

Science.gov (United States)

Jiming, Li; Xing, Sun

The purpose of this paper is to investigates whether the large shareholders of small and medium firms (SMEs) take advantage of the inside information and decrease their shares before their operation performance begins to decline after the Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). By using the data from annual reports of SMEs listed on Shenzhen Stock Exchange in China from 2004 to 2006, this study explores both the relationship and the interaction effects between the change of operation performance and the ownership concentration of SMEs around their IPOs. The statistic analysis indicates that there is a significantly positive relationship between the ownership concentration and their operation performance after IPOs during the sample period. Moreover, the companies with higher ownership decreasing encounter more severe operation performance decline, which sugests that the listed companies intend to package their book profits before IPOs for the sake of increasing their issuing prices and enlarge their financing scales.

Determinants of insecticide-treated net ownership and utilization among pregnant women in Nigeria

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ankomah Augustine

2012-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Malaria during pregnancy is a major public health problem in Nigeria leading to increase in the risk of maternal mortality, low birth weight and infant mortality. This paper is aimed at highlighting key predictors of the ownership of insecticide treated nets (ITNs and its use among pregnant women in Nigeria. Methods A total of 2348 pregnant women were selected by a multi-stage probability sampling technique. Structured interview schedule was used to elicit information on socio-demographic characteristics, ITN ownership, use, knowledge, behaviour and practices. Logistic regression was used to detect predictors of two indicators: ITN ownership, and ITN use in pregnancy among those who owned ITNs. Results ITN ownership was low; only 28.8% owned ITNs. Key predictors of ITN ownership included women who knew that ITNs prevent malaria (OR = 3.85; p p = 0.003. The use of ITNs was equally low with only 7.5% of all pregnant women, and 25.7% of all pregnant women who owned ITNs sleeping under a net. The predictors of ITN use in pregnancy among women who owned ITNs (N = 677 identified by logistic regression were: urban residence (OR = 1.87; p = 0.001; knowledge that ITNs prevent malaria (OR = 2.93; p p = 0.036. Educational level was not significantly related to any of the two outcome variables. Although registration at ANC is significantly associated with ownership of a bednet (perhaps through free ITN distribution this does not translate to significant use of ITNs. Conclusions ITN use lagged well behind ITN ownership. This seems to suggest that the current mass distribution of ITNs at antenatal facilities and community levels may not necessarily lead to use unless it is accompanied by behaviour change interventions that address the community level perceptions, misconceptions and positively position ITN as an effective prevention device to prevent malaria

Generating efficiency: The power of price caps in the public and private Spanish electricity sectors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Arocena, P.; Price, C.W.

1999-01-01

Economic regulation of firms with market power has placed increasing emphasis on incentive-based regulation such as price caps. The move to such regulation often coincides with a change of ownership, making it difficult to separate the incentive effects. We focus on the effect of regulation alone by analysing the imposition of price cap type regulation on both publicly and privately owned Spanish electricity generators in 1988, several years before three was any change of ownership. Our initial results indicate that the publicly owned generators are generally more efficient than the private ones, but that the effect of price caps is to increase the efficiency of private sector plants faster than those in the public sector. We introduce two novelties into the analysis: we incorporate levels of CO2 and NOx emissions; and we include declared plant availability as an output. The outcome is dependent on the choice of inputs and outputs, and we argue that our measures are more appropriate than traditional measures for a system of central despatch for generators facing environmental constraints. (au) 37 refs

The effects of ownership and ownership change on nursing home industry costs.

Science.gov (United States)

Holmes, J S

1996-08-01

This study examines the effects of ownership type and ownership change on nursing home cost structures, differentiating patient care costs from plant costs. Administrative data from the Michigan Department of Social Services, Medical Services Administration (Medicaid), and the Michigan Department of Public Health are used. Cost data are based on audited cost reports for 393 nursing care facilities in Michigan in 1989. Other facility characteristics are based on data from the 1989 annual licensing and certification survey conducted by the Michigan Department of Public Health. A series of ordinary least squares regressions is estimated, in which the dependent variable is either per diem patient costs or per diem plant costs. Ownership types are defined as chain, proprietary non-chain, freestanding non-profit, government-owned, and hospital-based facilities. Pooled estimation techniques, as well as separate regressions by ownership type, are presented to test for interaction effects. Key variables include whether a facility changed ownership in the preceding five years and whether chain facilities are in-state- or out-of-state-owned, in addition to size, payer mix, and case mix. Behavioral differences among nursing home ownership types in respect to patient care costs tended to distinguish government-owned and hospital-based facilities from the freestanding homes rather than the usual distinction between for-profit and not-for-profit classes. Variables traditionally included in nursing home cost studies, such as size, occupancy, payer mix and case mix, were found to have similar effects on per diem patient care costs for freestanding non-profit homes as well as for chain proprietary facilities. With regard to the effects of ownership change on per diem plant and per diem patient costs, however, there are few differences among ownership types. Chain and non-chain for-profit facilities, non-profit homes, and hospital long-term care units that had changed ownership

Reallocating risks and returns to scale up adoption of distributed electricity resources

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kulatilaka, Nalin; Santiago, Leonardo; Vakili, Pirooz

2014-01-01

Deployment of distributed electricity resources requires bringing together assets that belong to diverse and geographically diffuse owners. Using the example of distributed solar PV, we analyze the schemes used to encourage/induce owners of distributed assets to make them available for electricity generation. The dominant model in the U.S. is long term power purchase agreements (PPA) offered to owners/consumers by solar developers. We show that these agreements (mis)allocate the electricity price risk to owners/consumers and impose limitations on the scale up of distributed solar. By proper use of financial markets it is possible to shift the electricity price risk from owners/consumers to parties that are better positioned to manage it. The proposed contracts simplify the adoption decision for owners/consumers and can lead to a wider adoption. Removing barriers to scale up requires (i) eliminating the tight coupling between consumers and owners and (ii) rewarding the owners unambiguously for the assets they provide. These necessitate the transformation of the current intermediary firms into full-fledged distributed generators. We discuss the implications of such a transformation and argue that the broad outline of our analysis can be used to assess scale up schemes in other domains of distributed electricity resources as well. - Highlights: • We analyze schemes used to induce owners of distributed assets to make them available for electricity generation. • We show that power purchase agreements used in solar PV “misallocate” electricity price risk to owners/consumers. • We propose new contracts forms that shift price risk from consumers to parties that are better able to manage it. • Full-fledged distributed generators are created by unambiguously rewarding owners and de-coupling consumption/ownership. • We argue that our analysis can be used to assess scale up schemes in other domains of distributed electricity resources

Nuclear energy center finance and ownership considerations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Morris, J.A.; Wilder, R.P.

1980-09-01

Finance and ownership alternatives for a nuclear energy center (NEC) in South Carolina are analyzed in the context of the capital market and tax differences among alternatives. The ownership alternatives considered are (1) the private or private/public joint venture, (2) full public ownership and (3) a hybrid ownership form featuring federal involvement in the initial site development and permit phase, followed by a transition to private ownership. Public ownership is associated with considerably lower out-of-pocket costs than private ownership; the difference between the two, however, is related to subsidies from other parts of society to electricity customers of a publicly owned NEC. The attitudes of participating utilities on ownership forms are examined, with the finding of general strong opposition to increased federal involvement in the electric utility industry through NEC ownership. The conclusion is that the private-private/public joint venture is the preferable ownership form and that public ownership should be employed only if the private sector fails to respond to future energy demand

Alcohol-Branded Merchandise Ownership and Drinking.

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Sandra C

2016-05-01

Alcohol-branded merchandise (ABM) has a longer shelf-life than other forms of alcohol marketing and the potential to become integrated into children's self-identities. This review sought to explore the current literature on children's exposure to, and the impact of, ABM. PsycInfo, Proquest, Science Direct, and ABI-Inform databases were searched from the earliest available date to May 2015. Additional studies were identified by a manual review of the reference lists of retrieved articles and contacting the corresponding author of each included study. Articles that reported on child or adolescent ownership of ABM and/or the relationship between ABM ownership and drinking were included. Data on key measures were tabulated; where data of interest were not reported, requests for further information were sent to the articles' authors. Nine cross-sectional and 4 longitudinal studies were identified. ABM ownership ranged from 11% to 59% and was higher among older children and males. Seven cross-sectional studies reported associations between ABM ownership and drinking-related behaviors. All 4 longitudinal studies reported a significant relationship between ownership at baseline and drinking initiation at follow-up. The small number of available studies, with different measures of ABM ownership and of associations/effects. The few studies exploring ABM ownership are consistent in showing high rates of ownership and associations between ownership and current and future drinking. There is a need for further research into specific aspects of ABM ownership. However, there is also a need for policy interventions to reduce children's access to and ownership of ABM. Copyright © 2016 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Study on the ownership balance and the efficiency of mixed ownership enterprises from the perspective of heterogeneous shareholders.

Science.gov (United States)

Yin, Zhujia; Liu, Lijuan; Wang, Haidong; Wen, Fengming

2018-01-01

Based on the database data of Chinese industrial enterprises from 2000 to 2007 and the LP method, this paper measures the total factor productivity of enterprises and investigates the effect of different mixed ownership forms on enterprises' efficiency and the effect of heterogeneous ownership balance on the mixed ownership enterprises' efficiency. The state-owned enterprise and mixed ownership enterprise are identified by the enterprise's paid-up capital. The results show that, on the whole, for the mixed ownership enterprise, the higher the diversification degree of the shareholders is, the higher the efficiency becomes, and in different types of industries, the mixed forms of shareholders have different effects on the efficiency of enterprises. The heterogeneous ownership balance and the enterprise efficiency show nonlinear U-type relationships. Both the higher and lower heterogeneous ownership balance degrees will promote the enterprise's efficiency. However, when the ownership balance degree is in the range of [0.2 0.5], the increase in ownership balance will lead to the decline of enterprise efficiency. Therefore, when introducing non-state-owned capital, state-owned enterprises should take full account of their own characteristics by rationally controlling the shareholding ratio of non-state-owned capital and play the positive role of a mixed ownership structure in corporate governance with appropriate ownership balances.

Using neural networks and extreme value distributions to model electricity pool prices: Evidence from the Australian National Electricity Market 1998–2013

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dev, Priya; Martin, Michael A.

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Neural nets are unable to properly capture spiky price behavior found in the electricity market. • We modeled electricity price data from the Australian National Electricity Market over 15 years. • Neural nets need to be augmented with other modeling techniques to capture price spikes. • We fit a Generalized Pareto Distribution to price spikes using a peaks-over-thresholds approach. - Abstract: Competitors in the electricity supply industry desire accurate predictions of electricity spot prices to hedge against financial risks. Neural networks are commonly used for forecasting such prices, but certain features of spot price series, such as extreme price spikes, present critical challenges for such modeling. We investigate the predictive capacity of neural networks for electricity spot prices using Australian National Electricity Market data. Following neural net modeling of the data, we explore extreme price spikes through extreme value modeling, fitting a Generalized Pareto Distribution to price peaks over an estimated threshold. While neural nets capture the smoother aspects of spot price data, they are unable to capture local, volatile features that characterize electricity spot price data. Price spikes can be modeled successfully through extreme value modeling

Asymmetric Price Effects of Competition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lach, S.; Moraga Gonzalez, J.L.

2017-01-01

When price dispersion is prevalent, a relevant question is what happens to the whole distribution of equilibrium prices when the number of firms changes. Using data from the gasoline market in the Netherlands, we find, first, that markets with N competitors have price distributions that first-order

Asymmetric price effects of competition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lach, S.; Moraga González, José

2017-01-01

When price dispersion is prevalent, a relevant question is what happens to the whole distribution of equilibrium prices when the number of firms changes. Using data from the gasoline market in the Netherlands, we find, first, that markets with N competitors have price distributions that first‐order

Family-Concentrated Ownership in Chinese PLCs: Does Ownership Concentration Always Enhance Corporate Value?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jin-Hui Luo

2014-02-01

Full Text Available In this paper we investigate the relationship between family ownership structure and corporate value across a sample of 1314 firm-year observations of China’s family publicly listed companies (PLCs, from 2004 to 2008. We find a significant inverse-U-shaped relationship between the controlling family’s ultimate cash-flow rights and corporate value; as measured by Tobin’s Q. That is, as family-ownership concentration increases, corporate value first increases and then decreases. This finding refreshes our understanding of the relationship between family-ownership concentration and corporate value in emerging economies such as found in China. We corroborate prior findings that when controlling families hold excess control over cash-flow rights, corporate value is significantly lowered, while multiple large shareholders structure is significantly associated with higher corporate value. In addition; board independence is found to significantly improve corporate value in the context of family-concentrated ownership. We also test for potential endogeneity between family ownership and corporate value and find our results to be robust.

The impact of provider consolidation on physician prices.

Science.gov (United States)

Carlin, Caroline S; Feldman, Roger; Dowd, Bryan

2017-12-01

When a clinic system is acquired by an integrated delivery system (IDS), the ownership change includes both vertical integration with the hospital(s), and horizontal integration with the IDS's previously owned or "legacy" clinics, causing increased market concentration in physician services. Although there is a robust literature on the impact of hospital market concentration, the literature on physician market concentration is sparse. The objective of this study is to determine the impact on physician prices when two IDSs acquired three multispecialty clinic systems in Minneapolis-St Paul, Minnesota at the end of 2007, using commercial claims data from a large health plan (2006-2011). Using a difference-in-differences model and nonacquired clinics as controls, we found that four years after the acquisitions (2011), average physician price indices in the acquired clinic systems were 32-47% higher than expected in absence of the acquisitions. Average physician prices in the IDS legacy clinics were 14-20% higher in 2011 than expected. Procedure-specific prices for common office visit and inpatient procedures also increased following the acquisitions. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Women's asset ownership and children's nutritional status: Evidence from Papua New Guinea.

Science.gov (United States)

van der Meulen Rodgers, Yana; Kassens, Alice Louise

2018-05-01

This study examines how women's asset ownership is associated with children's nutritional status in Papua New Guinea, a country with some of the most severe child malnutrition in the world. The 2009-2010 Household Income and Expenditure Survey is employed, but restricted to children under the age of 72 months living with married mothers, leaving a final analytic sample of 1651. Asset ownership is expected to strengthen mothers' income-generating capacity and their bargaining power within the home, which increases investments in children's health. Women's ownership of fishing and agricultural equipment (important for meeting subsistence needs and for generating cash earnings) appears to be driving most of the results. OLS regression results point to beneficial effects of maternal asset ownership for children's height-for-age, weight-for-height, and weight-for-age Z-scores, and results from detailed quantile regressions indicate that these effects occur at various parts of the distribution, especially for children's WAZ scores. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Utility Green Pricing Programs: Design, Implementation, and Consumer Response

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bird, L.; Swezey, B.; Aabakken, J.

2004-02-01

The term green pricing refers to programs offered by utilities in traditionally regulated electricity markets, which allow customers to support the development of renewable energy sources by paying a small premium on their electric bills. Since the introduction of the concept in the United States, the number of unique utility green pricing programs has expanded from just a few programs in 1993 to more than 90 in 2002. About 10% of U.S. utilities offered a green pricing option to about 26 million consumers by the end of 2002. This report provides: (1) aggregate industry data on consumer response to utility programs, which indicate the collective impact of green pricing on renewable energy development nationally; and (2) market data that can be used by utilities as a benchmark for gauging the relative success of their green pricing programs. Specifically, the paper presents current data and trends in consumer response to green pricing, as measured by renewable energy sales, participants, participation rates, and new renewable energy capacity supported. It presents data on various aspects of program design and implementation, such as product pricing, ownership of supplies, retention rates, marketing costs, the effectiveness of marketing techniques, and methods of enrolling and providing value to customers.

Essays on Employee Ownership

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Faigen, Benjamin

This thesis examines ownership of the firm by its employees, of varying stakes. It begins by identifying the existence of employee ownership in a Chinese context, presented in the form of a general analytical discussion which is informed by a review of the available evidence on the subject...... of this phenomenon. Employee ownership is found to have played a role in Chinese economic transition as a transitory phase before non-state enterprises were afforded official recognition in a context of publicly-owned enterprise privatisation. Senior managers became the key beneficiaries in firm sales and most...

The role of cross-listing, foreign ownership and state ownership in dividend policy in an emerging market

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kevin C.K. Lam

2012-09-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we investigate if dividend policy is influenced by ownership type. Within the dividend literature, dividends have a signaling role regarding agency costs, such that dividends may diminish insider conflicts (reduce free cash flow or may be used to extract cash from firms (tunneling effect – which could be predominant in emerging markets. We expect firms with foreign ownership and those that are listed in overseas markets to have different dividend policies and practices than those that are not, and firms with more state ownership and less individual ownership to be more likely to pay cash dividends and less likely to pay stock dividends. Using firms from an emerging economy (China, we examine whether these effects exist in corporate dividend policy and practice. We find that both foreign ownership and cross-listing have significant negative effects on cash dividends, consistent with the signaling effect and the notion of reduced tunneling activities for firms with the ability to raise capital from outside of China. Consistent with the tunneling effect, we find that firms with higher state ownership tend to pay higher cash dividends and lower stock dividends, while the opposite is true for public (individual ownership. Further analysis shows that foreign ownership mediates the effect of state ownership on dividend policy. Our results have significant implications for researchers, investors, policy makers and regulators in emerging markets.

Teaching Small Business Ownership and Management

Science.gov (United States)

Leach, James A.

1977-01-01

Topics discussed include integrating small business ownership with existing programs; establishing awareness, exploration, and orientation activities; and preparation for small business ownership. A curriculum guide developed for teaching small business ownership and management is also described. (TA)

Support schemes and ownership structures - the policy context for fuel cell based micro-combined heat and power

Science.gov (United States)

Schroeder, Sascha Thorsten; Costa, Ana; Obé, Elisabeth

In recent years, fuel cell based micro-combined heat and power (mCHP) has received increasing attention due to its potential contribution to European energy policy goals, i.e., sustainability, competitiveness and security of supply. Besides technical advances, regulatory framework and ownership structures are of crucial importance in order to achieve greater diffusion of the technology in residential applications. This paper analyses the interplay of policy and ownership structures for the future deployment of mCHP. Furthermore, it regards the three country cases Denmark, France and Portugal. Firstly, the implications of different kinds of support schemes on investment risk and the diffusion of a technology are explained conceptually. Secondly, ownership arrangements are addressed. Then, a cross-country comparison on present support schemes for mCHP and competing technologies discusses the national implementation of European legislation in Denmark, France and Portugal. Finally, resulting implications for ownership arrangements on the choice of support scheme are explained. From a conceptual point of view, investment support, feed-in tariffs and price premiums are the most appropriate schemes for fuel cell mCHP. This can be used for improved analysis of operational strategies. The interaction of this plethora of elements necessitates careful balancing from a private- and socio-economic point of view.

Choice of Ownership Structure and Firm Performance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jones, Derek C; Kalmi, Panu; Mygind, Niels

2003-01-01

In this paper we use rich panel data for a representative sample of Estonian enterprises to analysediverse issues related to the determinants of ownership structures and ownership changes afterprivatisation. A key focus is to determine whether ownership changes are related to economicefficiency....... While employee owned firms are found to be much more prone than other firms toswitch ownership categories, often `employee owned' firms remain `insider-owned' as ownershippasses from current employees to managers and former employees. Logit analyses of thedeterminants of ownership structures...... and ownership changes provides mixed support for severalhypotheses. As predicted: (i) wealth and resource constraints play a crucial role in thedetermination of ownership, with foreigners buying firms with the highest equity levels andinsiders buying firms with the lowest equity valuations; (ii) risk aversion...

Competition, Ownership and Productivity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Baghdasaryan, Delia; la Cour, Lisbeth

2013-01-01

Theoretical results support two concurrent views regarding the mediating role that ownership structure might play on the effect of competition on firm performance. According to one stream of literature, competition has a high, positive impact in companies that have an effective ownership structur...

A choice modelling analysis on the similarity between distribution utilities’ and industrial customers’ price and quality preferences

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Söderberg, Magnus

2008-01-01

The Swedish Electricity Act states that electricity distribution must comply with both price and quality requirements. In order to maintain efficient regulation it is necessary to firstly, define quality attributes and secondly, determine a customer's priorities concerning price and quality...... to evaluate the same twelve choice situations in which price and four specific quality attributes are varied. The preferences expressed by the utilities, and estimated by a random parameter logit, correspond quite well with the preferences expressed by the largest industrial customers. The preferences...

Costing and pricing electric power reserve services. Final report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kirsch, L.D.; Rajaraman, R.; Clark, C.

1997-12-01

In the competitive electric power markets of the imminent future, reserves will be the second largest generation service in terms of their revenues and profits. Because reserves will be more widely traded than at present, they will be provided by the cheapest available sources regardless of the ownership of those sources. Price will determine the willingness of generators and consumers to provide reserve services; and it may also determine the willingness of reserve users to purchase reserve services. This report presents a methodology by which generation firms and merchant firms can profitably cost and price the reserve services that they offer. The methodology is generally applicable to a wide range of market structures that such firms might face

MARKET ECONOMICS PRICING PARTICULARS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. I. Parshin

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The price performs several economic functions: accounting, stimulation, distribution, demand and offer balancing, serving as production site rational choice criterion, information. Most important pricing principles are: price scientific and purpose-aimed substantiation, single pricing and price control process. Pricing process factors are external, internal, basic (independent on money-market, market-determined and controlling. Different pricing methods and models are to be examined, recommendations on practical application of those chosen are to be written.

CAPM (Capital Asset Pricing Model) and regulation in Brazilian electric distribution sector; CAPM (Capital Asset Pricing Model) e regulacao no segmento de distribuicao do setor eletrico brasileiro

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pinto, Rinaldo Caldeira; Parente, Virginia [Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP), SP (Brazil)], emails: rinaldo@iee.usp.br, vparente@iee.usp.br

2010-07-01

The aim of this paper is to analyse the use of Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) Beta in the Brazilian electric distribution sector tariffs review. The betas applied by the Regulatory Agency are defined using data from the American, English and Brazilian markets. These betas will then be compared to the betas obtained in the domestic market. The betas were directly obtained from an economic-financial databank largely employed by the market. The sample is composed of companies' shares, priced at Sao Paulo Stock Market. Their main activity is the distribution of electric energy between July 2002 and July 2007. The results of mean betas obtained for the distribution segment, with values close to the ones applied by the regulatory agency for the cycle of tariff reviews between 2007-2010. (author)

CAPM (Capital Asset Pricing Model) and regulation in Brazilian electric distribution sector; CAPM (Capital Asset Pricing Model) e regulacao no segmento de distribuicao do setor eletrico brasileiro

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pinto, Rinaldo Caldeira; Parente, Virginia, E-mail: rinaldo@iee.usp.br, E-mail: vparente@iee.usp.br [Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP), SP (Brazil)

2010-07-01

The aim of this paper is to analyse the use of Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) Beta in the Brazilian electric distribution sector tariffs review. The betas applied by the Regulatory Agency are defined using data from the American, English and Brazilian markets. These betas will then be compared to the betas obtained in the domestic market. The betas were directly obtained from an economic-financial databank largely employed by the market. The sample is composed of companies' shares, priced at Sao Paulo Stock Market. Their main activity is the distribution of electric energy between July 2002 and July 2007. The results of mean betas obtained for the distribution segment, with values close to the ones applied by the regulatory agency for the cycle of tariff reviews between 2007-2010. (author)

Body ownership and experiential ownership in the self-touching illusion

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Caleb eLiang

2015-01-01

Full Text Available We investigate two issues about the subjective experience of one’s body: first, is the experience of owning a full-body fundamentally different from the experience of owning a body-part? Second, when I experience a bodily sensation, does it guarantee that I cannot be wrong about whether it is me who feels it? To address these issues, we conducted a series of experiments that combined the rubber hand illusion (RHI and the body swap illusion. The subject wore a head mounted display (HMD connected with a stereo camera set on the experimenter’s head. Sitting face to face, they used their right hand holding a paintbrush to brush each other’s left hand. Through the HMD, the subject adopted the experimenter’s first-person perspective (1PP as if it was his/her own 1PP: the subject watched either the experimenter’s hand from the adopted 1PP, and/or the subject’s own hand from the adopted third-person perspective (3PP in the opposite direction (180°, or the subject’s full body from the adopted 3PP (180°, with or without face. The synchronous full-body conditions generate a self-touching illusion: many participants felt that I was brushing my own hand! We found that (1 the sense of body-part ownership and the sense of full-body ownership are not fundamentally different from each other; and (2 our data present a strong case against the mainstream philosophical view called the immunity principle (IEM. We argue that it is possible for misrepresentation to occur in the subject’s sense of experiential ownership (the sense that I am the one who is having this bodily experience. We discuss these findings and conclude that not only the sense of body ownership but also the sense of experiential ownership call for further interdisciplinary studies.

Psychological ownership: Development of an instrument

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chantal Olckers

2013-10-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to measure psychological ownership in a South African context. Motivation for the study: It was found that previous instruments for the measurement of psychological ownership lacked the ability to grasp the extensive reach of psychological ownership. Research design, approach and method: A quantitative cross-sectional survey was conducted on a non-probability convenience sample of 713 skilled, highly-skilled and professional employees from various organisations in both the private and public sectors in South Africa. Main findings: Although a 69-item measurement instrument was developed in order to capture the proposed seven-dimensional psychological ownership construct, it became evident when analysing the data that a four-factor model comprising 35 items was suitable. Practical/managerial implications: If a sense of psychological ownership toward an organisation could be established amongst its employees by addressing the factors as measured by the South African Psychological Ownership Questionnaire, organisations could become enhanced workplaces and, as a result, sustainable performance could be promoted and staff could be retained. Contribution/value-add: The instrument for measuring psychological ownership in a South African context could serve as a diagnostic tool that would allow human resource professionals and managers to determine employees’ sense of psychological ownership regarding their organisation and to focus specifically on weak dimensional areas that could be improved.

Establishing Tenant Ownership on the Basis of Proportional Co-ownership Share of the Real Property

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Davorin Pichler

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The survey of the Osijek District and County Courts procedures related to the motion to determine the usable values of flats and into procedures of establishing separate parts of real property by the means of apportioning plans as well as the tenant ownership study procedures resulted in different and inconsistent approaches in the process of creation of the study and establishing the usable surface area. The paper deals with the analysis of judicial decisions on determining usable surface and indicates the problems emerging in practice while establishing the tenant ownership based on proportional co-ownership share of the real property. It also gives suggestions to passing a by-law on the procedure of tenant ownership study creation i.e. calculation of usable values of particular real property shares and usable values of all flats and other independent premises of the entire real property. Its goals are equal interpretation and application of tenant ownership by all parties to the procedure as well as legal security, uniform application of law and harmonisation of judicial practice. As a possible approach to the solutions in Croatian legal system the paper also analyses the regulation of tenant ownership in the Republic of Slovenia. In conclusion, it establishes the need for professional training of judges, court counsellors, court appointed expert witnesses, civil servants through application of a multidisciplinary approach to the issue of tenant ownership procedure based on other scientific disciplines e.g. civil engineering and economics.

Comparing electricity distribution network revenues and costs in New South Wales, Great Britain and Victoria

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mountain, Bruce; Littlechild, Stephen

2010-01-01

A decade ago, electricity distribution network revenues per customer in New South Wales (NSW) were twice those in Great Britain (GB). Recent price controls imply that by 2014 they will be nearly four times as high. This paper examines possible reasons for this. The main reason does not seem to be geography, operating environment or industry structure. GB and Victoria have managed to accommodate increasing demand at broadly constant or even declining costs and revenues while delivering higher quality of service, while NSW has not. The regulatory framework and the practice of the regulatory body within that framework seem relevant. Australian regulators have not used benchmarking techniques as the GB regulator has. Perhaps the most important explanatory factor is private ownership in GB and Victoria compared to state ownership in NSW. This could also impact on the nature and effectiveness of regulation. (author)

Corporate ownership structure and risk-taking: evidence from Japan

OpenAIRE

SunEae Chun; MinHwan Lee

2017-01-01

We examine the relationship between ownership structure and corporate risk-taking in Japan over the sample periods of 2000 2010. Reflecting the ongoing changes in the ownership structure in Japan, we incorporate the various kinds of insider and outsider ownership in the analysis. Ownership such as concentrated ownership, ownership by closely related parties, financial institutions comprising banks and insurance companies and managers are categorized into inside ownership, while ownership by f...

Analyzing the mobile "digital divide": changing determinants of household phone ownership over time in rural bangladesh.

Science.gov (United States)

Tran, Michael Clifton; Labrique, Alain Bernard; Mehra, Sucheta; Ali, Hasmot; Shaikh, Saijuddin; Mitra, Maithilee; Christian, Parul; West, Keith

2015-02-25

We had a unique opportunity to examine demographic determinants of household mobile phone ownership in rural Bangladesh using socioeconomic data collected as part of a multiyear longitudinal cohort study of married women of reproductive age. This paper explores how the demographics of household mobile phone owners have changed over time in a representative population of rural Bangladesh. We present data collected between 2008 and 2011 on household mobile phone ownership and related characteristics including age, literacy, education, employment, electricity access, and household wealth among 35,306 individuals. Respondents were enrolled when found to be newly pregnant and contributed socioeconomic information once over the course of the time period serving as a "sample" of families within the population at that time. Univariate and multiple logistic regressions analyses were performed to identify the socioeconomic determinants of household phone ownership. Across 3 fiscal years, we found that reported household ownership of at least 1 working mobile phone grew from 29.85% in the first fiscal year to 56.07% in the third fiscal year. Illiteracy, unavailability of electricity, and low quartiles of wealth were identified as overall demographic constraints to mobile phone ownership. However, over time, these barriers became less evident and equity gaps among demographic status began to dissipate as access to mobile technology became more democratized. We saw a high growth rate in ownership among households in lower economic standing (illiterate, without electricity, low and lowest wealth index), likely a result of competitive pricing and innovative service packages that improve access to mobile phones as the mobile phone market matures. In contrast, as market saturation is rapidly attained in the most privileged demographics (literate, secondary schooling, electricity, high wealth index), members of the lower wealth quartiles seem to be following suit, with more of an

Pecluma recurvata (Kaulf.) M.G. Price (Polypodiopsida: Polypodiaceae): distribution extension in Atlantic Forest, Brazil

OpenAIRE

Santiago, Augusto César; Xavier, Sergio; Pietrobom, Marcio Roberto; Barros, Iva

2013-01-01

Pecluma recurvata (Kaulf.) M. G. Price has been recorded in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil (Atlantic Forest). Our work further extends the distribution of P. recurvata to northeastern Atlantic Forest in Brazil, in state of Pernambuco, representing a range extension of ca. 880 Km north.

Ownership structures of principal petroleum companies in Canada: company profiles - significant events - takeovers and acquisitions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1997-01-01

This reference document on ownership structures of principal petroleum companies identifies 'who owns whom' in the Canadian petroleum industry. The publication consists of three chapters. Chapter one, entitled 'Corporate Structures' includes the equity linkages between the energy enterprise and its parents and subsidiaries, names of directors and officers of the company and their ownership of voting shares. Chapter two under the title of 'Significant Events', provides company incorporation and listing data, outlining information on address of the company's head office, the nature of its business, number of employees in Canada, and stock exchanges on which the company equity is listed, stock symbol, high, low and closing prices as of December 31, 1996. Chapter three, entitled 'Takeovers and Acquisitions 1976-1997, provides a list of purchases, mergers and acquisitions and the estimated value of each, where applicable. All information included is provided by the companies themselves

Essays on pricing dynamics, price dispersion, and nested logit modelling

Science.gov (United States)

Verlinda, Jeremy Alan

The body of this dissertation comprises three standalone essays, presented in three respective chapters. Chapter One explores the possibility that local market power contributes to the asymmetric relationship observed between wholesale costs and retail prices in gasoline markets. I exploit an original data set of weekly gas station prices in Southern California from September 2002 to May 2003, and take advantage of highly detailed station and local market-level characteristics to determine the extent to which spatial differentiation influences price-response asymmetry. I find that brand identity, proximity to rival stations, bundling and advertising, operation type, and local market features and demographics each influence a station's predicted asymmetric relationship between prices and wholesale costs. Chapter Two extends the existing literature on the effect of market structure on price dispersion in airline fares by modeling the effect at the disaggregate ticket level. Whereas past studies rely on aggregate measures of price dispersion such as the Gini coefficient or the standard deviation of fares, this paper estimates the entire empirical distribution of airline fares and documents how the shape of the distribution is determined by market structure. Specifically, I find that monopoly markets favor a wider distribution of fares with more mass in the tails while duopoly and competitive markets exhibit a tighter fare distribution. These findings indicate that the dispersion of airline fares may result from the efforts of airlines to practice second-degree price discrimination. Chapter Three adopts a Bayesian approach to the problem of tree structure specification in nested logit modelling, which requires a heavy computational burden in calculating marginal likelihoods. I compare two different techniques for estimating marginal likelihoods: (1) the Laplace approximation, and (2) reversible jump MCMC. I apply the techniques to both a simulated and a travel mode

The new math of ownership.

Science.gov (United States)

Gross, B

1998-01-01

In 1994, when the software maker Knowledge Adventure decided to spin out a new venture--Worlds, Incorporated--founder Bill Gross expected the worst. He had argued with the board that it was in KA's best interests to maintain a controlling ownership stake in Worlds, whose powerful new software technology had enormous revenue potential. But the board prevailed, and KA took only a 20% ownership in the new company, giving the rest to Worlds' employees. Within a year, the company's performance had surpassed all expectations, and instead of owning 80% of a $5 million business, KA owned 20% of a $77 million business. The arithmetic may have been counterintuitive, but the lesson was clear. When KA let go of Worlds and gave its employees near total ownership, the company unleashed a new level of employee performance. That, in turn, led to the creation of economic value that more than made up for the equity KA had surrendered. So compelling was this "new math of ownership" that Gross founded a new company, Idealab, on this principle. The company, which develops ideas for Internet-based businesses and seeds the most promising ones, takes no more than a 49% equity stake in the new ventures and gives at least 1% of ownership to each employee. For Gross, this radical approach to ownership is the key to inspiring stellar performances. In part, employee-owners are motivated by their potential to earn great financial reward. But the drama of ownership, he argues, is even more important. In that drama, employees become personally involved in the struggle to outdo the competition and emerge victorious.

Social network predictors of latrine ownership.

Science.gov (United States)

Shakya, Holly B; Christakis, Nicholas A; Fowler, James H

2015-01-01

Poor sanitation, including the lack of clean functioning toilets, is a major factor contributing to morbidity and mortality from infectious diseases in the developing world. We examine correlates of latrine ownership in rural India with a focus on social network predictors. Participants from 75 villages provided the names of their social contacts as well as their own relevant demographic and household characteristics. Using these measures, we test whether the latrine ownership of an individual's social contacts is a significant predictor of individual latrine ownership. We also investigate whether network centrality significantly predicts latrine ownership, and if so, whether it moderates the relationship between the latrine ownership of the individual and that of her social contacts. Our results show that, controlling for the standard predictors of latrine ownership such as caste, education, and income, individuals are more likely to own latrines if their social contacts own latrines. Interaction models suggest that this relationship is stronger among those of the same caste, the same education, and those with stronger social ties. We also find that more central individuals are more likely to own latrines, but the correlation in latrine ownership between social contacts is strongest among individuals on the periphery of the network. Although more data is needed to determine how much the clustering of latrine ownership may be caused by social influence, the results here suggest that interventions designed to promote latrine ownership should consider focusing on those at the periphery of the network. The reason is that they are 1) less likely to own latrines and 2) more likely to exhibit the same behavior as their social contacts, possibly as a result of the spread of latrine adoption from one person to another. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Asymptotic Behavior of the Stock Price Distribution Density and Implied Volatility in Stochastic Volatility Models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gulisashvili, Archil; Stein, Elias M.

2010-01-01

We study the asymptotic behavior of distribution densities arising in stock price models with stochastic volatility. The main objects of our interest in the present paper are the density of time averages of the squared volatility process and the density of the stock price process in the Stein-Stein and the Heston model. We find explicit formulas for leading terms in asymptotic expansions of these densities and give error estimates. As an application of our results, sharp asymptotic formulas for the implied volatility in the Stein-Stein and the Heston model are obtained.

Influence of different technologies on dynamic pricing in district heating systems: Comparative case studies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dominkovic, Dominik Franjo; Wahlroos, Mikko; Syri, Sanna

2018-01-01

District heating markets are often dominated by monopolies in both Denmark and Finland. The same companies, often owned by local municipalities, are usually operating both supplying plants and district heating networks, while the pricing mechanisms are rigid, often agreed upon for one year...... in advance. The mentioned ownership scheme may cause problems, when one tries to gain a third party access in order to deliver excess heat or heat from cheaper heating plants. In this paper, two case studies were carried out to simulate the district heating systems based on dynamic pricing. Case studies were...... carried out for Sønderborg, Denmark and Espoo, Finland. The results showed that dynamic pricing fosters feeding the waste heat into the grid, as dynamic pricing reduced the total primary energy consumption and CO2 emissions in both case studies. In the best scenarios, the weighted average heat price...

Is the price effect on fuel consumption symmetric? Some evidence from an empirical study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sentenac-Chemin, Elodie

2012-01-01

We generally consider that the price elasticity of the energy demand is quite small. But it appears that strong increases in gasoline price lead to modifications in consumer behaviors. The high volatility of petroleum prices and the strong increases since the beginning of 2000 justify an analysis of price effects on gasoline consumption. We estimate the effects of price variations on gasoline consumption, in the United States and India. We use a co-integration modelling to test for long-run relationship between gasoline consumption, income, price and vehicle ownership in the two countries. We use an error correction model to test for short-run prices effects and more precisely for asymmetric effects on demand of increases and decreases in gasoline prices. The main conclusions are the following. Concerning the United States, the long-term price elasticity is relatively high for an industrialised country because gasoline taxes are low, but we show that households are more sensitive to a price increase than a price decrease. About India, price elasticity in the long-run is quite high but is quite small in the short-run. It is not surprising for an emergent country. It seems that there is no asymmetric effect of price variations on gasoline consumption.

Modeling the Effect of Oil Price on Global Fertilizer Prices

NARCIS (Netherlands)

P-Y. Chen (Ping-Yu); C-L. Chang (Chia-Lin); C-C. Chen (Chi-Chung); M.J. McAleer (Michael)

2010-01-01

textabstractThe main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of crude oil price on global fertilizer prices in both the mean and volatility. The endogenous structural breakpoint unit root test, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, and alternative volatility models, including the

Employee Ownership and Perceptions of Work: The Effect of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan.

Science.gov (United States)

Tucker, James; And Others

1989-01-01

A small company was studied before and after introduction of an employee stock ownership plan. Employees' commitment to the organization and job satisfaction were higher after plan implementation, while perceived worker influence levels did not change. Findings suggest that ownership changes employees' attitudes without changing employees'…

Analyzing the Mobile “Digital Divide”: Changing Determinants of Household Phone Ownership Over Time in Rural Bangladesh

Science.gov (United States)

Mehra, Sucheta; Ali, Hasmot; Shaikh, Saijuddin; Mitra, Maithilee; Christian, Parul; West Jr, Keith

2015-01-01

Background We had a unique opportunity to examine demographic determinants of household mobile phone ownership in rural Bangladesh using socioeconomic data collected as part of a multiyear longitudinal cohort study of married women of reproductive age. Objectives This paper explores how the demographics of household mobile phone owners have changed over time in a representative population of rural Bangladesh. Methods We present data collected between 2008 and 2011 on household mobile phone ownership and related characteristics including age, literacy, education, employment, electricity access, and household wealth among 35,306 individuals. Respondents were enrolled when found to be newly pregnant and contributed socioeconomic information once over the course of the time period serving as a “sample” of families within the population at that time. Univariate and multiple logistic regressions analyses were performed to identify the socioeconomic determinants of household phone ownership. Results Across 3 fiscal years, we found that reported household ownership of at least 1 working mobile phone grew from 29.85% in the first fiscal year to 56.07% in the third fiscal year. Illiteracy, unavailability of electricity, and low quartiles of wealth were identified as overall demographic constraints to mobile phone ownership. However, over time, these barriers became less evident and equity gaps among demographic status began to dissipate as access to mobile technology became more democratized. We saw a high growth rate in ownership among households in lower economic standing (illiterate, without electricity, low and lowest wealth index), likely a result of competitive pricing and innovative service packages that improve access to mobile phones as the mobile phone market matures. In contrast, as market saturation is rapidly attained in the most privileged demographics (literate, secondary schooling, electricity, high wealth index), members of the lower wealth quartiles

Gun ownership and social gun culture.

Science.gov (United States)

Kalesan, Bindu; Villarreal, Marcos D; Keyes, Katherine M; Galea, Sandro

2016-06-01

We assessed gun ownership rates in 2013 across the USA and the association between exposure to a social gun culture and gun ownership. We used data from a nationally representative sample of 4000 US adults, from 50 states and District of Columbia, aged >18 years to assess gun ownership and social gun culture performed in October 2013. State-level firearm policy information was obtained from the Brady Law Center and Injury Prevention and Control Center. One-third of Americans reported owning a gun, ranging from 5.2% in Delaware to 61.7% in Alaska. Gun ownership was 2.25-times greater among those reporting social gun culture (PR=2.25, 95% CI 2.02 to 2.52) than those who did not. In conclusion, we found strong association between social gun culture and gun ownership. Gun cultures may need to be considered for public health strategies that aim to change gun ownership in the USA. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

Corporate ownership structure and risk-taking: evidence from Japan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

SunEae Chun

2017-12-01

Full Text Available We examine the relationship between ownership structure and corporate risk-taking in Japan over the sample periods of 2000 2010. Reflecting the ongoing changes in the ownership structure in Japan, we incorporate the various kinds of insider and outsider ownership in the analysis. Ownership such as concentrated ownership, ownership by closely related parties, financial institutions comprising banks and insurance companies and managers are categorized into inside ownership, while ownership by foreigners or financial institution such as investment trusts or pension funds are categorized into outside ownership. The ownership structure is found to have a different impact on the firm’s risk-taking behavior. The study shows that concentrated ownership or ownership by closely related parties affect the firm risks in a convex manner and encourages the firm management to take more risk when the firms have growth opportunities. On the other hand, ownership by financial institutions such as bank and insurance companies, does not seem to affect the firm risk level. This implies that the financial institutions fail to play their role of a shareholder monitor. When managerial ownership is allowed, it is found that Japanese managers’ incentives are aligned with those of shareholders. Contrary to the conventional entrenchment hypothesis, however, managers seem to take more risk as the share of managerial ownership increases. Foreign investors are found to enhance corporate risk-taking in a monotonic manner and do not bias corporate investment in a conservative direction in pursuit of their short-term gains. Domestic institutions such as investment trusts or pension funds are found to neither affect the firm risk level nor enhance the firm value.

Management Ownership and Risk-Shifting Investment

OpenAIRE

Nobuyuki Teshima

2012-01-01

This study analyzes the relationship between management ownership and its risk-shifting incentive. We first present a simple model showing that the risk-shifting incentive of management of financially distressed firms increases as the management ownership of the firm increases. Empirically, we test the hypothesis that under the former Japanese Corporate Reorganization Law, firms with higher management ownership are more likely to use legal rather than private reorganization. Since the reorgan...

Controlling market power and price spikes in electricity networks: Demand-side bidding.

Science.gov (United States)

Rassenti, Stephen J; Smith, Vernon L; Wilson, Bart J

2003-03-04

In this article we report an experiment that examines how demand-side bidding can discipline generators in a market for electric power. First we develop a treatment without demand-side bidding; two large firms are allocated baseload and intermediate cost generators such that either firm might unilaterally withhold the capacity of its intermediate cost generators from the market to benefit from the supracompetitive prices that would result from only selling its baseload units. In a converse treatment, ownership of some of the intermediate cost generators is transferred from each of these firms to two other firms such that no one firm could unilaterally restrict output to spawn supracompetitive prices. Having established a well controlled data set with price spikes paralleling those observed in the naturally occurring economy, we also extend the design to include demand-side bidding. We find that demand-side bidding completely neutralizes the exercise of market power and eliminates price spikes even in the presence of structural market power.

Local ownership, smart energy systems and better wind power economy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hvelplund, Frede; Möller, Bernd; Sperling, Karl

2013-01-01

is never sold at a lower price than the most expensive heat alternative. The other is to lower the average costs of wind power by building more onshore wind power capacity, and proportionally less offshore wind power. This is facilitated by local and regional majority ownership models that increase...... the acceptance rate of onshore wind. The economy of wind power is thus improved by both increasing its value and reducing its costs.......Increasing wind power shares enhances the need to integrate wind power into the energy system and to improve its economy. In this study we propose two ways of achieving this end. One is to increase the value of wind power by integrating the heat and power markets, and thus ensures that wind power...

Support schemes and ownership structures - the policy context for fuel cell based micro-combined heat and power

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schröder, Sascha Thorsten; Costa, Ana; Obé, Elisabeth

2011-01-01

the national implementation of European legislation in Denmark, France and Portugal. Finally, resulting implications for ownership arrangements on the choice of support scheme are explained. From a conceptual point of view, investment support, feed-in tariffs and price premiums are the most appropriate schemes...... for fuel cell mCHP. This can be used for improved analysis of operational strategies. The interaction of this plethora of elements necessitates careful balancing from a private- and socio-economic point of view....

Effect of Energy Efficiency Standards on Natural Gas Prices

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Carnall, Michael; Dale, Larry; Lekov, Alex

2011-07-26

A primary justification for the establishment of energy efficiency standards for home appliances is the existence of information deficiencies and externalities in the market for appliances. For example, when a long-term homeowner purchases a new gas-fired water heater, she will maximize the value of her purchase by comparing the life-cycle cost of ownership of available units, including both total installed cost - purchase price plus installation costs - and operating cost in the calculus. Choice of the appliance with the lowest life-cycle costs leads to the most economically efficient balance between capital cost and fuel cost. However, if the purchaser's expected period of ownership is shorter than the useful life of the appliance, or the purchaser does not pay for the fuel used by the appliance, as is often the case with rental property, fuel cost will be external to her costs, biasing her decision toward spending less on fuel efficiency and resulting in the purchase of an appliance with greater than optimal fuel usage. By imposing an efficiency standard on appliances, less efficient appliances are made unavailable, precluding less efficient purchases and reducing fuel usage. The reduction in fuel demanded by residential users affects the total demand for such fuels as natural gas, for example. Reduced demand implies that residential customers are willing to purchase less gas at each price level. That is, the demand curve, labeled D{sub 0} in Figure 1, shifts to the left to D{sub 1}. If there is no change in the supply function, the supply curve will intersect the demand curve at a lower price. Residential demand is only one component of the total demand for natural gas. It is possible that total demand will decline very little if demand in other sectors increases substantially in response to a decline in the price. If demand does decrease, modeling studies generally confirm the intuition that reductions in demand for natural gas will result in reductions

Internet resource pricing models

CERN Document Server

Xu, Ke; He, Huan

2013-01-01

This brief guides the reader through three basic Internet resource pricing models using an Internet cost analysis. Addressing the evolution of service types, it presents several corresponding mechanisms which can ensure pricing implementation and resource allocation. The authors discuss utility optimization of network pricing methods in economics and underline two classes of pricing methods including system optimization and entities' strategic optimization. The brief closes with two examples of the newly proposed pricing strategy helping to solve the profit distribution problem brought by P2P

Another look on the relationships between oil prices and energy prices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lahiani, Amine; Miloudi, Anthony; Benkraiem, Ramzi; Shahbaz, Muhammad

2017-01-01

This paper employs the Quantile Autoregressive Distributed Lags (QARDL) model developed recently by Cho et al. (2015) to investigate the pass-through of oil prices to a set of energy prices. This approach allows analyzing simultaneously short-term connections and long-run cointegrating relationships across a range of quantiles. It also provides insights on the short-run predictive power of oil prices in predicting energy prices while accounting for the cointegration between oil prices and each of the considered energy prices in low, medium and high quantiles. Two key findings emerge from this paper. First, all considered energy prices are shown to be cointegrated with oil price across quantiles meaning that a stationaryequilibriumrelationship exists between single energy price and oil price. Second, we find evidence that oil price is a significant predictor of individual petroleum products prices and natural gas in the short run. This paper has important policy implications for forecasters, energy policy-makers and portfolio managers. - Highlights: • The pass-through of oil prices to a set of energy prices is investigated for US economy. • All considered energy prices are shown to be cointegrated with oil price across quantiles. • Oil price is a significant predictor of individual petroleum products prices in the short run. • Oil price also predicts natural gas prices in the short run.

Market competition, ownership, payment systems and the performance of health care providers - a panel study among Finnish occupational health services providers.

Science.gov (United States)

Kankaanpää, Eila; Linnosmaa, Ismo; Valtonen, Hannu

2013-10-01

Many health care reforms rely on competition although health care differs in many respects from the assumptions of perfect competition. Finnish occupational health services provide an opportunity to study empirically competition, ownership and payment systems and the performance of providers. In these markets employers (purchasers) choose the provider and prices are market determined. The price regulation of public providers was abolished in 1995. We had data on providers from 1992, 1995, 1997, 2000 and 2004. The unbalanced panel consisted of 1145 providers and 4059 observations. Our results show that in more competitive markets providers in general offered a higher share of medical care compared to preventive services. The association between unit prices and revenues and market environment varied according to the provider type. For-profit providers had lower prices and revenues in markets with numerous providers. The public providers in more competitive regions were more sensitive to react to the abolishment of their price regulation by raising their prices. Employer governed providers had weaker association between unit prices or revenues and competition. The market share of for-profit providers was negatively associated with productivity, which was the only sign of market spillovers we found in our study.

Is the price effect on fuel consumption symmetric? some evidence from an empirical study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sentenac Chemin, E.

2009-04-01

We generally consider that the price elasticity of the energy demand is quite small. But it appears that strong increases in gasoline price lead to modifications in consumer behaviours. The high volatility of petroleum prices and thus gasoline prices and the strong increases since the beginning of 2000 justify an analysis of price effects on gasoline consumption. Thus, in this paper, we estimate the effects of price variations on gasoline consumption, in the short and the long-term, in two countries: the United States and India. We use a co-integration modelling to test for long-run relationship between gasoline consumption, income, price and vehicle ownership in the two countries. We use an error correction model to test for short-run prices effects and more precisely for asymmetric effects on demand of increases and decreases in gasoline prices. The main conclusions are the following. - The United States: (1) The long-term price elasticity is relatively high for an industrialised country because gasoline taxes are low (2) Households are more sensitive to a price increase than a price decrease. - India: (1) Price elasticity in the long-run is quite high but is quite small in the short run. It is not surprising for an emergent country (2) It seems that there is no asymmetric effect of price variations on gasoline consumption. (author)

A choice modelling analysis on the similarity between distribution utilities' and industrial customers' price and quality preferences

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Soederberg, Magnus

2008-01-01

The Swedish Electricity Act states that electricity distribution must comply with both price and quality requirements. In order to maintain efficient regulation it is necessary to firstly, define quality attributes and secondly, determine a customer's priorities concerning price and quality attributes. If distribution utilities gain an understanding of customer preferences and incentives for reporting them, the regulator can save a lot of time by surveying them rather than their customers. This study applies a choice modelling methodology where utilities and industrial customers are asked to evaluate the same twelve choice situations in which price and four specific quality attributes are varied. The preferences expressed by the utilities, and estimated by a random parameter logit, correspond quite well with the preferences expressed by the largest industrial customers. The preferences expressed by the utilities are reasonably homogenous in relation to forms of association (private limited, public and trading partnership). If the regulator acts according to the preferences expressed by the utilities, smaller industrial customers will have to pay for quality they have not asked for. (author)

Impact of transportation and distribution factors on LPG supplies and prices

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Aprea, G

1980-01-01

A predicted world LPG surplus of 14-20 million tons/y in the 1980's will not be absorbed even by the US and Japan, which are now the largest LPG consumers, unless market prices and return on investments are favorable enough to justify the investments required for the associated transportation and distribution facilities for new uses for LPG, e.g., as petrochemical feedstock, heating fuel, automotive fuel, or feedstock for the manufacture of high-octane additives. For the petrochemical industry, this implies new technologies and investments to optimize the equilibrium of the plants in connection with the market demand for ethylene, propylene, butadiene, and aromatic feedstocks. World LPG trade should rise from 13 million tons in 1979 to 40 million tons by 1985, of which 17 million tons will be moved on the Japanese captive market, up from about 10 million tons in 1979. The increased use of LPG in 1979 already boosted freight rates, which made shipowners consider new tonnage investment. The need for long-term supplier-user agreements as to LPG supplies and prices is discussed.

Impact of regulated price adjustments on price variability in a very low inflation transition economy: Case of Armenia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aghassi Mkrtchyan

2005-06-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the impact of monetary policy and administrative price adjustments on price variability in a low inflation economy characterized by relatively frequent administrative price adjustments. Fluctuations of market determined prices, prices of agricultural goods in particular, are linked to poor synchronization between administrative price changes and monetary policy. If monetary policy does not account for expected changes in administrative prices, demand for free goods shifts, causing fluctuation of prices for agricultural goods, because the supply of these goods is highly inelastic in Armenia. The findings contribute to a better understanding of agricultural price variability during 1998-2002. The impact of macroeconomic policy and structural adjustments on income distribution and rural poverty incidence are also examined. This research has immediate policy implications, since Armenia will continue to undergo major upward price adjustments of regulated prices, which may have a negative impact on income distribution unless aggregate demand management is changed.

Pet ownership and physical health.

Science.gov (United States)

Matchock, Robert L

2015-09-01

Pet ownership and brief human-animal interactions can serve as a form of social support and convey a host of beneficial psychological and physiological health benefits. This article critically examines recent relevant literature on the pet-health connection. Cross-sectional studies indicate correlations between pet ownership and numerous aspects of positive health outcomes, including improvements on cardiovascular measures and decreases in loneliness. Quasi-experimental studies and better controlled experimental studies corroborate these associations and suggest that owning and/or interacting with a pet may be causally related to some positive health outcomes. The value of pet ownership and animal-assisted therapy (AAT), as a nonpharmacological treatment modality, augmentation to traditional treatment, and healthy preventive behavior (in the case of pet ownership), is starting to be realized. However, more investigations that employ randomized controlled trials with larger sample sizes and investigations that more closely examine the underlying mechanism of the pet-health effect, such as oxytocin, are needed.

Dynamic pricing for demand response considering market price uncertainty

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ghazvini, Mohammad Ali Fotouhi; Soares, Joao; Morais, Hugo

2017-01-01

Retail energy providers (REPs) can employ different strategies such as offering demand response (DR) programs, participating in bilateral contracts, and employing self-generation distributed generation (DG) units to avoid financial losses in the volatile electricity markets. In this paper......, the problem of setting dynamic retail sales price by a REP is addressed with a robust optimization technique. In the proposed model, the REP offers price-based DR programs while it faces uncertainties in the wholesale market price. The main contribution of this paper is using a robust optimization approach...

The welfare effects of different pricing schemes for electricity distribution in Finland

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kopsakangas-Savolainen, Maria

2004-01-01

The main components of electricity prices can be divided into the wholesale price, the price of network operations and taxes. Even if the wholesale price is determined efficiently, total welfare can be significantly disturbed if network operations are priced inefficiently. In this study, we calculate network prices based on four alternative methods. These are marginal cost pricing, Ramsey pricing, FDC-pricing and optimal two-part tariffs. The welfare effects on the prevailing pricing system are compared. We show that potentially significant improvements in welfare can be achieved by using marginal cost prices or optimal two-part tariffs. Also Ramsey pricing indicates that prevailing prices are inefficient

The welfare effects of different pricing schemes for electricity distribution in Finland

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kopsakangas-Savolainen, Maria

2004-01-01

The main components of electricity prices can be divided into the wholesale price, the price of network operations and taxes. Even if the wholesale price is determined efficiently, total welfare can be significantly disturbed if network operations are priced inefficiently. In this study, we calculate network prices based on four alternative methods. These are marginal cost pricing, Ramsey pricing, FDC-pricing and optimal two-part tariffs. The welfare effects on the prevailing pricing system are compared. We show that potentially significant improvements in welfare can be achieved by using marginal cost prices or optimal two-part tariffs. Also Ramsey pricing indicates that prevailing prices are inefficient. (Author)

Comparing ownership and use of bed nets at two sites with differential malaria transmission in western Kenya.

Science.gov (United States)

Ernst, Kacey C; Hayden, Mary H; Olsen, Heather; Cavanaugh, Jamie L; Ruberto, Irene; Agawo, Maurice; Munga, Stephen

2016-04-14

Challenges persist in ensuring access to and optimal use of long-lasting, insecticidal bed nets (LLINs). Factors associated with ownership and use may differ depending on the history of malaria and prevention control efforts in a specific region. Understanding how the cultural and social-environmental context of bed net use may differ between high- and low-risk regions is important when identifying solutions to improve uptake and appropriate use. Community forums and a household, cross-sectional survey were used to collect information on factors related to bed net ownership and use in western Kenya. Sites with disparate levels of transmission were selected, including an endemic lowland area, Miwani, and a highland epidemic-prone area, Kapkangani. Analysis of ownership was stratified by site. A combined site analysis was conducted to examine factors associated with use of all available bed nets. Logistic regression modelling was used to determine factors associated with ownership and use of owned bed nets. Access to bed nets as the leading barrier to their use was identified in community forums and cross-sectional surveys. While disuse of available bed nets was discussed in the forums, it was a relatively rare occurrence in both sites. Factors associated with ownership varied by site. Education, perceived risk of malaria and knowledge of individuals who had died of malaria were associated with higher bed net ownership in the highlands, while in the lowlands individuals reporting it was easy to get a bed net were more likely to own one. A combined site analysis indicated that not using an available bed net was associated with the attitudes that taking malaria drugs is easier than using a bed net and that use of a bed net will not prevent malaria. In addition, individuals with an unused bed net in the household were more likely to indicate that bed nets are difficult to use, that purchased bed nets are better than freely distributed ones, and that bed nets should only

Fractional-moment Capital Asset Pricing model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li Hui; Wu Min; Wang Xiaotian

2009-01-01

In this paper, we introduce the definition of the 'α-covariance' and present the fractional-moment versions of Capital Asset Pricing Model,which can be used to price assets when asset return distributions are likely to be stable Levy (or Student-t) distribution during panics and stampedes in worldwide security markets in 2008. Furthermore, if asset returns are truly governed by the infinite-variance stable Levy distributions, life is fundamentally riskier than in a purely Gaussian world. Sudden price movements like the worldwide security market crash in 2008 turn into real-world possibilities.

The Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy Scripts: Prescription Drug Pricing.

Science.gov (United States)

Sumida, Wesley K; Taniguchi, Ronald; Juarez, Deborah Taira

2016-01-01

Prescription drugs have reduced morbidity and mortality and improved the quality of life of millions of Americans. Yet, concerns over drug price increases loom. Drug spending has risen relatively slowly over the past decade because many of the most popular brand-name medicines lost patent protection. In the near future, there will be fewer low-cost generics coming into the market to offset the rising prices of brand-name drugs. Drug expenditures are influenced by both volume and price. This article focuses on how drug prices are set in the United States and current trends. Drug prices are determined through an extremely complicated set of interactions between pharmaceutical manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, insurers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), managed care organizations, hospitals, chain stores, and consumers. The process differs depending on the type of drug and place of delivery. Rising drug prices have come under increased scrutiny due to increased cost inflation and because many price increases come as a result of mergers and acquisitions of generic drug companies or changes in ownership of brand name drug manufacturers. Other countries have reigned in drug prices by negotiating with or regulating pharmaceutical manufacturers. The best long-term solution to rising drug prices is yet to be determined but the United States will continue to debate this issue and the discussions will get more heated if drug expenditures continue to rise at a rapid rate (ie, increasing 13% in 2014 from the previous year).

Psychological ownership and financial firm performance: The interplay of employee stock ownership and participative leadership

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Torp, Simon; Nielsen, Bo Bernhard

2018-01-01

Based on a survey among 295 of the top 500 Danish companies, we develop and test an integrated model of the simultaneous effects of employee stock ownership (ESO) and a participative leadership style (PLS) on the creation of psychological ownership (PO) and link this to financial firm performance...

The effect of house price changes on cohort consumption in Turkey

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Evren Ceritoğlu

2017-09-01

Full Text Available This paper analyzes the relationship between house prices and household consumption in Turkey. We utilize twelve consecutive waves of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT Household Budget Surveys (HBS from 2003 to 2014. We construct a pseudo-panel data set using birth-year cohorts following Deaton (1985. We find that house price changes have a positive and significant effect on the growth of cohort consumption. Moreover, the effect of house price changes is stronger for home-owners and it intensifies as we move from young cohorts to old cohorts. We observe that there is a marginally significant and relatively weak relationship between the growth of cohort consumption and house price changes for tenants. However, our pooled sample set is restricted to young and middle-aged cohorts for tenants. In addition, we find that the rise of home-ownership ratio increases the growth of cohort consumption, while the spread of having outstanding housing debt depresses the growth of cohort consumption. Therefore, our empirical findings are in favor of the wealth channel argument.

Information pricing based on trusted system

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Zehua; Zhang, Nan; Han, Hongfeng

2018-05-01

Personal information has become a valuable commodity in today's society. So our goal aims to develop a price point and a pricing system to be realistic. First of all, we improve the existing BLP system to prevent cascading incidents, design a 7-layer model. Through the cost of encryption in each layer, we develop PI price points. Besides, we use association rules mining algorithms in data mining algorithms to calculate the importance of information in order to optimize informational hierarchies of different attribute types when located within a multi-level trusted system. Finally, we use normal distribution model to predict encryption level distribution for users in different classes and then calculate information prices through a linear programming model with the help of encryption level distribution above.

Conditions and Survival : Views on the Concentration of Ownership and Vertical Integration in German and Swedish Publishing

OpenAIRE

Rimm, Anna-Maria

2014-01-01

This paper compares publishing in two European countries with fixed respective free book prices: Germany and Sweden, when it comes to the phenomenon vertical integration. Concentration of media ownership is a central issue in today’s global publishing industry and large international media groups are consolidating at a fast pace, taking over more and more links in the value chain of books. One of the foremost examples is Amazon—established in Germany and fast expanding in Europe, but not yet ...

Competent ownership in real estate business

OpenAIRE

Timo Sneck

2001-01-01

The real estate businessñproject Competent Ownership (Oskito)î focuses on the role of ownership within the real estate industry. Ownership acts as the core upon which , the competitive advantages of real estate industry are for the most based. The project studies specific real estate business issues, especially îentities of possessionî that are large enough to allow the development of specialised businesses. The project is of current interest as the next phase of growth of the Finnish informa...

The pass through of oil prices into euro area consumer liquid fuel prices in an environment of high and volatile oil prices

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Meyler, Aidan [European Central Bank, Frankfurt am Main (Germany)

2009-11-15

Crude and refined oil prices have been relatively high and volatile on a sustained basis since 1999. This paper considers the pass through of oil prices into consumer liquid (i.e. petrol, diesel and heating) fuel prices in such an environment. The pass through of oil prices into consumer liquid fuel prices has already been addressed extensively in the literature. Nonetheless much of this literature has either focused on the United States or on a time period when oil prices were relatively stable, or has used monthly data. The main contribution of this paper is a comprehensive combination of many features that have been considered before but rarely jointly. These features include: (1) the analysis of the euro area as an aggregate and a large number of countries (the initial 12 member states); (2) the consideration of different time periods; (3) the modelling of the data in raw levels rather than in log levels. This turns out to have important implications for our findings; (4) the use of high frequency (weekly) data, which, as results will suggest, are the lowest frequency one should consider; (5) the investigation of the different stages of the production chain from crude oil prices to retail distribution - refining costs and margins, distribution and retailing costs and margins; (6) the examination of prices including and excluding taxes - excise and value-added; (7) the modelling of prices for three fuel types - passenger car petrol and diesel separately and home heating fuel oil; (8) lastly we also address the issue of possible asymmetries, allowing for the pass through to vary according to (a) whether price are increasing or decreasing and (b) whether price levels are above or below their equilibrium level. The main findings are as follows: First, as distribution and retailing costs and margins have been broadly stable on average, the modelling of the relationship between consumer prices excluding taxes and upstream prices in raw levels rather than in

The pass through of oil prices into euro area consumer liquid fuel prices in an environment of high and volatile oil prices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Meyler, Aidan

2009-01-01

Crude and refined oil prices have been relatively high and volatile on a sustained basis since 1999. This paper considers the pass through of oil prices into consumer liquid (i.e. petrol, diesel and heating) fuel prices in such an environment. The pass through of oil prices into consumer liquid fuel prices has already been addressed extensively in the literature. Nonetheless much of this literature has either focused on the United States or on a time period when oil prices were relatively stable, or has used monthly data. The main contribution of this paper is a comprehensive combination of many features that have been considered before but rarely jointly. These features include: (1) the analysis of the euro area as an aggregate and a large number of countries (the initial 12 member states); (2) the consideration of different time periods; (3) the modelling of the data in raw levels rather than in log levels. This turns out to have important implications for our findings; (4) the use of high frequency (weekly) data, which, as results will suggest, are the lowest frequency one should consider; (5) the investigation of the different stages of the production chain from crude oil prices to retail distribution - refining costs and margins, distribution and retailing costs and margins; (6) the examination of prices including and excluding taxes - excise and value-added; (7) the modelling of prices for three fuel types - passenger car petrol and diesel separately and home heating fuel oil; (8) lastly we also address the issue of possible asymmetries, allowing for the pass through to vary according to (a) whether price are increasing or decreasing and (b) whether price levels are above or below their equilibrium level. The main findings are as follows: First, as distribution and retailing costs and margins have been broadly stable on average, the modelling of the relationship between consumer prices excluding taxes and upstream prices in raw levels rather than in

The Development of Employee Ownership in China

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mygind, Niels; Faigen, Benjamin

2017-01-01

Purpose: Little systematic work has been completed on the incidence of employee ownership in a Chinese context. Similar to the situation in Eastern Europe, this type of ownership was quite widespread in China, particularly during the 1990s. Based on the existing literature and available statistical...... data, the purpose of this paper is to identify drivers of, and barriers to, the development of employee ownership in China. Design/methodology/approach: The scattered evidence from the literature and official statistical sources are collected and structured in a systematic analysis where the drivers...... of the privatisation of small- and medium-sized state-owned enterprises as well as collectively owned enterprises. However, in most cases the dynamics of ownership resulted in dominant ownership by managers. This trend became more noticeable at later stages of the privatisation process. Research limitations...

Price and Income Elasticity of Australian Retail Finance: An Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Helen Higgs

2014-03-01

Full Text Available This paper models the price and income elasticity of retail finance in Australia using aggregate quarterly data and an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL approach. We particularly focus on the impact of the global financial crisis (GFC from 2007 onwards on retail finance demand and analyse four submarkets (period analysed in brackets: owneroccupied housing loans (Sep 1985–June 2010, term loans (for motor vehicles, household goods and debt consolidation, etc. (Dec 1988–Jun 2010, credit card loans (Mar 1990–Jun 2010, and margin loans (Sep 2000–Jun 2010. Other than the indicator lending rates and annual full-time earnings respectively used as proxies for the price and income effects, we specify a large number of other variables as demand factors, particularly reflecting the value of the asset for which retail finance demand is derived. These variously include the yield on indexed bonds as a proxy for inflation expectations, median housing prices, consumer sentiment indices as measures of consumer confidence, motor vehicle and retail trade sales, housing debt-to-housing assets as a measure of leverage, the proportion of protected margin lending, the available credit limit on credit cards, and the All Ordinaries Index. In the long run, we find significant price elasticities only for term loans and margin loans, and significant income elasticities of demand for housing loans, term loans and margin loans. We also find that the GFC only significantly affected the longrun demand for term loans and margin loans. In the short run, we find that the GFC has had a significant effect on the price elasticity of demand for term loans and margin loans. Expected inflation is also a key factor affecting retail finance demand. Overall, most of the submarkets in the analysis indicate that retail finance demand is certainly price inelastic but more income elastic than conventionally thought.

Antecedents of hospital ownership conversions, mergers, and closures.

Science.gov (United States)

Sloan, Frank A; Ostermann, Jan; Conover, Christopher J

2003-01-01

This study assesses the determinants of conversions in hospital ownership from 1986 through 1996. To place such changes in context, we also analyze causes of hospital mergers and closures, which are often alternatives to hospital ownership conversion. A consistent result from our analysis is that an important antecedent of ownership conversions is a low profit margin. Conversions from private nonprofit or government ownership to for-profit status are preceded by chronically low margins and high debt-to-asset ratios. By contrast, conversions from for-profit ownership occur quickly following declines in margins. Many mergers seem motivated by a desire to increase market power--a consideration not evident for conversions.

A statistical analysis of product prices in online markets

Science.gov (United States)

Mizuno, T.; Watanabe, T.

2010-08-01

We empirically investigate fluctuations in product prices in online markets by using a tick-by-tick price data collected from a Japanese price comparison site, and find some similarities and differences between product and asset prices. The average price of a product across e-retailers behaves almost like a random walk, although the probability of price increase/decrease is higher conditional on the multiple events of price increase/decrease. This is quite similar to the property reported by previous studies about asset prices. However, we fail to find a long memory property in the volatility of product price changes. Also, we find that the price change distribution for product prices is close to an exponential distribution, rather than a power law distribution. These two findings are in a sharp contrast with the previous results regarding asset prices. We propose an interpretation that these differences may stem from the absence of speculative activities in product markets; namely, e-retailers seldom repeat buy and sell of a product, unlike traders in asset markets.

Pricing Strategy, Pricing Stability and Financial Condition in the Defense Aerospace Industry

OpenAIRE

Johnstone, Jeffrey Carl; Keavney, Patrick Daniel

1987-01-01

Approved for public release, distribution unlimited The purpose of this research is to determine if pricing strategy and pricing stability for products in the defense aerospace industry can be predicted based on a firm's financial condition. The sample for this research includes 17 contractors and 52 missile and aircraft programs. Two separate issues are addressed. The first issue concerns the relationship between financial condition and contractor pricing strategy. The second concerns the...

A Privacy Model for RFID Tag Ownership Transfer

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xingchun Yang

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The ownership of RFID tag is often transferred from one owner to another in its life cycle. To address the privacy problem caused by tag ownership transfer, we propose a tag privacy model which captures the adversary’s abilities to get secret information inside readers, to corrupt tags, to authenticate tags, and to observe tag ownership transfer processes. This model gives formal definitions for tag forward privacy and backward privacy and can be used to measure the privacy property of tag ownership transfer scheme. We also present a tag ownership transfer scheme, which is privacy-preserving under the proposed model and satisfies the other common security requirements, in addition to achieving better performance.

Labor Unions and Asset Prices

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Busato, Francesco; Addessi, William

The paper investigates the nexus between labor and financial markets, focusing on the interaction between labor union behavior in setting wages, firms' investment strategy and asset prices. The way unions set wage claims after observing firm's financial performance increases the volatility of firms......' returns and the riskiness of corporate ownership. To remunerate this higher volatility and stronger risk, firms' equities have to grant high return. This mechanism is able to offer an explanation of for the "equity puzzle", that is it can explain the difference between equity returns and the risk free...... rate. It is a welcome result that the simulated excess return is about the empirical estimate and this result is obtained with a logarithmic specification of the shareholders preferences....

Prediction of future asset prices

Science.gov (United States)

Seong, Ng Yew; Hin, Pooi Ah; Ching, Soo Huei

2014-12-01

This paper attempts to incorporate trading volumes as an additional predictor for predicting asset prices. Denoting r(t) as the vector consisting of the time-t values of the trading volume and price of a given asset, we model the time-(t+1) asset price to be dependent on the present and l-1 past values r(t), r(t-1), ....., r(t-1+1) via a conditional distribution which is derived from a (2l+1)-dimensional power-normal distribution. A prediction interval based on the 100(α/2)% and 100(1-α/2)% points of the conditional distribution is then obtained. By examining the average lengths of the prediction intervals found by using the composite indices of the Malaysia stock market for the period 2008 to 2013, we found that the value 2 appears to be a good choice for l. With the omission of the trading volume in the vector r(t), the corresponding prediction interval exhibits a slightly longer average length, showing that it might be desirable to keep trading volume as a predictor. From the above conditional distribution, the probability that the time-(t+1) asset price will be larger than the time-t asset price is next computed. When the probability differs from 0 (or 1) by less than 0.03, the observed time-(t+1) increase in price tends to be negative (or positive). Thus the above probability has a good potential of being used as a market indicator in technical analysis.

Price regulation and international resource supply

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Siebert, H

1982-03-01

Price regulation is an instrument between two diverging aims: The demand for low resource prices motivated by the principle of equal distribution in our day, and the desire for economical management of resources as a responsibility we have to future generations. The present publication investigates how price regulation influences intertemporal supply of resources. For the assumed cases constant resource price, constant admissible increase in resource price, expected release of resource price and deregulation of a price held constant for a period of time mathematical models are developmed.

Interdependensi Antara Insider Ownership, Keputusan Investasi, Dan Risiko Bisnis

OpenAIRE

Florentina, Indri Erkaningrum

2013-01-01

Asymmetric information and agency issues made stockholders need to control business activities throughoptimalization insider ownership and investment decision. Optimalization of insider ownership and investmentdecision were expected to make business risk controlled. This research aimed at verifying empirically theinfluencing factors of insider ownership, investment decision, business risk, and finding the interdependencyamong insider ownership, investment decision, and business risk. The samp...

Crude oil spot market pricing: Pearsonian analysis of crude oil spot market prices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Akinnusi, Ayo

1994-01-01

This paper presents a brief overview of crude oil pricing before describing a study of sets of 1991 spot market prices, and examining Pearson's model. Empirical distribution characteristics for 14 crude oils are tabulated, and skewness-kurtosis relationship and implication are considered. (UK)

Collective Psychological Ownership and Intergroup Relations.

Science.gov (United States)

Verkuyten, Maykel; Martinovic, Borja

2017-11-01

Whereas much social psychological research has studied the in-group and out-group implications of social categorization and collective identity ("we"), little research has examined the nature and relevance of collective psychological ownership ("ours") for intergroup relations. We make a case for considering collective psychological ownership as an important source of intergroup tensions. We do so by integrating theory and research from various social sciences, and we draw out implications for future social psychological research on intergroup relations. We discuss collective psychological ownership in relation to the psychology of possessions, marking behavior, intergroup threats, outgroup exclusion, and in-group responsibility. We suggest that the social psychological processes discussed apply to a range of ownership objects (territory, buildings, cultural artifacts) and various intergroup settings, including international, national, and local contexts, and in organizations and communities. We conclude by providing directions for future research in different intergroup contexts.

Option price calibration from Renyi entropy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brody, Dorje C.; Buckley, Ian R.C.; Constantinou, Irene C.

2007-01-01

The calibration of the risk-neutral density function for the future asset price, based on the maximisation of the entropy measure of Renyi, is proposed. Whilst the conventional approach based on the use of logarithmic entropy measure fails to produce the observed power-law distribution when calibrated against option prices, the approach outlined here is shown to produce the desired form of the distribution. Procedures for the maximisation of the Renyi entropy under constraints are outlined in detail, and a number of interesting properties of the resulting power-law distributions are also derived. The result is applied to efficiently evaluate prices of path-independent derivatives

29 CFR 1904.34 - Change in business ownership.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 29 Labor 5 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Change in business ownership. 1904.34 Section 1904.34 Labor Regulations Relating to Labor (Continued) OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR... Requirements § 1904.34 Change in business ownership. If your business changes ownership, you are responsible...

Ownership and Control in the Netherlands

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Jong, Abe; Kabir, Mohammed Rezaul; Marra, Teye; Röell, Ailsa

1999-01-01

This paper analyses ownership and control structures of Dutch listed companies. Legislation effective since 1992 mandates all shareholders with holdings of 5 percent or more in Dutch companies to disclose their holdings. Our analysis shows that the average ownership stakes of the largest and the

Business Ownership and Unemployment in Japan

NARCIS (Netherlands)

J. van Acht; J. Stam; A.R. Thurik (Roy); I. Verheul (Ingrid)

2004-01-01

textabstractThe influence of industrial structure, more specifically of business ownership, is investigated on the level of unemployment in Japan. The question is to what extent business ownership, i.e., entrepreneurship, can reduce the level of unemployment. It will be concluded that Japan is

Regulation of distribution grid prices at the beginning of market liberalisation - Experience in Norway and Sweden

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Filippini, M.; Wind, J.; Luchsinger, C.

2001-01-01

This report for the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) reviews the experience gained in the deregulation of electricity distribution grids in Norway and Sweden and compares it with the possible options for Switzerland. The report looks at the requirements placed on the future Swiss regulation of electricity distribution grids and the various regulation models such as Rate-of-Return, Price-Cap, Revenue-Cap and Benchmarking that could be used in the short and long term. The choice of Sweden and Norway from the list of countries with liberalised electricity markets is discussed. The results of the study of the two countries are discussed individually, including the structure of the sector, the various stages of deregulation, the main characteristics encountered at the start of deregulation, regulation of grid prices at the beginning of liberalisation and experience gained in each case. The report is supplemented by a comprehensive list of the sources used

Expected commodity returns and pricing models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cortazar, Gonzalo; Kovacevic, Ivo; Schwartz, Eduardo S.

2015-01-01

Stochastic models of commodity prices have evolved considerably in terms of their structure and the number and interpretation of the state variables that model the underlying risk. Using multiple factors, different specifications and modern estimation techniques, these models have gained wide acceptance because of their success in accurately fitting the observed commodity futures' term structures and their dynamics. It is not well emphasized however that these models, in addition to providing the risk neutral distribution of future spot prices, also provide their true distribution. While the parameters of the risk neutral distribution are estimated more precisely and are usually statistically significant, some of the parameters of the true distribution are typically measured with large errors and are statistically insignificant. In this paper we argue that to increase the reliability of commodity pricing models, and therefore their use by practitioners, some of their parameters — in particular the risk premium parameters — should be obtained from other sources and we show that this can be done without losing any precision in the pricing of futures contracts. We show how the risk premium parameters can be obtained from estimations of expected futures returns and provide alternative procedures for estimating these expected futures returns. - Highlights: • Simple methodology to improve the performance of commodity pricing models • New information about commodity futures expected return is added to the estimation. • No significant effect in pricing futures contracts is observed. • More reliable commodity pricing model's expected returns are obtained. • Methodology is open to any expected futures return model preferred by practitioner

Voluntary self-touch increases body ownership

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Masayuki eHara

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Experimental manipulations of body ownership have indicated that multisensory integration is central to forming bodily self-representation. Voluntary self-touch is a unique multisensory situation involving corresponding motor, tactile and proprioceptive signals. Yet, even though self-touch is frequent in everyday life, its contribution to the formation of body ownership is not well understood. Here we investigated the role of voluntary self-touch in body ownership using a novel adaptation of the rubber hand illusion (RHI, in which a robotic system and virtual reality allowed participants self-touch of real and virtual hands. In the first experiment, active and passive self-touch were applied in the absence of visual feedback. In the second experiment, we tested the role of visual feedback in this bodily illusion. Finally, in the third experiment, we compared active and passive self-touch to the classical RHI in which the touch is administered by the experimenter. We hypothesized that active self-touch would increase ownership over the virtual hand through the addition of motor signals strengthening the bodily illusion. The results indicated that active self-touch elicited stronger illusory ownership compared to passive self-touch and sensory only stimulation, and indicate an important role of active self-touch in the formation of bodily self.

Market Integration Dynamics and Asymptotic Price Convergence in Distribution

NARCIS (Netherlands)

A. García-Hiernaux (Alfredo); D.E. Guerrero (David); M.J. McAleer (Michael)

2015-01-01

textabstractThis paper analyzes the market integration process of nominal prices, develops a model to analyze market integration, and presents a test of increasing market integration. A distinction is made between the economic concepts of price conver- gence in mean and variance. When both types of

Premium Pricing of Liability Insurance Using Random Sum Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mujiati Dwi Kartikasari

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Premium pricing is one of important activities in insurance. Nonlife insurance premium is calculated from expected value of historical data claims. The historical data claims are collected so that it forms a sum of independent random number which is called random sum. In premium pricing using random sum, claim frequency distribution and claim severity distribution are combined. The combination of these distributions is called compound distribution. By using liability claim insurance data, we analyze premium pricing using random sum model based on compound distribution

Acquisition of ownership over the pledged thing by the creditor in Roman law (impetratio dominii

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sič Magdolna I.

2016-01-01

Full Text Available It is less known that since the Severan Dynasty the creditor had the opportunity to ask the emperor for permanent ownership over the pledged thing (impetratio dominii. It is known, however, that the protection of the debtor's interests, given that it was easier to collect taxes from them than from large land-owners, was of utmost importance for imperial finances. Therefore, apart from prohibiting the stipulation of lex commissoria, as well as conditioning pactum Marcianum with just price of the pledged thing, the rights of the debtor were protected by subjecting impetratio dominii to several conditions. Imperatio dominii depended on a publicly announced previous attempt of sale as well as on its annulment in case the creditor continues to collect interest after the acquisition of ownership over the pledged thing. Unsatisfied with the lack of application of these conditions in practice, Justinian posted additional conditions for the application of this institute in 530: the obligation to attempt to sell the pledged thing within two years; to inform the debtor about it even after the expiration of this deadline, in order to give him the opportunity to pay his debt; to seek special approval of the emperor for the acquisition of ownership after the expiration of these deadlines; by introducing a subsequent possibility for the debtor to repurchase the pledge from the creditor within two years; making irreversible the creditor's ownership over the pledged thing only after the expiration of approximately four years; fair assessment of value of the pledged thing with the obligation of the creditor to return the surplus to the debtor as well as his right to request the payment of the outstanding amount from the debtor. This paper explores the emergence and evolution of imperatio dominii as well as the circumstances that lead to its emergence.

Financial derivative pricing under probability operator via Esscher transfomation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Achi, Godswill U., E-mail: achigods@yahoo.com [Department of Mathematics, Abia State Polytechnic Aba, P.M.B. 7166, Aba, Abia State (Nigeria)

2014-10-24

The problem of pricing contingent claims has been extensively studied for non-Gaussian models, and in particular, Black- Scholes formula has been derived for the NIG asset pricing model. This approach was first developed in insurance pricing{sup 9} where the original distortion function was defined in terms of the normal distribution. This approach was later studied6 where they compared the standard Black-Scholes contingent pricing and distortion based contingent pricing. So, in this paper, we aim at using distortion operators by Cauchy distribution under a simple transformation to price contingent claim. We also show that we can recuperate the Black-Sholes formula using the distribution. Similarly, in a financial market in which the asset price represented by a stochastic differential equation with respect to Brownian Motion, the price mechanism based on characteristic Esscher measure can generate approximate arbitrage free financial derivative prices. The price representation derived involves probability Esscher measure and Esscher Martingale measure and under a new complex valued measure φ (u) evaluated at the characteristic exponents φ{sub x}(u) of X{sub t} we recuperate the Black-Scholes formula for financial derivative prices.

Financial derivative pricing under probability operator via Esscher transfomation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Achi, Godswill U.

2014-01-01

The problem of pricing contingent claims has been extensively studied for non-Gaussian models, and in particular, Black- Scholes formula has been derived for the NIG asset pricing model. This approach was first developed in insurance pricing 9 where the original distortion function was defined in terms of the normal distribution. This approach was later studied6 where they compared the standard Black-Scholes contingent pricing and distortion based contingent pricing. So, in this paper, we aim at using distortion operators by Cauchy distribution under a simple transformation to price contingent claim. We also show that we can recuperate the Black-Sholes formula using the distribution. Similarly, in a financial market in which the asset price represented by a stochastic differential equation with respect to Brownian Motion, the price mechanism based on characteristic Esscher measure can generate approximate arbitrage free financial derivative prices. The price representation derived involves probability Esscher measure and Esscher Martingale measure and under a new complex valued measure φ (u) evaluated at the characteristic exponents φ x (u) of X t we recuperate the Black-Scholes formula for financial derivative prices

Financial derivative pricing under probability operator via Esscher transfomation

Science.gov (United States)

Achi, Godswill U.

2014-10-01

The problem of pricing contingent claims has been extensively studied for non-Gaussian models, and in particular, Black- Scholes formula has been derived for the NIG asset pricing model. This approach was first developed in insurance pricing9 where the original distortion function was defined in terms of the normal distribution. This approach was later studied6 where they compared the standard Black-Scholes contingent pricing and distortion based contingent pricing. So, in this paper, we aim at using distortion operators by Cauchy distribution under a simple transformation to price contingent claim. We also show that we can recuperate the Black-Sholes formula using the distribution. Similarly, in a financial market in which the asset price represented by a stochastic differential equation with respect to Brownian Motion, the price mechanism based on characteristic Esscher measure can generate approximate arbitrage free financial derivative prices. The price representation derived involves probability Esscher measure and Esscher Martingale measure and under a new complex valued measure φ (u) evaluated at the characteristic exponents φx(u) of Xt we recuperate the Black-Scholes formula for financial derivative prices.

Essays in financial transmission rights pricing

Science.gov (United States)

Posner, Barry

transmission paths in the Delmarva Peninsula were examined. The maximum-likelihood two-way Tobit model developed in Chapter One consistently predicts the expected responses to the independent variables that have employed, but the model as defined here does a poor job of predicting prices. This is likely due to the inability to include system outages (i.e., short-term changes in the structure of the transmission grid) as variables in the estimation model. The second chapter addresses the behavior of firms in the monthly auctions for FTRs. FTRs are a claim to congestion rent revenues along a certain path within the PJM grid, and are awarded in a uniform-price divisible-goods auction. Firms typically submit a schedule of bids for different amounts of FTR at different prices, akin to a demand curve. A firm bidding too high a price may cause the clearing price of the FTR to be higher than the realized value of the FTR, creating a loss from ownership of the FTR. A firm bidding too low means that it wins no FTRs, depriving itself of the ability to profit from ownership or to hedge against congestion. Several questions concerning firm behavior are addressed in this study. It is found that firms adjust their bids in response to new information that is obtained from past auctions: they raise or lower bids in accordance with changes in recent FTR prices and payoffs. Firms consistently bid below the value of the FTR (i.e., shade their bids). This adds empirical evidence to the theoretically-posited notion that uniform-price auctions are not truth-telling, unlike the second-price auction for a non-divisible good. Firms employ greater bid-shading in response to increases in the volatility of both FTR clearing prices and realized FTR values. This validates the notion that firms are risk-averse. It is discovered that better-informed "insider" firms employ structurally different bidding strategies, but these differences do not lead to greater profits. However, profits do increase as firms gain

Linguistic analysis of project ownership for undergraduate research experiences.

Science.gov (United States)

Hanauer, D I; Frederick, J; Fotinakes, B; Strobel, S A

2012-01-01

We used computational linguistic and content analyses to explore the concept of project ownership for undergraduate research. We used linguistic analysis of student interview data to develop a quantitative methodology for assessing project ownership and applied this method to measure degrees of project ownership expressed by students in relation to different types of educational research experiences. The results of the study suggest that the design of a research experience significantly influences the degree of project ownership expressed by students when they describe those experiences. The analysis identified both positive and negative aspects of project ownership and provided a working definition for how a student experiences his or her research opportunity. These elements suggest several features that could be incorporated into an undergraduate research experience to foster a student's sense of project ownership.

INSTITUTIONAL OWNERSHIP LEVEL AND RISK-ADJUSTED RETURN

OpenAIRE

Isaiah, Chioma; Li, Meng (Emma)

2017-01-01

This paper examines the relationship between the level of institutional ownership andrisk-adjusted return on stocks. We find a significant positive relationship between the level ofinstitutional ownership on a stock and its risk-adjusted return. This result holds both in the longrun and in shorter time periods. Our findings suggest that all things being equal, it is possible toobtain risk-adjusted return by going short on the stocks with low institutional ownership andgoing long on those with...

47 CFR 76.501 - Cross-ownership.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... franchise area served by that cable operator's cable system, either directly or indirectly through an... CABLE TELEVISION SERVICE Ownership of Cable Systems § 76.501 Cross-ownership. (a)-(c) [Reserved] (d) No... control with the cable operator, offer SMATV service within its franchise area if the cable operator's...

Corporate boards and ownership structure: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Munisi, Gibson; Hermes, Niels; Randoy, Trond

2014-01-01

This study examines the relationship between board structure and ownership structure for firms listed on the stock exchanges of twelve Sub-Saharan African countries, using data for the period 2006–2009. We find that ownership concentration, foreign ownership and managerial ownership are negatively

OWNERSHIP POLICY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. Branovitskiy

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The article examines the ownership policy in Ukraine. It makes a survey of the following: the current situation at state-run enterprises and their efficiency; the key criteria of the classification of state-run enterprises for the privatization for the period of 2017-2020. The article evaluates the institutional changes coming from a new law on the privatization of state-owned property in Ukraine. It reveals the stages of making the ownership policy as a state strategy. It describes the measures meant to raise efficiency in the area of the public property management. The article assesses the state of play of the stock market in Ukraine as a mechanism to attract money to the real economy. It recommends attracting foreign investment to the public sector of economy following the restructuring process via IPO or sale to a strategic investor (Private equity. It considers the positive aspects in the completion of active privatization and the scope of the main privatization risks.

Relationship between bank ownership concentration on capital ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Relationship between bank ownership concentration on capital adequacy, liquidity, ... In this study we explore the effects of ownership concentration on the ... are material factors in explaining banks' behavior and their market performance.

Correlates of credit card ownership in men and women.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Bijou; Lester, David

2005-06-01

In a sample of 352 students, correlates of credit card ownership differed by sex. For both men and women, credit card ownership was predicted by their affective attitude toward credit cards. However, whereas for men concern with money as a tactic for gaining power predicted credit card ownership, for women feelings of insecurity about having sufficient money and having a conservative approach to money predicted credit card ownership.

Learner Ownership of Technology-Enhanced Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Dommett, Eleanor J.

2018-01-01

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the different ways in which learners may have ownership over technology-enhanced learning by reflecting on technical, legal and psychological ownership. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses a variety of examples of technology-enhanced learning ranging from open-source software to cloud storage to discuss…

Home Ownership, Job Duration, and Wages

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Munch, Jakob Roland; Rosholm, Michael; Svarer, Michael

We investigate the impact of home ownership on individual job mobility and wages in Denmark. We find that home ownership has a negative impact on job-to-job mobilityboth in terms of transition into new local jobs and new jobs outside the local labourmarket. In addition, there is a clear negative...

State ownership and efficiency characteristics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexander Abramov

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This study examines the influence of state participation in the ownership structure of companies on their financial efficiency using a sample of 114 largest companies in Russia. As an indirect indicator of efficiency, we used a variety of financial indicators: revenue per employee (gross margin, return on equity, profit margin and debt burden. The effects of direct and indirect state ownership are considered separately. Using econometric analysis, we conclude that the dominance of the block of shares owned by the state has a negative effect on the performance characteristics, and its increase is associated with an increase in the debt burden of the companies. According to our criteria, state-owned enterprises (SOEs perform worse on average than private companies. The mechanism of how changes in the “real sector” affect profitability is examined particularly closely. The study shows that a change in the profitability of private companies is characterized by a significant dependence on the movement of labor productivity characteristics. At the same time, for SOEs, a similar correlation was not revealed. These companies demonstrated no visible relationship between their profitability and performance characteristics. The study shows that increases in the size of direct government ownership lead to lower labor productivity and profitability; the impact of indirect ownership is, seemingly, more complicated.

Corporate ownership and control in Victorian Britain

OpenAIRE

Acheson, Graeme G.; Campbell, Gareth; Turner, John D.; Vanteeva, Nadia

2015-01-01

Using ownership and control data for 890 firm‐years, this article examines the concentration of capital and voting rights in British companies in the second half of the nineteenth century. We find that both capital and voting rights were diffuse by modern‐day standards. However, this does not necessarily mean that there was a modern‐style separation of ownership from control in Victorian Britain. One major implication of our findings is that diffuse ownership was present in the UK much earlie...

Ownership Structure and Publicness of Firms: A Literature Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wisnu Untoro

2017-11-01

Full Text Available There has been an extensive body of literature studying the link between ownership structure and firm performance. Some of them focus on the performance difference across ownership types (i.e. state vs foreign vs private domestic. On the other hand, some studies stress ownership structure on the fraction of ownership based on agency theory (i.e. majority versus minority and its derivatives (e.g. ultimate ownership, cross listing. However, an important element has not been explored while discussing ownership structure of firms which is the concept of publicness of firms. Publicness is important to explain to which extent an organization is related with governmental institutions. In fact, there are many engagements of firms with governmental bodies (e.g. deposit and lending from and to public organization. In this present paper, I provide a comprehensive literature review on the intersection between publicness level of firms and ownership structure. Going deeper, I also provide a literature review on the measurement of publicness and postulate a model to link between these two and firm performance as a venue for future studies.

Ownership Concentration and Market Value of European Banks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Busta, Ildura; Sinani, Evis; Thomsen, Steen

2014-01-01

This paper investigates the relationship between ownership concentration and market value of European banks, and the role of the institutional environment in shaping this relationship. Using GMM dynamic estimator on a sample of European banks over a 13-year period (1993–2005) we find on average...... concentration is positive in Scandinavia. We propose that, besides the legal protection of small investors, the differences in the impact of ownership concentration across the countries could be due to the identity of the predominant owners, i.e. financial institutions in Germany and trusts and foundations...... a negative effect of ownership concentration on bank value, measured by Tobin's Q. However, this effect varies across different institutional settings; while higher ownership concentration results in a lower bank value particularly in the countries belonging to German legal family, the impact of ownership...

Support Schemes and Ownership Structures

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ropenus, Stephanie; Schröder, Sascha Thorsten; Costa, Ana

, Denmark, France and Portugal. Another crucial aspect for the diffusion of the mCHP technology is possible ownership structures. These may range from full consumer ownership to ownership by utilities and energy service companies, which is discussed in Section 6. Finally, a conclusion (Section 7) wraps up......In recent years, fuel cell based micro‐combined heat and power has received increasing attention due to its potential contribution to energy savings, efficiency gains, customer proximity and flexibility in operation and capacity size. The FC4Home project assesses technical and economic aspects...... of support scheme simultaneously affects risk and technological development, which is the focus of Section 4. Subsequent to this conceptual overview, Section 5 takes a glance at the national application of support schemes for mCHP in practice, notably in the three country cases of the FC4Home project...

Ownership of alcohol-branded merchandise and initiation of teen drinking.

Science.gov (United States)

McClure, Auden C; Dal Cin, Sonya; Gibson, Jennifer; Sargent, James D

2006-04-01

The alcohol industry spends over $5 billion a year on marketing, much of which is accessible to children. The distribution of branded articles of clothing and other personal items is one aspect of alcohol marketing that has not been adequately studied. In this study, the prevalence of ownership of alcohol-branded merchandise (ABM) was determined in a sample of rural northern New England adolescents, and the relationship between ownership of such items and initiation of alcohol use was examined. Northern New England middle school students who had not yet initiated alcohol use were captured at baseline in a 1999 school-based survey, and ownership of an ABM item and initiation of alcohol use were determined 1 to 2 years later by telephone. The analysis controlled for demographics (gender, grade in school); characteristics of the child (school performance, sensation seeking, rebelliousness); parenting style; and peer alcohol use. Of 2406 baseline never-drinkers, 15% had initiated alcohol use and 14% owned an ABM item by follow-up. ABM items consisted primarily of articles of clothing such as t-shirts and hats. ABM ownership was associated with higher grade in school, male gender, exposure to peer drinking, having tried smoking, poorer academic performance, higher levels of sensation seeking and rebelliousness, and less-responsive and restrictive parenting styles. Owners of ABM items at follow-up had higher rates of alcohol initiation compared with non-owners (25.5% vs 13.1%, respectively, p<0.001). After adjusting for the above confounders, students who owned an ABM item were significantly more likely to have initiated alcohol use compared with students who did not own one (adjusted odds ratio 1.5, 95% confidence interval, 1.1-2.0). In this northern New England adolescent sample, ownership of alcohol-branded merchandise was prevalent and exhibited an independent cross-sectional association with onset of adolescent drinking. Further studies are necessary to determine

Choice of ownership structure and firm performance: Evidence from Estonia

OpenAIRE

Jones, Derek C.; Kalmi, Panu; Mygind, Niels

2003-01-01

In this paper we use rich panel data for a representative sample of Estonian enterprises to analyse diverse issues related to the determinants of ownership structures and ownership changes after privatisation. A key focus is to determine whether ownership changes are related to economic efficiency. While employee owned firms are found to be much more prone than other firms to switch ownership categories, often “employee owned” firms remain “insider-owned” as ownership passes from current empl...

The Relationship between Ownership Structure and Risk Management: Evidence from Iran

OpenAIRE

Sheyda Lotfi; Ataollah Mohammadi

2014-01-01

This research aims to study the relationship between the Ownership Structure and Risk Management in time period between 2007 to 2013 based on a sample including 642 Year_Firm among campanies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. In following for each of the variables related to the Ownership Structure such as Institutional Ownership, Management ownership, Family Ownership, and Ownership Concentration, a hypothesis is formulated and its impact upon the Risk Management is investigated. The simple li...

Home ownership, job duration, and wages

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Munch, Jakob Roland; Rosholm, Michael; Svarer, Michael

2008-01-01

We investigate the impact of home ownership on individual job mobility and wages in Denmark. We find that home ownership has a negative impact on job-to-job mobility both in terms of transition into new local jobs and new jobs outside the local labor market. In addition, there is a clear negative...

Home Ownership, Job Duration, and Wages

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Munch, Jakob Roland; Rosholm, Michael; Svarer, Michael

We investigate the impact of home ownership on individual job mobility and wages in Denmark. We find that home ownership has a negative impact on job-to-job mobility both in terms of transition into new local jobs and new jobs outside the local labour market. In addition, there is a clear negative...

Land use and ownership and the Czech farm development

OpenAIRE

Doucha, Tomas; Divila, Emil; Fischer, Michal

2005-01-01

Characteristics of the present land usage, land ownership and the land market in the Czech Republic — the distribution of the Czech Utilised Agricultural Area (UAA) among owners and users, driving barriers on the Czech Land market. A regional view on the Czech UAA from the points of view of natural conditions, agro-environmental and rural sensitivity. Definition of policy scenarios for the 2013 horizon with the respect of coupled/decoupled direct payments, LFA payments, legislation related ...

Pre-Auction Offers in Asymmetric First-Price and Second-Price Auctions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kirkegaard, René; Overgaard, Per Baltzer

We consider “must-sell” auctions with asymmetric buyers. First, we study auctions with two asymmetric buyers, where the distribution of valuations of the strong buyer is “stretched” relative to that of the weak buyer. Then, it is known that ineffcient first-price auctions aremore profitable...... never increase the profitability of second-price auctions, since they introduce the wrong kind of favoritism from the perspective of seller profits....... for the seller than effcient second-price auctions. This is because the former favor the weak buyer. However, we show that the seller can do one better by augmenting the first-price auction by a pre-auction offer made exclusively to the strong buyer. Should thestrong buyer reject the offer, the object is simply...

EVT in electricity price modeling : extreme value theory not only on the extreme events

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marossy, Z.

2007-01-01

The extreme value theory (EVT) is commonly used in electricity and financial risk modeling. In this study, EVT was used to model the distribution of electricity prices. The model was built on the price formation in electricity auction markets. This paper reviewed the 3 main modeling approaches used to describe the distribution of electricity prices. The first approach is based on a stochastic model of the electricity price time series and uses this stochastic model to generate the given distribution. The second approach involves electricity supply and demand factors that determine the price distribution. The third approach involves agent-based models which use simulation techniques to write down the price distribution. A fourth modeling approach was then proposed to describe the distribution of electricity prices. The new approach determines the distribution of electricity prices directly without knowing anything about the data generating process or market driving forces. Empirical data confirmed that the distribution of electricity prices have a generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution. 8 refs., 2 tabs., 5 figs

Body ownership and embodiment: vestibular and multisensory mechanisms.

Science.gov (United States)

Lopez, C; Halje, P; Blanke, O

2008-06-01

Body ownership and embodiment are two fundamental mechanisms of self-consciousness. The present article reviews neurological data about paroxysmal illusions during which body ownership and embodiment are affected differentially: autoscopic phenomena (out-of-body experience, heautoscopy, autoscopic hallucination, feeling-of-a-presence) and the room tilt illusion. We suggest that autoscopic phenomena and room tilt illusion are related to different types of failures to integrate body-related information (vestibular, proprioceptive and tactile cues) in addition to a mismatch between vestibular and visual references. In these patients, altered body ownership and embodiment has been shown to occur due to pathological activity at the temporoparietal junction and other vestibular-related areas arguing for a key importance of vestibular processing. We also review the possibilities of manipulating body ownership and embodiment in healthy subjects through exposition to weightlessness as well as caloric and galvanic stimulation of the peripheral vestibular apparatus. In healthy subjects, disturbed self-processing might be related to interference of vestibular stimulation with vestibular cortex leading to disintegration of bodily information and altered body ownership and embodiment. We finally propose a differential contribution of the vestibular cortical areas to the different forms of altered body ownership and embodiment.

INTER-TEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF HOUSEHOLD CAR AND MOTORCYCLE OWNERSHIP BEHAVIORS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nobuhiro SANKO

2009-01-01

Full Text Available This study investigates household car and motorcycle ownership in Nagoya metropolitan area of Japan. Bivariate ordered probit models of household vehicle ownership were developed using the data from the case study area at three time points, 1981, 1991, and 2001. The accessibility that is generally known to be correlated with vehicle ownership decisions is incorporated as an input for the proposed vehicle ownership model to investigate the potential relationship between them. The mode choice models for the area were first estimated to quantify the accessibility indexes that were later integrated into the vehicle ownership models. Inter-temporal comparison and temporal transferability analysis were conducted. Some of the major findings suggest: 1 that age and gender differences have become less important in modal choices and car ownership as motorization proceeds; 2 that the accessibility seems to have a significant correlation with vehicle ownership; 3 that car and motorcycle ownership may not be independent and may have a complementary relationship; and 4 that the deep insights concerning the model selection are obtained from the viewpoints of the temporal transferability.

FMCG companies specific distribution channels

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ioana Barin

2009-12-01

Full Text Available Distribution includes all activities undertaken by the producer, alone or in cooperation, since the end of the final finished products or services until they are in possession of consumers. The distribution consists of the following major components: distribution channels or marketing channels, which together form a distribution network; logistics o rphysical distribution. In order to effective achieve, distribution of goods requires an amount of activities and operational processes related to transit of goods from producer to consumer, the best conditions, using existing distribution channels and logistics system. One of the essential functions of a distribution is performing acts of sale, through which, with the actual movement of goods, their change of ownership takes place, that the successive transfer of ownership from producer to consumer. This is an itinerary in the economic cycle of goods, called the distribution channel.

Ownership dynamics in local multi-stakeholder initiatives

NARCIS (Netherlands)

K. Biekart (Kees); A.F. Fowler (Alan)

2018-01-01

textabstractThe nature and dynamics of ownership are often neglected features of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs). Seventeen cases in four countries illustrate characteristics of narrow government or broad societal ownership and forces for change over time. Refinements to the application of

Ownership concentration, choice of auditors, and firm performance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Farooq, Omar; El Kacemi, Youssef

2011-01-01

of the agency problems embedded in their ownership structure, appoint one of big-four auditors as their external auditor to signal the market that they are disclosing reliable information. Our results also show a significantly positive relationship between ownership concentration and the choice of auditor. We......, further, show that for a given level of ownership concentration, appointing one of the big-four auditors lead to superior firm performance....

Pricing the property claim service (PCS) catastrophe insurance options using gamma distribution

Science.gov (United States)

Noviyanti, Lienda; Soleh, Achmad Zanbar; Setyanto, Gatot R.

2017-03-01

The catastrophic events like earthquakes, hurricanes or flooding are characteristics for some areas, a properly calculated annual premium would be closely as high as the loss insured. From an actuarial perspective, such events constitute the risk that are not insurable. On the other hand people living in such areas need protection. In order to securitize the catastrophe risk, futures or options based on a loss index could be considered. Chicago Board of Trade launched a new class of catastrophe insurance options based on new indices provided by Property Claim Services (PCS). The PCS-option is based on the Property Claim Service Index (PCS-Index). The index are used to determine and payout in writing index-based insurance derivatives. The objective of this paper is to price PCS Catastrophe Insurance Option based on PCS Catastrophe index. Gamma Distribution is used to estimate PCS Catastrophe index distribution.

Oil price shocks and long run price and import demand behavior

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kleibergen, F.; Van Dijk, H.K.; Urbain, J.P.

1997-01-01

The effect which the oil price time series has on the long run properties of Vector AutoRegressive (VAR) models for price levels and import demand is investigated. As the oil price variable is assumed to be weakly exogenous for the long run parameters, a cointegration testing procedure allowing for weakly exogenous variables is developed using a LU decomposition of the long run multiplier matrix. The likelihood based cointegration test statistics, Wald, Likelihood Ratio and Lagrange Multiplier, are constructed and their limiting distributions derived. Using these tests, we find that incorporating the oil price in a model for the domestic or import price level of seven industrialized countries decreases the long run memory of the inflation rate. Second, we find that the results for import demand can be classified with respect to the oil importing or exporting status of the specific country. The result for Japan is typical as its import price is not influenced by gnp in the long run, which is the case for all other countries. 31 refs

Projections of the energy prices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jankauskas, V.

1996-01-01

This article deals with the trends of the main fuel prices development in the Western European markets. There are two possible price development scenarios presented in the article. Transportation costs of various internationally traded fuels from various sources (Russia, Western Europe) are estimated and their most feasible values are considered. Fuel prices for the final big consumers are calculated adding the domestic distribution costs. Trends of heat and electricity price development in Lithuania during the period of 1991-1995 are analyzed. Forecasts of the electricity generation and supply costs are calculated according to various scenarios. Electricity prices will be lowest in the case of the further operation of the Ignalina NPP and low fuel prices in international markets. (author). 8 refs., 14 figs., 4 tabs

Policy on energy pricing

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Webb, M. G.

1977-10-15

Some economic principles of energy pricing in a market type economy in which there is consumer sovereignty are discussed. Thus resources will be allocated via the production processes in line with the preferences of consumers as revealed by their purchases of goods and services. Prices play the crucial role of coordinating instruments in this allocative process. It is assumed that all the energy industries are in the public sector. The following topics are discussed: the specification of objectives for the energy sector; marginal cost pricing; problems associated with the measurement of marginal costs; some aspects of the environmental costs associated with energy production and use, and some issues related to time differentiated tariffs; the modification of prices to achieve financial targets; and the use of energy prices to achieve income distribution objectives.

Incarceration and Household Asset Ownership.

Science.gov (United States)

Turney, Kristin; Schneider, Daniel

2016-12-01

A considerable literature documents the deleterious economic consequences of incarceration. However, little is known about the consequences of incarceration for household assets-a distinct indicator of economic well-being that may be especially valuable to the survival of low-income families-or about the spillover economic consequences of incarceration for families. In this article, we use longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine how incarceration is associated with asset ownership among formerly incarcerated men and their romantic partners. Results, which pay careful attention to the social forces that select individuals into incarceration, show that incarceration is negatively associated with ownership of a bank account, vehicle, and home among men and that these consequences for asset ownership extend to the romantic partners of these men. These associations are concentrated among men who previously held assets. Results also show that post-incarceration changes in romantic relationships are an important pathway by which even short-term incarceration depletes assets.

Parcels and Land Ownership - Volusia County Parcels (Polygons)

Data.gov (United States)

NSGIC Local Govt | GIS Inventory — Parcel Ownership Polygon Layer: Polygons showing property ownership created from the "master" subdivision base map for Volusia County. Multiple lots and parcels...

Why are product prices in online markets not converging?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Takayuki Mizuno

Full Text Available Why are product prices in online markets dispersed in spite of very small search costs? To address this question, we construct a unique dataset from a Japanese price comparison site, which records price quotes offered by e-retailers as well as customers' clicks on products, which occur when they proceed to purchase the product. The novelty of our approach is that we seek to extract useful information on the source of price dispersion from the shape of price distributions rather than focusing merely on the standard deviation or the coefficient of variation of prices, as previous studies have done. We find that the distribution of prices retailers quote for a particular product at a particular point in time (divided by the lowest price follows an exponential distribution, showing the presence of substantial price dispersion. For example, 20 percent of all retailers quote prices that are more than 50 percent higher than the lowest price. Next, comparing the probability that customers click on a retailer with a particular rank and the probability that retailers post prices at a particular rank, we show that both decline exponentially with price rank and that the exponents associated with the probabilities are quite close. This suggests that the reason why some retailers set prices at a level substantially higher than the lowest price is that they know that some customers will choose them even at that high price. Based on these findings, we hypothesize that price dispersion in online markets stems from heterogeneity in customers' preferences over retailers; that is, customers choose a set of candidate retailers based on their preferences, which are heterogeneous across customers, and then pick a particular retailer among the candidates based on the price ranking.

Why Are Product Prices in Online Markets Not Converging?

Science.gov (United States)

Mizuno, Takayuki; Watanabe, Tsutomu

2013-01-01

Why are product prices in online markets dispersed in spite of very small search costs? To address this question, we construct a unique dataset from a Japanese price comparison site, which records price quotes offered by e-retailers as well as customers’ clicks on products, which occur when they proceed to purchase the product. The novelty of our approach is that we seek to extract useful information on the source of price dispersion from the shape of price distributions rather than focusing merely on the standard deviation or the coefficient of variation of prices, as previous studies have done. We find that the distribution of prices retailers quote for a particular product at a particular point in time (divided by the lowest price) follows an exponential distribution, showing the presence of substantial price dispersion. For example, 20 percent of all retailers quote prices that are more than 50 percent higher than the lowest price. Next, comparing the probability that customers click on a retailer with a particular rank and the probability that retailers post prices at a particular rank, we show that both decline exponentially with price rank and that the exponents associated with the probabilities are quite close. This suggests that the reason why some retailers set prices at a level substantially higher than the lowest price is that they know that some customers will choose them even at that high price. Based on these findings, we hypothesize that price dispersion in online markets stems from heterogeneity in customers’ preferences over retailers; that is, customers choose a set of candidate retailers based on their preferences, which are heterogeneous across customers, and then pick a particular retailer among the candidates based on the price ranking. PMID:24015219

Determination of optimum allocation and pricing of distributed generation using genetic algorithm methodology

Science.gov (United States)

Mwakabuta, Ndaga Stanslaus

Electric power distribution systems play a significant role in providing continuous and "quality" electrical energy to different classes of customers. In the context of the present restrictions on transmission system expansions and the new paradigm of "open and shared" infrastructure, new approaches to distribution system analyses, economic and operational decision-making need investigation. This dissertation includes three layers of distribution system investigations. In the basic level, improved linear models are shown to offer significant advantages over previous models for advanced analysis. In the intermediate level, the improved model is applied to solve the traditional problem of operating cost minimization using capacitors and voltage regulators. In the advanced level, an artificial intelligence technique is applied to minimize cost under Distributed Generation injection from private vendors. Soft computing techniques are finding increasing applications in solving optimization problems in large and complex practical systems. The dissertation focuses on Genetic Algorithm for investigating the economic aspects of distributed generation penetration without compromising the operational security of the distribution system. The work presents a methodology for determining the optimal pricing of distributed generation that would help utilities make a decision on how to operate their system economically. This would enable modular and flexible investments that have real benefits to the electric distribution system. Improved reliability for both customers and the distribution system in general, reduced environmental impacts, increased efficiency of energy use, and reduced costs of energy services are some advantages.

Corporate Ownership by Industrial Foundations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Thomsen, Steen

1999-01-01

Industrial foundations are self-governing non profit institutions that own business companies. This ownership structure is found in a fair number of Northern European companies, some of them successful world class competitors. Standard agency theory would predict foundation-owned companies...... to be relatively inefficient since they lack monitoring by residual claimants and access to equity finance from the stock market. Nevertheless, empirical research (Thomsen 1996) has found that Danish foundation-owned companies do no worse in terms of profitability and growth than companies with dispersed ownership...

The Effect of Managerial Ability on Future Stock Price Crash Risk: Evidence from Korea

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Soo Yeon Park

2017-12-01

Full Text Available This study examines the effect of managerial ability on subsequent stock price crash risk using listed firm data in Korea. Compared to some financially advanced countries, the influence of managers is particularly more powerful in Korea, as ownership and management are not effectively separate in most Korean firms. In addition, we considered the effect of large business groups called Chaebol, which is family-run conglomerates with unique corporate governance system that hugely affect the Korean economy. It is important to recognize determinants of the stock price crash risk which would result in doubt on going concern to enhance the company’s sustainable management. Hence, this study focuses on the managerial ability as one of the main factors of the stock price crash risk. We use the measures of firm-specific stock price crash risk based on Hutton et al. (2009. Managerial ability is estimated through a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA and tobit regressions following Demerjian et al. (2012. From the empirical tests, there is a negative association between managerial ability and stock price crash risk. This suggests that managers with a higher ability release more voluntary disclosure to signal their ability, ultimately lowering the subsequent stock price crash risk. We also find that firms in large business groups, Chaebol, weaken the negative association between managerial ability and subsequent stock price crash risk.

OWNERSHIP AND CAPITAL STRUCTURE OF PAKISTANI NON-FINANCIAL FIRMS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Khan Shoaib

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Existi ng literature has not yet defi ned a clear-cut relati onship between ownership structure and capital structure. This study aims to contribute to this controversial argument by examining the impact of internal (managerial ownership and external ownership on fi nancing preferences using the case of non-fi nancial fi rms listed on Karachi stock exchange during the period of 2008-2012. Our results suggest that the external ownership has a signifi cant eff ect on capital structure in accordance with the presence of blockholders. In contrast, the internal ownership has a complicated eff ect; it shows signifi cant positi ve and negati ve relati onship to leverage at lower and certain higher proporti on of managerial shareholding respecti vely. Besides, the combined analyses suggest that the presence of blockholders negates the impact of managerial ownership on capital structure. This implies that the presence of large and dominant shareholders in Pakistani fi rms may have caused a bias for debt fi nancing to protect their voti ng power and returns.

Motor fuel prices in Turkey

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Erdogdu, Erkan

2014-01-01

The world's most expensive motor fuel (gasoline, diesel and LPG) is sold most likely in the Republic of Turkey. This paper investigates the key issues related to the motor fuel prices in Turkey. First of all, the paper analyses the main reason behind high prices, namely motor fuel taxes in Turkey. Then, it estimates the elasticity of motor fuel demand in Turkey using an econometric analysis. The findings indicate that motor fuel demand in Turkey is quite inelastic and, therefore, not responsive to price increases caused by an increase in either pre-tax prices or taxes. Therefore, fuel market in Turkey is open to opportunistic behavior by firms (through excessive profits) and the government (through excessive taxes). Besides, the paper focuses on the impact of high motor fuel prices on road transport associated activities, including the pattern of passenger transportation, motorization rate, fuel use, total kilometers traveled and CO 2 emissions from road transportation. The impact of motor fuel prices on income distribution in Turkey and Turkish public opinion about high motor fuel prices are also among the subjects investigated in the course of the study. - Highlights: • The key issues (e.g. taxes) related to motor fuel prices in Turkey are explored. • Their impact on transport activities and income distribution is also investigated. • An econometric analysis is performed to estimate motor fuel demand in Turkey. • Motor fuel demand in Turkey is found to be quite inelastic. • Turkish fuel market is open to opportunistic behavior by firms and the government

Possible space weather influence on the Earth wheat prices

Science.gov (United States)

Pustil'Nik, L.; Yom Din, G.; Dorman, L.

We present development of our study of possible influence of space weather modulated by cycle of solar activity on the price bursts in the Earth markets In our previous works 1 2 we showed that correspondent response may have place in the specific locations characterized by a high sensitivity of the weather cloudiness in particular to cosmic ray variation b risk zone agriculture c isolated wheat market with limited external supply of agriculture production We showed that in this situation we may wait specific price burst reaction on unfavorable phase of solar activity and space weather what lead to corresponding abnormalities in the local weather and next crop failure We showed that main types of manifestation of this connection are a Distribution of intervals between price bursts must be like to the distribution of intervals between correspondent extremes of solar activity minimums or maximums b price asymmetry between opposite states of solar activity price in the one type of activity state is systematically higher then in the opposite one We showed in our previous publications that this influence in interval distribution is detected with high reliability in Mediaeval England 1250-1700 both for wheat prices and price of consumables basket We showed that for period of Maunder Minimum price asymmetry of wheat prices observed all prices in minimum state of solar activity was higher the prices in the next maximum state We showed later that this price asymmetry had place in 20-th century in USA durum prices too In

Asymmetric and nonlinear pass-through of crude oil prices to gasoline and natural gas prices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Atil, Ahmed; Lahiani, Amine; Nguyen, Duc Khuong

2014-01-01

In this article, we use the recently developed nonlinear autoregressive distributed lags (NARDL) model to examine the pass-through of crude oil prices into gasoline and natural gas prices. Our approach allows us to simultaneously test the short- and long-run nonlinearities through positive and negative partial sum decompositions of the predetermined explanatory variables. It also offers the possibility to quantify the respective responses of gasoline and natural gas prices to positive and negative oil price shocks from the asymmetric dynamic multipliers. The obtained results indicate that oil prices affect gasoline prices and natural gas prices in an asymmetric and nonlinear manner, but the price transmission mechanism is not the same. Important policy implications can be learned from the empirical findings. - Highlights: • The pass-through of crude oil prices into gasoline and natural gas prices is examined. • We use a NARDL model to test for the long-run and short-run asymmetric reactions. • Both gasoline and natural gas prices significantly adjust to changes in the price of oil. • Negative oil shocks have greater effects than positive oil shocks. • Policy implications are discussed

Pricing of new vaccines

Science.gov (United States)

McGlone, Sarah M

2010-01-01

New vaccine pricing is a complicated process that could have substantial long-standing scientific, medical and public health ramifications. Pricing can have a considerable impact on new vaccine adoption and, thereby, either culminate or thwart years of research and development and public health efforts. Typically, pricing strategy consists of the following eleven components: (1) Conduct a target population analysis; (2) Map potential competitors and alternatives; (3) Construct a vaccine target product profile (TPP) and compare it to projected or actual TPPs of competing vaccines; (4) Quantify the incremental value of the new vaccine's characteristics; (5) Determine vaccine positioning in the marketplace; (6) Estimate the vaccine price-demand curve; (7) Calculate vaccine costs (including those of manufacturing, distribution, and research and development); (8) Account for various legal, regulatory, third party payer and competitor factors; (9) Consider the overall product portfolio; (10) Set pricing objectives; (11) Select pricing and pricing structure. While the biomedical literature contains some studies that have addressed these components, there is still considerable room for more extensive evaluation of this important area. PMID:20861678

Pricing of new vaccines.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Bruce Y; McGlone, Sarah M

2010-08-01

New vaccine pricing is a complicated process that could have substantial long-standing scientific, medical, and public health ramifications. Pricing can have a considerable impact on new vaccine adoption and, thereby, either culminate or thwart years of research and development and public health efforts. Typically, pricing strategy consists of the following ten components: 1. Conduct a target population analysis; 2. Map potential competitors and alternatives; 3. Construct a vaccine target product profile (TPP) and compare it to projected or actual TPPs of competing vaccines; 4. Quantify the incremental value of the new vaccine's characteristics; 5. Determine vaccine positioning in the marketplace; 6. Estimate the vaccine price-demand curve; 7. Calculate vaccine costs (including those of manufacturing, distribution, and research and development); 8. Account for various legal, regulatory, third party payer, and competitor factors; 9. Consider the overall product portfolio; 10. Set pricing objectives; 11. Select pricing and pricing structure. While the biomedical literature contains some studies that have addressed these components, there is still considerable room for more extensive evaluation of this important area.

Nonlinear Pricing to Produce Information

OpenAIRE

David J. Braden; Shmuel S. Oren

1994-01-01

We investigate the firm's dynamic nonlinear pricing problem when facing consumers whose tastes vary according to a scalar index. We relax the standard assumption that the firm knows the distribution of this index. In general the firm should determine its marginal price schedule as if it were myopic, and produce information by lowering the price schedule; “bunching” consumers at positive purchase levels should be avoided. As a special case we also consider a market characterized by homogeneous...

Foreign Banking in Ukraine: Development Trends and Ownership Structure Regulation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Serhij Reverchuk

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the article is to research the theoretical and practical aspects of foreign participation ownership structure of banks in Ukraine; to analyze the tendencies and challenges of structure regulation of bank ownership; to provide recommendations related to the role of enhancing the transparency of banking business. This research was conducted by way of review of the data on bank ownership and the regulation of the ownership structure of the banking sector in Ukraine.

Early Impacts of a Healthy Food Distribution Program on the Availability and Price of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables in Small Retail Venues in Los Angeles.

Science.gov (United States)

DeFosset, Amelia R; Gase, Lauren N; Webber, Eliza; Kuo, Tony

2017-10-01

Healthy food distribution programs that allow small retailers to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables at wholesale prices may increase the profitability of selling produce. While promising, little is known about how these programs affect the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables in underserved communities. This study examined the impacts of a healthy food distribution program in Los Angeles County over its first year of operation (August 2015-2016). Assessment methods included: (1) a brief survey examining the characteristics, purchasing habits, and attitudes of stores entering the program; (2) longitudinal tracking of sales data examining changes in the volume and variety of fruits and vegetables distributed through the program; and (3) the collection of comparison price data from wholesale market databases and local grocery stores. Seventeen stores participated in the program over the study period. One-fourth of survey respondents reported no recent experience selling produce. Analysis of sales data showed that, on average, the total volume of produce distributed through the program increased by six pounds per week over the study period (95% confidence limit: 4.50, 7.50); trends varied by store and produce type. Produce prices offered through the program approximated those at wholesale markets, and were lower than prices at full-service grocers. Results suggest that healthy food distribution programs may reduce certain supply-side barriers to offering fresh produce in small retail venues. While promising, more work is needed to understand the impacts of such programs on in-store environments and consumer behaviors.

Testing option pricing with the Edgeworth expansion

Science.gov (United States)

Balieiro Filho, Ruy Gabriel; Rosenfeld, Rogerio

2004-12-01

There is a well-developed framework, the Black-Scholes theory, for the pricing of contracts based on the future prices of certain assets, called options. This theory assumes that the probability distribution of the returns of the underlying asset is a Gaussian distribution. However, it is observed in the market that this hypothesis is flawed, leading to the introduction of a fudge factor, the so-called volatility smile. Therefore, it would be interesting to explore extensions of the Black-Scholes theory to non-Gaussian distributions. In this paper, we provide an explicit formula for the price of an option when the distributions of the returns of the underlying asset is parametrized by an Edgeworth expansion, which allows for the introduction of higher independent moments of the probability distribution, namely skewness and kurtosis. We test our formula with options in the Brazilian and American markets, showing that the volatility smile can be reduced. We also check whether our approach leads to more efficient hedging strategies of these instruments.

Firearm Ownership and Violent Crime in the U.S.: An Ecologic Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Monuteaux, Michael C; Lee, Lois K; Hemenway, David; Mannix, Rebekah; Fleegler, Eric W

2015-08-01

Although some view the ownership of firearms as a deterrent to crime, the relationship between population-level firearm ownership rates and violent criminal perpetration is unclear. The purpose of this study is to test the association between state-level firearm ownership and violent crime. State-level rates of household firearm ownership and annual rates of criminal acts from 2001, 2002, and 2004 were analyzed in 2014. Firearm ownership rates were taken from a national survey and crime data were taken from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports. Rates of criminal behavior were estimated as a function of household gun ownership using negative binomial regression models, controlling for several demographic factors. Higher levels of firearm ownership were associated with higher levels of firearm assault and firearm robbery. There was also a significant association between firearm ownership and firearm homicide, as well as overall homicide. The findings do not support the hypothesis that higher population firearm ownership rates reduce firearm-associated criminal perpetration. On the contrary, evidence shows that states with higher levels of firearm ownership have an increased risk for violent crimes perpetrated with a firearm. Public health stakeholders should consider the outcomes associated with private firearm ownership. Copyright © 2015 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Nursing home ownership trends and their impacts on quality of care: a study using detailed ownership data from Texas.

Science.gov (United States)

Stevenson, David G; Bramson, Jeffrey S; Grabowski, David C

2013-01-01

The role of ownership in the provision of nursing home care has long been a challenging issue for policy makers and researchers. Although much of the focus historically has been on differences between for-profit and not-for-profit facilities, this simple distinction has become less useful in recent years as companies have employed more complicated ownership and management structures. Using detailed ownership data from the state of Texas, we describe the evolution of nursing home corporate structures from 2000 to 2007, analyze the effect of these structures on quality of care and staffing in nursing homes, and discuss the policy implications of these changes.

A historical perspective on the economics of the ownership of mineral rights ownership

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cawood, F.T.; Minnitt, R.C.A. [Technikon SA, Florida (South Africa). Dept. of Engineering

1998-11-01

Inauguration of the new political dispensation in South Africa, initiated a dynamic period in the historical development of its minerals policy. The process of substituting the current South African mineral policy framework with an acceptable `post apartheid` system, started soon after the 1994 election of the African National Congress (ANC) government. The Green Paper on a Minerals and Mining Policy for South Africa released for public discussion in February 1998, calls for radical transformation in mineral rights ownership. A shift towards exclusive state ownership of mineral rights, away from the present dual system of private and state ownership, is the most significant proposal. The current holders of mineral rights, or their nominees, who lawfully enjoyed security of tenure under past and present mineral laws are opposed to this transformation because mineral rights were often acquired at considerable cost. The situation is compounded by poor public record-keeping and passive mineral rights administration over a very long period. This paper represents a summary of the historical developments leading to the current legislative environment and forms the basis for any discussion on which future sculpturing of South Africa`s policy regarding mineral rights can take place. One cannot plan for the future without considering the past. 21 refs.

Locational Pricing to Mitigate Voltage Problems Caused by High PV Penetration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sam Weckx

2015-05-01

Full Text Available In this paper, a locational marginal pricing algorithm is proposed to control the voltage in unbalanced distribution grids. The increasing amount of photovoltaic (PV generation installed in the grid may cause the voltage to rise to unacceptable levels during periods of low consumption. With locational prices, the distribution system operator can steer the reactive power consumption and active power curtailment of PV panels to guarantee a safe network operation. Flexible loads also respond to these prices. A distributed gradient algorithm automatically defines the locational prices that avoid voltage problems. Using these locational prices results in a minimum cost for the distribution operator to control the voltage. Locational prices can differ between the three phases in unbalanced grids. This is caused by a higher consumption or production in one of the phases compared to the other phases and provides the opportunity for arbitrage, where power is transferred from a phase with a low price to a phase with a high price. The effect of arbitrage is analyzed. The proposed algorithm is applied to an existing three-phase four-wire radial grid. Several simulations with realistic data are performed.

An empirical examination of restructured electricity prices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Knittel, C.R.; Roberts, M.R.

2005-01-01

We present an empirical analysis of restructured electricity prices. We study the distributional and temporal properties of the price process in a non-parametric framework, after which we parametrically model the price process using several common asset price specifications from the asset-pricing literature, as well as several less conventional models motivated by the peculiarities of electricity prices. The findings reveal several characteristics unique to electricity prices including several deterministic components of the price series at different frequencies. An 'inverse leverage effect' is also found, where positive shocks to the price series result in larger increases in volatility than negative shocks. We find that forecasting performance in dramatically improved when we incorporate features of electricity prices not commonly modelled in other asset prices. Our findings have implications for how empiricists model electricity prices, as well as how theorists specify models of energy pricing. (author)

Groups, Pricing, and Cost of Debt: Evidence from Turkey

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Melih Küllü

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The paper examines the impact of business group affiliation on cost of loans in an emerging market setting. It focuses on operational strategy, organizational structure and internationalization policies of business group firms and their impact on borrowing cost of affiliated firms. Bank loans are a dominant source of corporate funding in emerging markets, in which business groups exist as leading economic entities. Yet, the impact of belonging to a group on the firm’s cost of debt has not been studied in depth. Our results reveal that the extent of group affiliation, government ownership, and diversification increase the cost of loans. However, a group bank is advantageous in terms of borrowing, and decreases the cost of loans. While foreign ownership is beneficial in terms of pricing, being affiliated with a foreign group is not. Being a financial firm and being cross-listed are not significantly associated with bank loan terms. Borrowing costs are thus influenced in various ways by organizational structure, operational strategies, and global policies of business groups and affiliates. Therefore, business groups may benefit from strategically implementing policies and selecting loan applicant firms.

Gun Control, Gun Ownership, and Suicide Prevention.

Science.gov (United States)

Lester, David

1988-01-01

Explored relationship between the extent of gun ownership and the strictness of gun control laws to suicide and homicide rates in the nine major geographic regions of the United States. Found gun ownership, rather than the strictness of gun control laws, was the strongest correlate of the rates of suicide and homicide by guns. (Author)

Coupon advertising under imperfect price information

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Moraga-Gonzälez, José Luis; Petrakis, Emmanuel

1999-01-01

This paper studies sales promotions through coupons in an oligopoly under imperfect price information. Sellers can distribute either ordinary coupons, or coupon (price) advertising, or both types of coupons, at distant locations to attract consumers from their rivals' markets. A unique symmetric

Income distribution impacts of changes in Western Area Power Administration electricity prices. Final report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rose, A.; Frias, O. [Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States). Dept. of Mineral Economics

1993-06-01

The purpose of this report is to present the methodology and results of an analysis of income distribution impacts associated with changes in the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) marketing program. The focus will be on the distribution of personal income across eleven brackets in each of nine sub-regions of the WAPA market area. Moreover, these results will be translated into an assessment of the number of people who stand to gain or lose as a result of the policies and the size of these income changes. Most economic impact analyses are performed at an aggregate level. The results are typically presented in terms of net benefits, or a listing of changes in employment, output, income, or prices. What is neglected is the distribution of impacts across the affected population. These distributional impacts are important for several reasons. First, there is the normative judgmental issue of distributional justice, or equity. This addresses concerns about income disparities in general, or whether the poor, or any other group, are shouldering a disproportionate share of any burden or are failing to share significantly in any gain.

Energy use and appliance ownership in Ireland

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Leahy, Eimear; Lyons, Sean

2010-01-01

This paper examines household energy use and appliance ownership in Ireland. Logit regression analyses on a large micro-dataset reveal how household characteristics can help explain the ownership of energy using appliances. Using OLS regression models, we explore the factors affecting residential energy demand conditional on appliance ownership. Results suggest that the methods of space and water heating employed by a household are even more important than electrical appliances in explaining domestic energy usage. However, the stock of appliances must be included in such models so that results will not be biased. The methods employed in this paper can be easily adopted for studies of household energy use in other countries where household expenditure survey data are available.

STOCHASTIC PRICING MODEL FOR THE REAL ESTATE MARKET: FORMATION OF LOG-NORMAL GENERAL POPULATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Oleg V. Rusakov

2015-01-01

Full Text Available We construct a stochastic model of real estate pricing. The method of the pricing construction is based on a sequential comparison of the supply prices. We proof that under standard assumptions imposed upon the comparison coefficients there exists an unique non-degenerated limit in distribution and this limit has the lognormal law of distribution. The accordance of empirical distributions of prices to thetheoretically obtained log-normal distribution we verify by numerous statistical data of real estate prices from Saint-Petersburg (Russia. For establishing this accordance we essentially apply the efficient and sensitive test of fit of Kolmogorov-Smirnov. Basing on “The Russian Federal Estimation Standard N2”, we conclude that the most probable price, i.e. mode of distribution, is correctly and uniquely defined under the log-normal approximation. Since the mean value of log-normal distribution exceeds the mode - most probable value, it follows that the prices valued by the mathematical expectation are systematically overstated.

Resale Price Maintenance and Manufacturer Competition for Exclusive Dealerships.

OpenAIRE

Perry, Martin K; Besanko, David

1991-01-01

Two manufacturers distribute their brands through exclusive retail dealers and must compete for consumers indirectly by inducing retailers to carry their brands. The authors compare equilibrium outcomes with and without resale price maintenance. Maximum resale price maintenance lowers the retail price if manufacturers cannot employ franchise fees. Minimum retail price maintenance raises the retail price if manufacturers cannot set a wholesale price above marginal cost and must employ only a f...

24 CFR 904.115 - Achievement of ownership by subsequent homebuyers.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... of the LHA's debt, if there are any subsequent homebuyers who have not acquired ownership of their... 24 Housing and Urban Development 4 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Achievement of ownership by... Description § 904.115 Achievement of ownership by subsequent homebuyers. (a) Definition. In the event the...

Managerial ownership and corporate performance in Slovenian post-privatisation period

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marko Simoneti

2004-12-01

Full Text Available The Slovenian post-privatisation period has been characterised by a decline in the ownership by non-managerial owners (employees and state-controlled funds. On the other hand, domestic and foreign non-financial firms, Privatisation Investment Funds and managers have been increasing their holdings. The latter, namely the growing managerial ownership, is likely to feature in future ownership dynamics in Slovenia. In fact, in 2002 the desired (optimal ownership stakes estimated by Slovenian managers were 10.8 percentage points higher than their actual stakes. The aim of our paper is to describe the main trends in the ownership of Slovenian corporations in the post-privatisation period and to provide an answer to the basic economic question: what is the influence of the ongoing consolidation of managerial ownership on the performance of Slovenian firms. The empirical analysis testing this relationship is based on a panel of 182 Slovenian firms in the 1995-99 period and does not provide relevant evidence of any positive effects of the increasing managerial control on Slovenian firms’ performance. If any, a positive incentive effect is only observed in those firms whose managers’ holdings exceed 10-percent, only with regards to firms’ financial performance (but not total factor productivity and only in firms that are not listed on the capital market. Further, the negative effect of the current gap between the desired and actual managerial ownership seems to exceed any positive incentive effect arising out of managerial ownership

Animal health and price transmission along livestock supply chains.

Science.gov (United States)

Aragrande, M; Canali, M

2017-04-01

Animal health diseases can severely affect the food supply chain by causing variations in prices and market demand. Price transmission analysis reveals in what ways price variations are transmitted along the supply chain, and how supply chains of substitute products and different regional markets are also affected. In perfect markets, a price variation would be completely and instantaneously transmitted across the different levels of the supply chain: producers, the processing industry, retailers and consumers. However, empirical studies show that food markets are often imperfect, with anomalies or asymmetries in price transmission and distortions in the distribution of market benefits. This means, for instance, that a price increase at the consumer level may not be transmitted from retailers to processors and producers; yet, on the other hand, price falls may rapidly affect the upstream supply chain. Market concentration and the consequent exertion of market power in key segments of the supply chain can explain price transmission asymmetries and their distributional effects, but other factors may also be involved, such as transaction costs, scale economies, and imperfect information. During the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) crisis, asymmetric price transmission in the beef supply chain and related meat markets determined distributional effects among sectors. After the spread of the BSE food scare, the fall in demand marginally affected the price paid to retailers, but producers and wholesalers suffered much more, in both price reductions and the time needed to recover to precrisis demand. Price transmission analysis investigates how animal health crises create different economic burdens for various types of stakeholder, and provides useful socioeconomic insights when used with other tools.

Natural gas prices in Italy. Tariffs geographical distribution

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Marrocchelli, A.

2000-01-01

The annual report on services and activity carries at some evaluations of data concerned the natural gas market: total consumption, costs and prices in Italy and comparative evaluations with other european countries [it

Pricing of temperature index insurance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Che Mohd Imran Che Taib

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to study pricing of weather insurance contracts based on temperature indices. Three different pricing methods are analysed: the classical burn approach, index modelling and temperature modelling. We take the data from Malaysia as our empirical case. Our results show that there is a significant difference between the burn and index pricing approaches on one hand, and the temperature modelling method on the other. The latter approach is pricing the insurance contract using a seasonal autoregressive time series model for daily temperature variations, and thus provides a precise probabilistic model for the fine structure of temperature evolution. We complement our pricing analysis by an investigation of the profit/loss distribution from the contract, in the perspective of both the insured and the insurer.

Premium Pricing of Liability Insurance Using Random Sum Model

OpenAIRE

Kartikasari, Mujiati Dwi

2017-01-01

Premium pricing is one of important activities in insurance. Nonlife insurance premium is calculated from expected value of historical data claims. The historical data claims are collected so that it forms a sum of independent random number which is called random sum. In premium pricing using random sum, claim frequency distribution and claim severity distribution are combined. The combination of these distributions is called compound distribution. By using liability claim insurance data, we ...

Competitive targeted advertising with price discrimination

OpenAIRE

Esteves, Rosa Branca; Resende, Joana

2013-01-01

This paper investigates the effects of price discrimination by means of targeted advertising in a duopolistic market where the distribution of consumers’ preferences is discrete and where advertising plays two major roles. It is used by firms as a way to transmit relevant information to otherwise uninformed consumers and it is used as a price discrimination device. We compare the firms’ optimal marketing mix (advertising and pricing) when they adopt mass advertising/non-discrimination strateg...

Location-Price Competition in Airline Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H. Gao

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This paper addresses location-then-price competition in airline market as a two-stage game of n players on the graph. Passenger’s demand distribution is described by multinomial logit model. Equilibrium in price game is computed through best response dynamics. We solve location game using backward induction, knowing that airlines will choose prices from equilibrium for the second-stage game. Some numerical results for airline market under consideration are presented.

75 FR 54801 - Account Ownership and Control Report

Science.gov (United States)

2010-09-09

... Report AGENCY: Commodity Futures Trading Commission (``Commission''). ACTION: Extension of comment period... Report'' must be in the subject field of responses submitted via e-mail, and clearly indicated on written... certain ownership and control information via an account ``Ownership and Control Report'' submitted weekly...

Ownership dynamics with large shareholders : An empirical analysis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Donelli, M.; Urzua Infante, F.; Larrain, B.

2013-01-01

We study the empirical determinants of corporate ownership dynamics in a market where large shareholders are prevalent. We use a unique, hand-collected 20-year dataset on the ownership structure of Chilean companies. Controllers’ blockholdings are on average high -as in continental Europe, for

Spatial peak-load pricing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Arellano, M. Soledad; Serra, Pablo

2007-01-01

This article extends the traditional electricity peak-load pricing model to include transmission costs. In the context of a two-node, two-technology electric power system, where suppliers face inelastic demand, we show that when the marginal plant is located at the energy-importing center, generators located away from that center should pay the marginal capacity transmission cost; otherwise, consumers should bear this cost through capacity payments. Since electric power transmission is a natural monopoly, marginal-cost pricing does not fully cover costs. We propose distributing the revenue deficit among users in proportion to the surplus they derive from the service priced at marginal cost. (Author)

Price changes in the gasoline market: Are Midwestern gasoline prices downward sticky?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1999-03-01

This report examines a recurring question about gasoline markets: why, especially in times of high price volatility, do retail gasoline prices seem to rise quickly but fall back more slowly? Do gasoline prices actually rise faster than they fall, or does this just appear to be the case because people tend to pay more attention to prices when they're rising? This question is more complex than it might appear to be initially, and it has been addressed by numerous analysts in government, academia and industry. The question is very important, because perceived problems with retail gasoline pricing have been used in arguments for government regulation of prices. The phenomenon of prices at different market levels tending to move differently relative to each other depending on direction is known as price asymmetry. This report summarizes the previous work on gasoline price asymmetry and provides a method for testing for asymmetry in a wide variety of situations. The major finding of this paper is that there is some amount of asymmetry and pattern asymmetry, especially at the retail level, in the Midwestern states that are the focus of the analysis. Nevertheless, both the amount asymmetry and pattern asymmetry are relatively small. In addition, much of the pattern asymmetry detected in this and previous studies could be a statistical artifact caused by the time lags between price changes at different points in the gasoline distribution system. In other words, retail gasoline prices do sometimes rise faster than they fall, but this is largely a lagged market response to an upward shock in the underlying wholesale gasoline or crude oil prices, followed by a return toward the previous baseline. After consistent time lags are factored out, most apparent asymmetry disappears

Pricing and Reimbursement in U.S. Pharmaceutical Markets

OpenAIRE

Newhouse, Joseph Paul; Berndt, Ernst R.

2010-01-01

In this survey chapter on pricing and reimbursement in U.S. pharmaceutical markets, we first provide background information on important federal legislation, institutional details regarding distribution channel logistics, definitions of alternative price measures, related historical developments, and reasons why price discrimination is highly prevalent among branded pharmaceuticals. We then present a theoretical framework for the pricing of branded pharmaceuticals, without and then in the pre...

State ownership and firm performance: Empirical evidence from Chinese listed companies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mei Yu

2013-06-01

Full Text Available While the relationship between state ownership and firm performance has been widely researched, the empirical evidence has provided mixed results. This study applies panel data regression techniques to 10,639 firm-year observations of non-financial Chinese listed firms during 2003–2010 to examine the relationship between state ownership and firm performance. The results show that state ownership has a U-shaped relationship with firm performance. The Split Share Structure Reform in 2005–2006 played a positive role in enhancing the relationship between state ownership and firm profitability ratios. Although state ownership decreased significantly after 2006, it remains high in strategically important industry sectors such as the oil, natural gas and mining sector and the publishing, broadcasting and media sector. The findings reveal that a higher level of state ownership is superior to a dispersed ownership structure due to the benefits of government support and political connections. The Split Share Structure Reform made previously non-tradable shares legally tradable, improving corporate governance and reducing the negative effect of non-tradable state shares.

Ownership characteristics and crop selection in California cropland

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luke Macaulay

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Land ownership is one of the primary determinants of how agricultural land is used, and property size has been shown to drive many land use decisions. Land ownership information is also key to understanding food production systems and land fragmentation, and in targeting outreach materials to improve agricultural production and conservation practices. Using a parcel dataset containing all 58 California counties, we describe the characteristics of cropland ownership across California. The largest 5% of properties — with “property” defined as all parcels owned by a given landowner — account for 50.6% of California cropland, while the smallest 84% of properties account for 25% of cropland. Cropland ownership inequality (few large properties, many small properties was greatest in Kings, Kern and Contra Costa counties and lowest in Mendocino, Napa and Santa Clara counties. Of crop types, rice properties had the largest median size, while properties with orchard trees had the smallest median sizes. Cluster analysis of crop mixes revealed that properties with grapes, rice, almonds and alfalfa/hay tended to be planted to individual crops, while crops such as grains, tomatoes and vegetables were more likely to be mixed within a single property. Analyses of cropland ownership patterns can help researchers prioritize outreach efforts and tailor research to stakeholders' needs.

A survey of attitudes toward responsible pet ownership.

Science.gov (United States)

Selby, L A; Rhoades, J D; Hewett, J E; Irvin, J A

1979-01-01

The concerns of medical and community officials about responsible pet ownership have increased. Before a practical solution can be found for irresponsible ownership and community health problems associated with pet populations, the public's attitudes on issues related to responsible pet ownership must be determined. Such issues include attitudes on dog and cat overpopulation, potential public health problems associated with pet populations, and methods of controlling pet populations and stray animals. Responses to a questionnaire were used to evaluate the attitudes of 910 pet owners and nonowners toward factors comprising responsible pet ownership. The median age of the respondents was 33 years; 414 (45 percent) were men, and 496 (55 percent) were women. At the time of the study, 18 percent owned a cat and a dog, 35 percent owned only a dog, 11 percent showed only a cat, and 36 percent were nonowners. Not only the sex of the respondent but also the category of pet ownership affected opinions on overpopulation of dogs and cats, nuisance and pollution problems associated with these animals, and methods of controlling pet populations in the community. For example, owners agreed strongly on family planning for pets, but a majority of male owners stated that they would not have their dogs neutered. PMID:572978

PRICE AND PRICING STRATEGIES

OpenAIRE

SUCIU Titus

2013-01-01

In individual companies, price is one significant factor in achieving marketing success. In many purchase situations, price can be of great importance to customers. Marketers must establish pricing strategies that are compatible with the rest of the marketing mix. Management should decide whether to charge the same price to all similar buyers of identical quantities of a product (a one-price strategy) or to set different prices (a flexible price strategy). Many organizations, especially retai...

Ownership conversions and nursing home performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Grabowski, David C; Stevenson, David G

2008-08-01

To examine the effects of ownership conversions on nursing home performance. Online Survey, Certification, and Reporting system data from 1993 to 2004, and the Minimum Data Set (MDS) facility reports from 1998 to 2004. Regression specification incorporating facility fixed effects, with terms to identify trends in the pre- and postconversion periods. The annual rate of nursing home conversions almost tripled between 1994 and 2004. Our regression results indicate converting facilities are generally different throughout the pre/postconversion years, suggesting little causal effect of ownership conversions on nursing home performance. Before and after conversion, nursing homes converting from nonprofit to for-profit status generally exhibit deterioration in their performance, while nursing homes converting from for-profit to nonprofit status generally exhibit improvement. Policy makers have expressed concern regarding the implications of ownership conversions for nursing home performance. Our results imply that regulators and policy makers should not only monitor the outcomes of nursing home conversions, but also the targets of these conversions.

Understanding the gender dimensions of livestock ownership | IDRC ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

2016-06-06

Jun 6, 2016 ... Download the Gender, Livestock and Asset Ownership brief (PDF, 726 KB, available in English only). This document summarizes findings presented in the book “Women, Livestock Ownership and Markets: Bridging the Gender Gap in Eastern and Southern Africa” produced by the International Livestock ...

PRICE ON THE ORGANIC FOOD MARKET

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

GEORGE ATANASOAIE

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The main objective of this paper is to present prices on PAE market (PAE- organic foods market. Prices are analyzed in terms of importance and the main factors that contribute to their establishment (quality of products, distribution channels, certification and eco-labeling system, customer segments and market development stage. This paper is based on the investigation of secondary sources, of specialized literature related to PAE consumers. The paper shows that are used three strategic options of prices: prices with high rigidity located in a low or high level and fluctuating prices, characterized by variations on short periods of time. Price is a very important barrier to market development but this importance can be mitigated through appropriate communication policies with the market, which are essential especially for markets in early stages of development.

Pricing Models of e-Books When Competing with p-Books

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yan Li

2013-01-01

Full Text Available With the rise in popularity of e-books, there is a growing need to reexamine the pricing strategy in the e-book supply chain. In this paper, we study two forms of pricing models widely used in the book industry: wholesale and agency pricing models. We first assume a stylized deterministic demand model in which the demand depends on the price, the degree of substitution, and the overall market potential. Subsequently, we employ the game theory to determine the price equilibriums and profit distribution under different pricing models. Finally, we explore the behavior of the publisher and the retailer under different preferences and degrees of substitution through a computational study. Our findings indicate that the e-book price will be lower under the agency pricing model than under the wholesale pricing model, which is counterintuitive. The publishers have higher incentives to adopt the agency pricing model than the wholesale pricing model. The agency pricing model benefits the whole system and can provide readers with books at lower prices. The degree of substitution between the two forms of books and the readers’ preference toward e-book will affect the books’ price and the profit distribution between the publisher and the retailers.

Regional prices in the Swedish wood-fuel market

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hillring, Bengt

1999-01-01

This paper analyses, through a statistical survey, the regional distribution of prices on the commercial wood-fuel market for district heating plants and the pellets market for single family houses. The existing market watch of the national Swedish wood-fuel market has been developed for both refined and unrefined wood-fuels. The last five years the trend for wood-fuel prices on the district heating market has been stable, with a slight increase in the price of refined wood-fuels. However, on the young and fast-growing household market for pellets, prices have increased 12% during the last three years. The distribution of prices for northern, middle and southern Sweden indicates differences within 5% between the regions. The limited price difference between Swedish regions are a product of a large domestic supply and an increasing trade among regions in Europe, putting pressure on prices. Regional differences, mirrored as transportation distances and local production costs are key factors that could explain this regional price variation. However, the development of a commercial market with less regulation tends to level out prices. Consumers on the household market purchase small quantities and do not have the same possibility as district heating companies to take advantage of the oversupply opportunity and thus face a faster price development. The weaker market position of the consumers also tends to give homogeneous prices between regions of the residential sector. (Author)

THE EFFECTS OF DIVIDEND POLICY AND OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE TOWARDS DEBT POLICY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marcella Fransisca Santosa

2014-07-01

Full Text Available This research used multiple regression methods to examine the relationshipbetween the dividend policy, institutional ownership, and insider ownership withthe debt policy. Hypotheses tests of this researchused 64 manufacturingcompanies which were listed in the Indonesian StockExchange (IDX from theyear of 2007 until 2010 as the samples. The resultsof this research show that thedividend policies and the insider ownership had noeffects towards the debtpolicy, while the institutional ownership had a significant negative effect towardsthe debt policy.

26 CFR 1.552-3 - Stock ownership requirement.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... (CONTINUED) INCOME TAXES (CONTINUED) Foreign Personal Holding Companies § 1.552-3 Stock ownership requirement... more than 50 percent in value of the outstanding stock of the foreign corporation be owned, directly or... section 544 (relating to rules for determining stock ownership in the case of personal holding companies...

Are movements necessary for the sense of body ownership? Evidence from the rubber hand illusion in pure hemiplegic patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Burin, Dalila; Livelli, Alessandro; Garbarini, Francesca; Fossataro, Carlotta; Folegatti, Alessia; Gindri, Patrizia; Pia, Lorenzo

2015-01-01

A question still debated within cognitive neuroscience is whether signals present during actions significantly contribute to the emergence of human's body ownership. In the present study, we aimed at answer this question by means of a neuropsychological approach. We administered the classical rubber hand illusion paradigm to a group of healthy participants and to a group of neurological patients affected by a complete left upper limb hemiplegia, but without any propriceptive/tactile deficits. The illusion strength was measured both subjectively (i.e., by a self-report questionnaire) and behaviorally (i.e., the location of one's own hand is shifted towards the rubber hand). We aimed at examining whether, and to which extent, an enduring absence of movements related signals affects body ownership. Our results showed that patients displayed, respect to healthy participants, stronger illusory effects when the left (affected) hand was stimulated and no effects when the right (unaffected) hand was stimulated. In other words, hemiplegics had a weaker/more flexible sense of body ownership for the affected hand, but an enhanced/more rigid one for the healthy hand. Possible interpretations of such asymmetrical distribution of body ownership, as well as limits of our results, are discussed. Broadly speaking, our findings suggest that the alteration of the normal flow of signals present during movements impacts on human's body ownership. This in turn, means that movements have a role per se in developing and maintaining a coherent body ownership.

Are movements necessary for the sense of body ownership? Evidence from the rubber hand illusion in pure hemiplegic patients.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dalila Burin

Full Text Available A question still debated within cognitive neuroscience is whether signals present during actions significantly contribute to the emergence of human's body ownership. In the present study, we aimed at answer this question by means of a neuropsychological approach. We administered the classical rubber hand illusion paradigm to a group of healthy participants and to a group of neurological patients affected by a complete left upper limb hemiplegia, but without any propriceptive/tactile deficits. The illusion strength was measured both subjectively (i.e., by a self-report questionnaire and behaviorally (i.e., the location of one's own hand is shifted towards the rubber hand. We aimed at examining whether, and to which extent, an enduring absence of movements related signals affects body ownership. Our results showed that patients displayed, respect to healthy participants, stronger illusory effects when the left (affected hand was stimulated and no effects when the right (unaffected hand was stimulated. In other words, hemiplegics had a weaker/more flexible sense of body ownership for the affected hand, but an enhanced/more rigid one for the healthy hand. Possible interpretations of such asymmetrical distribution of body ownership, as well as limits of our results, are discussed. Broadly speaking, our findings suggest that the alteration of the normal flow of signals present during movements impacts on human's body ownership. This in turn, means that movements have a role per se in developing and maintaining a coherent body ownership.

Traders' strategy with price feedbacks in financial market

OpenAIRE

Mizuno, Takayuki; Nakano, Tohur; Takayasu, Misako; Takayasu, Hideki

2003-01-01

We introduce an autoregressive-type model of prices in financial market taking into account the self-modulation effect. We find that traders are mainly using strategies with weighted feedbacks of past prices. These feedbacks are responsible for the slow diffusion in short times, apparent trends and power law distribution of price changes.

Transition in the waiting-time distribution of price-change events in a global socioeconomic system

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Guannan; McDonald, Mark; Fenn, Dan; Williams, Stacy; Johnson, Nicholas; Johnson, Neil F.

2013-12-01

The goal of developing a firmer theoretical understanding of inhomogeneous temporal processes-in particular, the waiting times in some collective dynamical system-is attracting significant interest among physicists. Quantifying the deviations between the waiting-time distribution and the distribution generated by a random process may help unravel the feedback mechanisms that drive the underlying dynamics. We analyze the waiting-time distributions of high-frequency foreign exchange data for the best executable bid-ask prices across all major currencies. We find that the lognormal distribution yields a good overall fit for the waiting-time distribution between currency rate changes if both short and long waiting times are included. If we restrict our study to long waiting times, each currency pair’s distribution is consistent with a power-law tail with exponent near to 3.5. However, for short waiting times, the overall distribution resembles one generated by an archetypal complex systems model in which boundedly rational agents compete for limited resources. Our findings suggest that a gradual transition arises in trading behavior between a fast regime in which traders act in a boundedly rational way and a slower one in which traders’ decisions are driven by generic feedback mechanisms across multiple timescales and hence produce similar power-law tails irrespective of currency type.

Actuarial risk measures for financial derivative pricing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Goovaerts, M.J.; Laeven, R.J.A.

2008-01-01

We present an axiomatic characterization of price measures that are superadditive and comonotonic additive for normally distributed random variables. The price representation derived involves a probability measure transform that is closely related to the Esscher transform, and we call it the

THE PRICE ON THE ORGANIC PRODUCT MARKET

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

ATĂNĂSOAIE GEORGE SEBASTIAN

2013-08-01

Full Text Available The main objective of this paper is to present prices on PAE market (PAE- organic foods market. Prices areanalyzed in terms of importance and the main factors that contribute to their establishment (quality of products,distribution channels, certification and eco-labeling system, customer segments and market development stage.The paper shows that are used three strategic options of prices: prices with high rigidity located in a low or highlevel and fluctuating prices, characterized by variations on short periods of time. Price is a very importantbarrier to market development but this importance can be mitigated through appropriate communicationpolicies with the market, which are essential especially for markets in early stages of development

The latrine ownership ladder

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Obeng, Peter Appiah; Keraita, Bernard; Oduro-Kwarteng, Sampson

2015-01-01

the challenges that undermine sanitation uptake in low-income peri-urban areas and the prospects of various levels of facility sharing as conceived in the latrine ownership ladder approach. Findings – The authors argue that the infrastructural and other socio-economic challenges of low-income peri-urban areas...... to the promotion of household latrines. The paper identifies provision of special concessions for peri-urban areas in policy formulation, education and technical support to households, regulation and enforcement of sanitation by-laws among complimentary policy interventions to make the latrine ownership ladder...... approach more effective. Originality/value – The paper provides an insight into the debate on redefining improved sanitation in the post-2015 era of the Millennium Development Goals and offers policy alternatives to policy makers in low-income countries seeking to accelerate the uptake of improved latrines...

Prices and Price Setting

NARCIS (Netherlands)

R.P. Faber (Riemer)

2010-01-01

textabstractThis thesis studies price data and tries to unravel the underlying economic processes of why firms have chosen these prices. It focuses on three aspects of price setting. First, it studies whether the existence of a suggested price has a coordinating effect on the prices of firms.

48 CFR 904.7003 - Disclosure of foreign ownership, control, or influence.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... ownership, control, or influence. 904.7003 Section 904.7003 Federal Acquisition Regulations System... ownership, control, or influence. (a) If a contract requires a contractor to have a Facility Clearance, DOE must determine whether the contractor is or may be subject to foreign ownership, control or influence...

Risk Based Milk Pricing Model at Dairy Farmers Level

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

W. Septiani

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The milk price from a cooperative institution to farmer does not fully cover the production cost. Though, dairy farmers encounter various risks and uncertainties in conducting their business. The highest risk in milk supply lies in the activities at the farm. This study was designed to formulate a model for calculating milk price at farmer’s level based on risk. Risks that occur on farms include the risk of cow breeding, sanitation, health care, cattle feed management, milking and milk sales. This research used the location of the farm in West Java region. There were five main stages in the preparation of this model, (1 identification and analysis of influential factors, (2 development of a conceptual model, (3 structural analysis and the amount of production costs, (4 model calculation of production cost with risk factors, and (5 risk based milk pricing model. This research built a relationship between risks on smallholder dairy farms with the production costs to be incurred by the farmers. It was also obtained the formulation of risk adjustment factor calculation for the variable costs of production in dairy cattle farm. The difference in production costs with risk and the total production cost without risk was about 8% to 10%. It could be concluded that the basic price of milk proposed based on the research was around IDR 4,250-IDR 4,350/L for 3 to 4 cows ownership. Increasing farmer income was expected to be obtained by entering the value of this risk in the calculation of production costs. 

Foreign Ownership Wage Premia in Emerging Economies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Eriksson, Tor; Pytlikova, Mariola

2011-01-01

In this paper we examine the relationship between wages, labour productivity and ownership using a linked employer-employee dataset covering a large fraction of the Czech labour market in 2006. We distinguish between different origins of ownership and study wage and productivity differences. The ...... capital, the difference in productivity is about twice as large as the wage differential. Overall, results indicate that the international firms share their rents with their employees....

Foreign Ownership Wage Premia in Emerging Economies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Eriksson, Tor Viking; Pytlikova, Mariola

In this paper we examine the relationship between wages, labour productivity and ownership using a linked employer-employee dataset covering a large fraction of the Czech labour market in 2006. We distinguish between different origins of ownership and study wage and productivity differences. The ...... capital, the difference in productivity is about twice as large as the wage differential. The results indicate that the international firms share their rents with their employees....

The Effect of Price: Early Observations.

Science.gov (United States)

Hunter, Karen

Scientific journal publishers have very little commercial experience with electronic full text distribution and it is difficult to segregate the effect of pricing on user acceptance and behavior. This paper examines some of the known experiences and ongoing and proposed experiments to get a sense of the interaction of pricing and user acceptance…

47 CFR 1.2112 - Ownership disclosure requirements for applications.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Ownership disclosure requirements for... PROCEDURE Competitive Bidding Proceedings General Procedures § 1.2112 Ownership disclosure requirements for... agreements, management agreements, franchise agreements, spectrum leasing arrangements, spectrum resale...

Frequency Based Real-time Pricing for Residential Prosumers

Science.gov (United States)

Hambridge, Sarah Mabel

This work is the first to explore frequency based pricing for secondary frequency control as a price-reactive control mechanism for residential prosumers. A frequency based real-time electricity rate is designed as an autonomous market control mechanism for residential prosumers to provide frequency support as an ancillary service. In addition, prosumers are empowered to participate in dynamic energy transactions, therefore integrating Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), and increasing distributed energy storage onto the distributed grid. As the grid transitions towards DERs, a new market based control system will take the place of the legacy distributed system and possibly the legacy bulk power system. DERs provide many benefits such as energy independence, clean generation, efficiency, and reliability to prosumers during blackouts. However, the variable nature of renewable energy and current lack of installed energy storage on the grid will create imbalances in supply and demand as uptake increases, affecting the grid frequency and system operation. Through a frequency-based electricity rate, prosumers will be encouraged to purchase energy storage systems (ESS) to offset their neighbor's distributed generation (DG) such as solar. Chapter 1 explains the deregulation of the power system and move towards Distributed System Operators (DSOs), as prosumers become owners of microgrids and energy cells connected to the distributed system. Dynamic pricing has been proposed as a benefit to prosumers, giving them the ability to make decisions in the energy market, while also providing a way to influence and control their behavior. Frequency based real-time pricing is a type of dynamic pricing which falls between price-reactive control and transactive control. Prosumer-to-prosumer transactions may take the place of prosumer-to-utility transactions, building The Energy Internet. Frequency based pricing could be a mechanism for determining prosumer prices and supporting

Inclusion or Exclusion? Local Ownership and Security Sector Reform

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Timothy Donais

2009-10-01

Full Text Available This paper explores the dynamics of security sector reform (SSR, a term used to refer to efforts made to reform the security structures of states emerging from conflict or authoritarianism. While "local ownership" is increasingly viewed as a necessary element of any sustainable SSR strategy, there remains a significant gap between international policy and practice in this area. In practice, the SSR agenda continues to be driven largely by international actors, with minimal input, let alone ownership, on the part of either governments or civil society within reforming states. Indeed, the notion of local ownership has come to serve as much as a disciplining mechanism as a tool to overcome exclusion in the making and execution of security policy, and the effectiveness and sustainability of SSR programming have suffered as a result. In light of this, the paper will explore both the potential for, and the limits of, rehabilitating the notion of local ownership to enable more participatory forms of SSR, and argues that any practical local ownership strategy requires a dual policy of negotiating with state actors and engaging with non-state actors.

Explaining foreign ownership by comparative and competitive advantage. Empirical evidence.

OpenAIRE

Bellak, Christian

1999-01-01

This paper provides empirical evidence on the determinants of foreign ownership in manufacturing industries. Foreign ownership, according to the theory of international production, is the result of the combination of comparative and competitive advantage. An adequate examination of the ownership structure of an industry requires the ability to establish empirically the extent to which international competitiveness of firms rests on comparative and competitive advantage. Analysis is based on a...

Modern Energy Markets Real-Time Pricing, Renewable Resources and Efficient Distribution

CERN Document Server

Kopsakangas-Savolainen, Maria

2012-01-01

Energy has moved to the forefront in terms of societal and economic development. Modern Energy Markets is a comprehensive, economically oriented, exploration of modern electricity networks from production and distribution to deregulation and liberalization processes. Updating previous work by the authors, different aspects are considered resulting in a complete and detailed picture of  the systems and characteristics of modern electricity markets. Modern Energy Markets provides clear detail whilst encompassing a broad scope of topics and includes: •A method to model energy production systems including the main characteristics of future demand side management, •Different applications of this model in nuclear and renewable energy scenarios, •An analysis of Real-Time Pricing of electricity and its potential effects across the market, and, •A discussion of the need for regulation in an easily monopolized industry. Engineering and Economics students alike will find that Modern Energy Markets is a succinct...

A dynamic random effects multinomial logit model of household car ownership

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bue Bjørner, Thomas; Leth-Petersen, Søren

2007-01-01

Using a large household panel we estimate demand for car ownership by means of a dynamic multinomial model with correlated random effects. Results suggest that the persistence in car ownership observed in the data should be attributed to both true state dependence and to unobserved heterogeneity...... (random effects). It also appears that random effects related to single and multiple car ownership are correlated, suggesting that the IIA assumption employed in simple multinomial models of car ownership is invalid. Relatively small elasticities with respect to income and car costs are estimated...

Ownership dynamics in local multi-stakeholder initiatives

OpenAIRE

Biekart, Kees; Fowler, Alan

2018-01-01

textabstractThe nature and dynamics of ownership are often neglected features of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs). Seventeen cases in four countries illustrate characteristics of narrow government or broad societal ownership and forces for change over time. Refinements to the application of Gaventa’s Power Cube are used to analyse such shifts from the perspective of invited and closed spaces for participation. Observations about ways in which stakeholder groups can create a more enabling ...

Director ownership, outside directors and commitment to corporate social responsibility

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chen Ying

2011-01-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the effects of director ownership and the proportion of outside directors on firms’ commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR. Using a sample of 453 Hong Kong listed companies for 2005, we find that there is a non-linear relationship between the level of director ownership and firms’ engagement in CSR behavior. Commitment to CSR first increases as the proportion of director ownership increases up to 50% and then decreases as that proportion of ownership grows higher. Further, the proportion of outside directors on the board exhibits a positive relationship with the level of CSR commitment. These results provide explanations for firms’ commitment to CSR from the corporate governance perspective.

AN INTEGRATED MODELING FRAMEWORK FOR ENVIRONMENTALLY EFFICIENT CAR OWNERSHIP AND TRIP BALANCE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tao FENG

2008-01-01

Full Text Available Urban transport emissions generated by automobile trips are greatly responsible for atmospheric pollution in both developed and developing countries. To match the long-term target of sustainable development, it seems to be important to specify the feasible level of car ownership and travel demand from environmental considerations. This research intends to propose an integrated modeling framework for optimal construction of a comprehensive transportation system by taking into consideration environmental constraints. The modeling system is actually a combination of multiple essential models and illustrated by using a bi-level programming approach. In the upper level, the maximization of both total car ownership and total number of trips by private and public travel modes is set as the objective function and as the constraints, the total emission levels at all the zones are set to not exceed the relating environmental capacities. Maximizing the total trips by private and public travel modes allows policy makers to take into account trip balance to meet both the mobility levels required by travelers and the environmentally friendly transportation system goals. The lower level problem is a combined trip distribution and assignment model incorporating traveler's route choice behavior. A logit-type aggregate modal split model is established to connect the two level problems. In terms of the solution method for the integrated model, a genetic algorithm is applied. A case study is conducted using road network data and person-trip (PT data collected in Dalian city, China. The analysis results showed that the amount of environmentally efficient car ownership and number of trips by different travel modes could be obtained simultaneously when considering the zonal control of environmental capacity within the framework of the proposed integrated model. The observed car ownership in zones could be increased or decreased towards the macroscopic optimization

Pet Ownership and Cancer Risk in the Women's Health Initiative.

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, David O; Lander, Eric M; Wertheim, Betsy C; Manson, JoAnn E; Volpe, Stella L; Chlebowski, Rowan T; Stefanick, Marcia L; Lessin, Lawrence S; Kuller, Lewis H; Thomson, Cynthia A

2016-09-01

Pet ownership and cancer are both highly prevalent in the United States. Evidence suggests that associations may exist between this potentially modifiable factor and cancer prevention, though studies are sparse. The present report examined whether pet ownership (dog, cat, or bird) is associated with lower risk for total cancer and site-specific obesity-related cancers. This was a prospective analysis of 123,560 participants (20,981 dog owners; 19,288 cat owners; 1,338 bird owners; and 81,953 non-pet owners) enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative observational study and clinical trials. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate HR and 95% confidence intervals for the association between pet ownership and cancer, adjusted for potential confounders. There were no significant relationships between ownership of a dog, cat, or bird and incidence of cancer overall. When site-specific cancers were examined, no associations were observed after adjustment for multiple comparisons. Pet ownership had no association with overall cancer incidence. This is the first large epidemiologic study to date to explore relationships between pet ownership and cancer risk, as well as associated risks for individual cancer types. This study requires replication in other sizable, diverse cohorts. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 25(9); 1311-6. ©2016 AACR. ©2016 American Association for Cancer Research.

Effects of Internationalization on Ownership Structure: Evidence from Latin American Firms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hsia Hua Sheng

2014-07-01

Full Text Available We analyze the direct and simultaneous effects of internationalization on the ownership structure of Latin American companies based on agency theory. Using a sample of 425 Latin American firms between 2007 and 2011, which corresponds to 1,776 observations, we use random effects and three-stage least squares panel data regression to test these effects. We find that the hypothesized positive effect of internationalization on ownership concentration is rejected. Our results support the negative relationship that is predicted by principal-agent theory when analyzing the effect of ownership on the degree of internationalization. Greater internationalization via the equity entry mode is associated with lower levels of ownership concentration. Finally, there is simultaneity in the determination of the relationship between the degree of internationalization and ownership concentration.

Determination of the predictive factors of long-lasting insecticide-treated net ownership and utilisation in the Bamenda Health District of Cameroon

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eric B. Fokam

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Malaria is a serious health concern in Africa. In Cameroon, an endemic country where malaria remains a major public health problem, several control measures have been put in place among which the use of insecticide-treated bednets (LLINs/ITNs is considered one of the core vector control strategies. However, the greatest challenges include ownership and utilisation by individuals and households. Factors such as age, marital status, gender, education and occupation of the household head, household size, knowledge of bednets, socioeconomic status, and environmental factors have been suggested to have an impact on bednet ownership and utilisation in different settings. The present study sought to determine bednet ownership and utilisation rates and to assess the impact of predictive factors on bednet ownership and use in the Bamenda Health District (BHD of Cameroon. Methods A cross-sectional study involving 384 households was conducted in six health areas in the BHD. A structured and semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data on demographic and household characteristics as well as information on their bednet ownership and utilisation. Descriptive statistics, bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were performed. Results Frequency of bednet ownership was relatively high (63.5% with LLINs being most abundant (91.9%; the majority of households (87.7% obtained their bednets during the 2011 free distribution campaign. Utilisation was relatively high (69.3%, with negligence (29.3% and heat discomfort (26.7% accounting most for non-usage of bednets. Children less than 5 years (63% and pregnant women (60% most often used these nets. Households headed by a married couple, those with older household heads, household with smaller size (5–12 persons, and knowledge of bednets (good knowledge had positive impacts on bednet ownership (p < 0.05. The gender of the household head (males, their educational level

The Relationship between Ownership Structure Dimensions and Corporate Performance: Evidence from Bahrain

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Reem Khamis

2015-12-01

Full Text Available In this study we examine the relation between ownership structure and corporate performance; the sample of the study included 42 out of 48 companies of all sectors in Bahrain Bourse in five years from 2007-2011. Several dimensions of ownership concentration were studied in addition to managerial and institutional ownership. Two different measurements of performance were used (ROA and Tobin’s Q. The study investigated this relation using several control variables and 2SLS statistical method to overcome the problem of endogeneity that may exist between the study variables. It was found that ownership concentration have a negative effect with statistical significance on company performance. Institutional ownership was found to have a positive effect on company performance. Managerial ownership was not found to have a significant effect on company performance, however it was found that managerial ownership has a positive effect on performance only in the case of declining ownership concentration. Other results were revealed by the study regarding company age, size, growth, board size and liquidity. The study is considered to have theoretical and practical implications. It contributes to the debate about agency theory and managerial entrenchment. It also may help officials in Bahrain in making laws and legislations concerning corporate governance improvement in Bahraini market. This

Risk factors for unsuccessful dog ownership: an epidemiologic study in Taiwan.

Science.gov (United States)

Weng, Hsin-Yi; Kass, Philip H; Hart, Lynette A; Chomel, Bruno B

2006-11-17

This retrospective study of 259 Taiwanese dog owners in 2004 addressed one of the major contributors to dog overpopulation in Taiwan: unsuccessful dog ownership. We found an inverse association between age of the dog at acquisition and risk of unsuccessful dog ownership: the younger the dog at acquisition the higher the risk. The incidence-proportion ratios (IPRs) of unsuccessful dog ownership for the owners who had a history of pet abandonment or losing a pet compared with those without such a history were 1.8 (95% confidence interval (CI)=1.1, 3.0) and 2.1 (95% CI=1.3, 3.3), respectively. Soiling (IPR=2.0, 95% CI=1.3, 3.1) and barking (IPR=1.6, 95% CI=1.0, 2.6) problems had the strongest effects on unsuccessful dog ownership among the post-acquisition variables studied. Preventing owners with a history of unsuccessful dog ownership from acquiring dogs was predicted to yield the largest reduction of risk of unsuccessful dog ownership among the investigated variables (population attributable fraction=33%, 95% CI=11%, 50%).

Market Structure and Price Transmission of Eggs Commodity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abdul Aziz Ahmad

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Purposes of this research are to determine some characteristics of distribution channel, market structure, and price maker transmission in purebred chicken egg commodity in Banyumas District, Central Java Province. Primary data applied on this research is from all channel distribution levels; from producers to final consumers. Meanwhile secondary data is collected from government official sources, such as BPS-Statistic of Banyumas Disrict, Banyumas Department of Industry, Trading and Cooperation, and previous researches which has been made by researcher team. Sample determining is directed by proportional random sampling methods. Some measurements are applied to this research, including to; Herfindahl Index (HI, Concentration Ratio (CF, and Minimum Efficiency Scale (MES to investigate market structure; and Asymmetric Price Transmission (APT to determine price transmission mechanism model. This research finds that (1 the distribution channel of egg commodity is spitted to different channel, the first channel: egg producer – retail traders – final consumers, and second channel: egg producers – whole seller – retail traders – final consumers; (2 market structure which is created to this farming specific commodity is perfect market; (3 price transmission mechanism analysis statistically shows that there is almost no existence of dominant power in price formation.

Is micro-CHP price controllable under price signal controlled Virtual Power Plants?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

You, Shi; Træholt, Chresten; Poulsen, Bjarne

2011-01-01

As micro-combined heat and power (micro-CHP) systems move towards mass deployment together with other kinds of distributed energy resources (DER), an increasing emphasis has been placed on how to coordinate such a large diversified DER portfolio in an efficient way by the Virtual Power Plant (VPP...... for three different micro-CHP systems to investigate the feasibility of being controlled by price. Such analysis is relevant for both controller designs for micro-CHP systems and VPP related operations. The results indicate that controlling the micro-CHP systems by price is feasible but could result...

Financial Constraints and Nominal Price Rigidities

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Menno, Dominik Francesco; Balleer, Almut; Hristov, Nikolay

This paper investigates how financial market imperfections and the frequency of price adjustment interact. Based on new firm-level evidence for Germany, we document that financially constrained firms adjust prices more often than their unconstrained counterparts, both upwards and downwards. We show...... that these empirical patterns are consistent with a partial equilibrium menu-cost model with a working capital constraint. We then use the model to show how the presence of financial frictions changes profits and the price distribution of firms compared to a model without financial frictions. Our results suggest...... that tighter financial constraints are associated with higher nominal rigidities, higher prices and lower output. Moreover, in response to aggregate shocks, aggregate price rigidity moves substantially, the response of inflation is dampened, while output reacts more in the presence of financial frictions...

Coordinating Channels Under Price and Nonprice Competition

OpenAIRE

Ganesh Iyer

1998-01-01

This paper analyzes how manufacturers should coordinate distribution channels when retailers compete in price as well as important nonprice factors such as the provision of product information, free repair, faster check-out, or after-sales service. Differentiation among retailers in price and nonprice service factors is a central feature of markets ranging from automobiles and appliances to gasoline and is especially observed in the coexistence of high-service retailers and lower price discou...

Social Validation Influences Individuals’ Judgments about Ownership

Science.gov (United States)

Casiraghi, Leandro; Faigenbaum, Gustavo; Chehtman, Alejandro; Sigman, Mariano

2018-01-01

In all domains, from informal to formal, there are conflicts about property and ownership which resolution demands consideration of alleged claims from more than one party. In this work we asked adults (N = 359) to judge cases in which a character held a property claim over an item, but is challenged by a second character who holds a different, subsequent claim over it. The specific goal of this work is to investigate how the resolution of such conflicts depends on the social endorsement of ownership claims. To achieve this aim, we designed variations of conflictive situations over property in which we manipulated details regarding the knowledge of the second agent of other third-parties about the first agent’s actions. In essence, our questions were: if an agent claims ownership of something which has a previous property claim on (1) does it matter whether said agent knew of the first’s agent actions or not? And (2) does it matter whether third parties were aware or notified of the first one’s claim? The results confirm that adults resolve the settling of property rights based not only on the nature of ownership claims but also on the social acknowledgment of such claims, in accordance with what is stipulated in legal systems worldwide. Participants considered the second character in the stories to hold a lesser right over the object under dispute when she knew of the first character’s claim. Participants also considered that the first character’s claim was reinforced when there were witnesses for her actions, but not when third parties were merely communicated of such actions. This is the first study to our knowledge that studies how social validation of ownership claims drives adults’ judgments on property claims. PMID:29440998

7 CFR 1000.50 - Class prices, component prices, and advanced pricing factors.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 9 2010-01-01 2009-01-01 true Class prices, component prices, and advanced pricing... advanced pricing factors. Class prices per hundredweight of milk containing 3.5 percent butterfat, component prices, and advanced pricing factors shall be as follows. The prices and pricing factors described...

Nonlinear road pricing for congestion and the environment.

Science.gov (United States)

2012-03-30

Under nonlinear road pricing (or tolling), the price charged is not strictly proportional to the distance travelled inside a tolling area, the generalized travel cost is not link-wise additive, and finding a user equilibrium distribution is typically...

Foreign ownership and its effects on employment and wages

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brännlund, Runar; Nordström, Leif Jonas; Stage, Jesper

2016-01-01

In this paper, we study how foreign ownership of Swedish companies affects employment and wages. To study these effects, we specify a model based on the assumption that the Swedish labour market can be described as one where trade unions and employers bargain over employment and wages. Our...... hypothesis is that bargaining power is affected by institutional settings and the ownership of the firm. To test our hypothesis, we used a panel data set of 242 large Swedish manufacturing firms over the period 1980–2005. The results indicate no significant impact of foreign ownership on employment or wages...

Energy prices, equalization and Canadian federalism : comparing Canada's energy price shocks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Courchene, T.J.

2006-01-01

Revenues from natural resources during periods of high energy prices can create problems with the way the Canadian federal government distributes wealth through equalization. This paper traced the history of equalization in comparison with energy prices from the years 1973 to 2003. It was noted that the National Energy Program, section 92A of the Constitution, and the 5-province standard were all federal responses to initial energy price increases. It was suggested that current increases in energy prices demand a different response. The author examined a method of using the national average standard to calculate equalization payments as a means of eliminating the inequities created by the current 5-province standard, which excludes both Alberta and the Atlantic provinces. It was argued that the exclusion of Alberta's energy resources creates a false impression that other provinces such as British Columbia and Saskatchewan are rich in resources. It was suggested that fiscal imbalance between provinces is a significant challenge to the current Canadian government. New approaches to cash transfers to the provinces were discussed. A 2-tier equalization scheme was proposed that separated natural resource revenues from other revenues. It was concluded that the government's previous response to high energy prices will not be appropriate for addressing the current price shock. A 2-tier equalization scheme will mean that resource-rich provinces have an opportunity to participate more fully in federal decision-making. 53 refs., 3 figs

Ownership and Risk Management: Shareholder versus Stakeholder Satisfaction

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Aabo, Tom

2002-01-01

The relationship between ownership structure and performance has received considerable attention in the literature. This paper focuses on the relationship between ownership structure and risk management. Specifically, the paper addresses the relationship between (1) the identity and influence...... of the largest shareholder and (2) whether risk management decisions are made in order to satisfy shareholders in particular or stakeholders in general. Covering a sample of Danish, non-financial companies a statistically significant, negative relationship is found between personal ownership and the likelihood...... that the aim of risk management is to satisfy shareholders in particular. No significant relationship is found for foundation-owned companies. Furthermore, a positive relationship is found between the size of the company and the tendency to satisfy shareholders in particular. The finding in relation...

Electricity structure and the impact on pricing, trade and the environment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pineau, P.O.

2007-01-01

The feasibility of integrating different electricity markets was discussed along with the benefits that can be derived. It was noted that some important differences in Canadian electricity markets create distortions that are harmful both economically and environmentally. Indirect subsidies provided to electricity consumers in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec result in inefficient consumption levels and in missed opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The structure of the Canadian electricity sector is characterized by public ownership and decentralization at the provincial level. The impact that this structure has on pricing policies, independent planning and environmental strategies was discussed. Alberta and Ontario have an hourly spot market fixing the market price for electricity, but all the other provinces use a pricing policy based on average cost, including a return on investment. This article also addressed the issue of electric generating units (EGUs) within each province and and their role in meeting provincial electricity demands. It was shown that electricity prices do not reflect the value of the resource across Canada. It was cautioned that subsidies create low electricity prices that result in inefficient consumption levels, thereby preventing clean hydropower to be exported to market-based provinces as a substitute to diesel, natural gas or coal-fuelled EGUs. An estimate of the indirect subsidies was presented in this article along with an analysis of possible consumption reduction scenarios if market prices were used. Carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions reductions that could be obtained if the saved energy was entirely exported were also estimated. Transmission issues involved in exporting electricity were also reviewed. It was argued that once strong financial incentives are in place to induce change, then economic and environmental gains will be proven. 9 tabs., 3 figs

Dynamic pricing and learning with finite inventories

NARCIS (Netherlands)

den Boer, A.V.; Zwart, Bert

2013-01-01

We study a dynamic pricing problem with finite inventory and parametric uncertainty on the demand distribution. Products are sold during selling seasons of finite length, and inventory that is unsold at the end of a selling season, perishes. The goal of the seller is to determine a pricing strategy

Dynamic pricing and learning with finite inventories

NARCIS (Netherlands)

den Boer, A.V.; Zwart, Bert

We study a dynamic pricing problem with finite inventory and parametric uncertainty on the demand distribution. Products are sold during selling seasons of finite length, and inventory that is unsold at the end of a selling season perishes. The goal of the seller is to determine a pricing strategy

Dynamic pricing and learning with finite inventories

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Boer, den A.V.; Zwart, B.

2015-01-01

We study a dynamic pricing problem with finite inventory and parametric uncertainty on the demand distribution. Products are sold during selling seasons of finite length, and inventory that is unsold at the end of a selling season perishes. The goal of the seller is to determine a pricing strategy

A comparative study to identify a suitable model of ownership for Iran football pro league clubs

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Saeed Amirnejad

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Today the government ownership of the professional football clubs is absolutely illogical view point. Most of sports clubs are conducted by private sector using different models of ownership all over the world. In Iran, government credits benefit was main reason that the professional sport was firstly developed by government firms and organizations. Therefore, the sports team ownership is without the professionalization standards. The present comparative study was to examine the different football club ownership structures of the top leagues and the current condition of Iran football pro league ownership and then present a suitable ownership structure of Iran football clubs to leave behind the government club ownership. Among the initial 120 scientific texts, the thirty two cases including papers, books and reports were found relevant to this study. We studied the ownership prominence and several football club models of ownership focused on stock listing model of ownership, private investor model of ownership, supporter trust model of ownership and Japan partnership model of ownership; theoretical concepts, empirical studies, main findings, strengths and weaknesses were covered in analysis procedure. According to various models of ownership in leagues and the models’ productivity in football clubs, each model of ownership considering national environmental, economic, social conditions has strengths and weaknesses. So, we cannot present a definite model of ownership for Iran football pro league clubs due to different micro-environments of Iran clubs. We need a big planning to provide a supporter-investor mixed model of ownership to Iranian clubs. Considering strengths and weaknesses in the models of ownership as well as the micro and macro environment of Iran football clubs, German model and Japan partnership model are offered as suitable ones to probable new model of ownership in Iran pro league clubs. Consequently, more studies are required

Capturing Option Anomalies with a Variance-Dependent Pricing Kernel

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christoffersen, Peter; Heston, Steven; Jacobs, Kris

2013-01-01

We develop a GARCH option model with a new pricing kernel allowing for a variance premium. While the pricing kernel is monotonic in the stock return and in variance, its projection onto the stock return is nonmonotonic. A negative variance premium makes it U shaped. We present new semiparametric...... evidence to confirm this U-shaped relationship between the risk-neutral and physical probability densities. The new pricing kernel substantially improves our ability to reconcile the time-series properties of stock returns with the cross-section of option prices. It provides a unified explanation...... for the implied volatility puzzle, the overreaction of long-term options to changes in short-term variance, and the fat tails of the risk-neutral return distribution relative to the physical distribution....

Ownership and environmental regulation: Evidence from the European electricity industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Clò, Stefano; Ferraris, Matteo; Florio, Massimo

2017-01-01

The paper investigates how ownership affects the environmental performance in developed countries where environmental regulation is introduced in the form of market-based instrument. By looking at a cross-country panel dataset of 29 power markets around Europe over the period 1990–2012, we find empirical evidence that an increase of public ownership, as measured by the OECD ETCR index, is associated with a reduction of both greenhouse gas emissions and carbon intensity. We also find that the implementation of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) had a limited impact on emissions' reduction due to lax allocation of allowances. The positive effect of public ownership on environmental performance has been significant even after the introduction of the ETS, giving additional incentives to mitigate emissions when the ETS cap was not stringent enough. This evidence suggests that government control over power companies in Europe can has created idiosyncratic incentives to improve environmental quality, complementing environmental regulation in the achievement of environmental goals when the latter was absent or sub-optimal. - Highlights: • We analyse the power industry's environmental performance in 29 European countries. • Public ownership is associated with lower emissions than private ownership. • Mixed oligopoly is superior to private oligopoly in environmental terms. • The ETS had a limited impact on emissions' reduction due to over-allocation. • Public ownership mitigates the effects of sub-optimal environmental regulation.

Creation and cessation of the land ownership right - legal forms

OpenAIRE

Celerýn, Jakub

2009-01-01

I chose for my diploma thesis the theme which is called "Creation and cessation of the land ownership right - legal forms". The aim of the work is to give complex and complete description of basic legal forms of acquiring ownership right to land. The presented work is divided into ten chapters. The first part (second chapter) of the diploma thesis determines the concepts of "ownership", "real estate", "land", "plot" etc. According to Czech law concept of "real estate" means mainly under groun...

Rural hospital ownership: medical service provision, market mix, and spillover effects.

Science.gov (United States)

Horwitz, Jill R; Nichols, Austin

2011-10-01

To test whether nonprofit, for-profit, or government hospital ownership affects medical service provision in rural hospital markets, either directly or through the spillover effects of ownership mix. Data are from the American Hospital Association, U.S. Census, CMS Healthcare Cost Report Information System and Prospective Payment System Minimum Data File, and primary data collection for geographic coordinates. The sample includes all nonfederal, general medical, and surgical hospitals located outside of metropolitan statistical areas and within the continental United States from 1988 to 2005. We estimate multivariate regression models to examine the effects of (1) hospital ownership and (2) hospital ownership mix within rural hospital markets on profitable versus unprofitable medical service offerings. Rural nonprofit hospitals are more likely than for-profit hospitals to offer unprofitable services, many of which are underprovided services. Nonprofits respond less than for-profits to changes in service profitability. Nonprofits with more for-profit competitors offer more profitable services and fewer unprofitable services than those with fewer for-profit competitors. Rural hospital ownership affects medical service provision at the hospital and market levels. Nonprofit hospital regulation should reflect both the direct and spillover effects of ownership. © Health Research and Educational Trust.

Ownership Structure Reform and Bank Performance in Nigeria | Ani ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Nigeria undertook a major bank structure reform between 2004 and 2006. A pivotal plank of that reform was the pegging of government ownership in deposit money banks to 10%. This was informed by the general economic theory that state ownership in commercial undertakings hurts operating performance. This paper ...

Block share ownership and corporate earning: Evidence from Tehran Stock Exchange

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Somayye Adhami

2013-01-01

Full Text Available During the past few years, there have been growing interests among researchers to study the effect of block share ownership on corporate earning especially in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to consider the impact of block ownership on performance of firms in terms of profitability. The proposed study develops two econometric models and applies them on selected firms from Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2002-2010. The primary objective of this survey is to find the relationship between return of assets and Tobin's Q as dependent variables with eight independent variables including company size, sales growth, block ownership, debt and liability ratios, etc. The results of implementation of ordinary least squares on two econometric models reveal that while there is no meaningful relationship between return of asset and block ownership there is a meaningful relationship between block ownership and Tobin's Q.

Gun ownership and firearm-related deaths.

Science.gov (United States)

Bangalore, Sripal; Messerli, Franz H

2013-10-01

A variety of claims about possible associations between gun ownership rates, mental illness burden, and the risk of firearm-related deaths have been put forward. However, systematic data on this issue among various countries remain scant. Our objective was to assess whether the popular notion "guns make a nation safer" has any merits. Data on gun ownership were obtained from the Small Arms Survey, and for firearm-related deaths from a European detailed mortality database (World Health Organization), the National Center for Health Statistics, and others. Crime rate was used as an indicator of safety of the nation and was obtained from the United Nations Surveys of Crime Trends. Age-standardized disability-adjusted life-year rates due to major depressive disorder per 100,000 inhabitants with data obtained from the World Health Organization database were used as a putative indicator for mental illness burden in a given country. Among the 27 developed countries, there was a significant positive correlation between guns per capita per country and the rate of firearm-related deaths (r = 0.80; P ownership and mental illness as independent covariates, gun ownership was a significant predictor (P <.0001) of firearm-related deaths, whereas mental illness was of borderline significance (P = .05) only. The number of guns per capita per country was a strong and independent predictor of firearm-related death in a given country, whereas the predictive power of the mental illness burden was of borderline significance in a multivariable model. Regardless of exact cause and effect, however, the current study debunks the widely quoted hypothesis that guns make a nation safer. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A neural model of border-ownership from kinetic occlusion.

Science.gov (United States)

Layton, Oliver W; Yazdanbakhsh, Arash

2015-01-01

Camouflaged animals that have very similar textures to their surroundings are difficult to detect when stationary. However, when an animal moves, humans readily see a figure at a different depth than the background. How do humans perceive a figure breaking camouflage, even though the texture of the figure and its background may be statistically identical in luminance? We present a model that demonstrates how the primate visual system performs figure-ground segregation in extreme cases of breaking camouflage based on motion alone. Border-ownership signals develop as an emergent property in model V2 units whose receptive fields are nearby kinetically defined borders that separate the figure and background. Model simulations support border-ownership as a general mechanism by which the visual system performs figure-ground segregation, despite whether figure-ground boundaries are defined by luminance or motion contrast. The gradient of motion- and luminance-related border-ownership signals explains the perceived depth ordering of the foreground and background surfaces. Our model predicts that V2 neurons, which are sensitive to kinetic edges, are selective to border-ownership (magnocellular B cells). A distinct population of model V2 neurons is selective to border-ownership in figures defined by luminance contrast (parvocellular B cells). B cells in model V2 receive feedback from neurons in V4 and MT with larger receptive fields to bias border-ownership signals toward the figure. We predict that neurons in V4 and MT sensitive to kinetically defined figures play a crucial role in determining whether the foreground surface accretes, deletes, or produces a shearing motion with respect to the background. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The qualified possession turn into ownership

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Popov Danica

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Possession is prima facie evidence of ownership. Possession is ninetents of the law, means that possession is good against all other, except the true owner. The possession ripens into ownership if it is qualified and by effluxion of time. In Serbian law there are two kinds of adverse possession ripens into ownership. The first one is named ordinary and second one extraordinary adverse possession. Ordinary possession need to be legal, conscientious and genuine. Extraordinary possession is only conscientious, but in a wide sense. Adverse possession destroys the title of the owner and vests it in possessor. An occupation of land inconsistent with the right of the true owner: the possession of those against whom a right action has accured to the true owner. It is actual possession in the absence of possession by the rightful owner and without lawful title. If the adverse possession continues, the effect at the expiration of the prescribed period is that not only the remedy but the title of former owner is extinguished. The person in adverse possession gains a new possessory title which cannot, normally exceed in extent of duration the interest of the former owner.

What is the level of household gun ownership in urban Mexico? An estimate from the first Mexican survey on gun ownership 2017.

Science.gov (United States)

Perez Esparza, David; Hemenway, David

2017-12-20

Gun violence has increased in Mexico since the mid-2000s, but little is known about patterns of gun ownership. We examine the size and composition of the privately held urban firearm stock in Mexico, motivations for ownership, and attitudes about gun laws. To this end, a household telephone survey of 1361 adults living in nine Mexican cities was conducted in the summer of 2017. We find that few urban Mexican households contain guns. Most of those who report ownership possess one gun, having purchased it recently for self-defense. Few urban Mexican citizens plan to purchase a gun in the future. Respondents are more likely to believe that crime in Mexico would increase if guns were allowed in more places (ie, workplaces and motor vehicles). Evidence suggests urban Mexico has relative low rates of firearm ownership. Few city dwellers plan on obtaining a firearm in the near future. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2017. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

Proof of cipher text ownership based on convergence encryption

Science.gov (United States)

Zhong, Weiwei; Liu, Zhusong

2017-08-01

Cloud storage systems save disk space and bandwidth through deduplication technology, but with the use of this technology has been targeted security attacks: the attacker can get the original file just use hash value to deceive the server to obtain the file ownership. In order to solve the above security problems and the different security requirements of cloud storage system files, an efficient information theory security proof of ownership scheme is proposed. This scheme protects the data through the convergence encryption method, and uses the improved block-level proof of ownership scheme, and can carry out block-level client deduplication to achieve efficient and secure cloud storage deduplication scheme.

A Literature Review of Foreign Ownership and Company Performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Iuliana Oana MIHAI

2014-11-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this article is to review the results of research papers conducted in the area of foreign ownership impact on company’s performance and to highlight the specifics of this linkage in the environment of transition economies. Several authors have documented greater efficiency of private companies compared to state-owned. According to different studies, an alternative option for transition economies is foreign ownership. Recent studies show that the effect of ownership forms on companies and financial performance is more significant in Eastern European countries compared to developed countries. However, study results are often contradictory, therefore they require additional research.

Efficient proof of ownership for cloud storage systems

Science.gov (United States)

Zhong, Weiwei; Liu, Zhusong

2017-08-01

Cloud storage system through the deduplication technology to save disk space and bandwidth, but the use of this technology has appeared targeted security attacks: the attacker can deceive the server to obtain ownership of the file by get the hash value of original file. In order to solve the above security problems and the different security requirements of the files in the cloud storage system, an efficient and information-theoretical secure proof of ownership sceme is proposed to support the file rating. Through the K-means algorithm to implement file rating, and use random seed technology and pre-calculation method to achieve safe and efficient proof of ownership scheme. Finally, the scheme is information-theoretical secure, and achieve better performance in the most sensitive areas of client-side I/O and computation.

The long-term benefits of director stock ownership

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brian Bolton

2009-11-01

Full Text Available In October 2009, the United States Treasury Department and Congress considered new regulations requiring executives and directors to receive much of their compensation in the form of long-term stock. One concern with this is that it may have negative consequences by entrenching managers and directors over the long term. This study compares the potential benefits of long-term director ownership with the potential costs of entrenchment. Using the dollar amount of stock owned by independent directors, the results suggest that the incentive effect dominates any costs related to entrenchment: firms with greater stock ownership outperform other firms, regardless of the degree of managerial entrenchment that may be present. The implication for policy-makers is that providing directors with incentives through stock ownership can be a very effective corporate governance mechanism.

Forecasting oil price trends using wavelets and hidden Markov models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Souza e Silva, Edmundo G. de; Souza e Silva, Edmundo A. de; Legey, Luiz F.L.

2010-01-01

The crude oil price is influenced by a great number of factors, most of which interact in very complex ways. For this reason, forecasting it through a fundamentalist approach is a difficult task. An alternative is to use time series methodologies, with which the price's past behavior is conveniently analyzed, and used to predict future movements. In this paper, we investigate the usefulness of a nonlinear time series model, known as hidden Markov model (HMM), to predict future crude oil price movements. Using an HMM, we develop a forecasting methodology that consists of, basically, three steps. First, we employ wavelet analysis to remove high frequency price movements, which can be assumed as noise. Then, the HMM is used to forecast the probability distribution of the price return accumulated over the next F days. Finally, from this distribution, we infer future price trends. Our results indicate that the proposed methodology might be a useful decision support tool for agents participating in the crude oil market. (author)

Valuation of wind power distributed generation by using Longstaff–Schwartz option pricing method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Díaz, Guzmán; Moreno, Blanca; Coto, José; Gómez-Aleixandre, Javier

2015-01-01

Highlights: • We analyze the economic value of wind power distributed generation (DG) projects. • Unlike NPV, RO approach accounts for the flexibility for decision-making. • We adapt Longstaff–Schwartz (LS) option pricing to multivariate wind power setting. • LS finds optimal times for DG investment under revenue uncertainty and decaying costs. • We find this method best suited for valuating DG projects of expected low revenue. - Abstract: In the context of decaying capital cost and uncertain revenues, prospective valuation of a wind power distributed generation (DG) project is difficult. The conventional net present value (NPV) presents a static picture that does not account for the value of waiting for better market conditions to proceed with a DG investment. On the contrary, real options (RO) analysis does account for the managerial flexibility to switch between options over the investment horizon. In this paper we argue that the value of a DG wind-based project can be revisited by means of Longstaff–Schwartz method, originally intended for the evaluation of American financial options. The adaption of this method to the wind power DG setting provides a means for (i) efficiently dealing with the several stochastic processes involved (spot electricity prices and possibly various wind speed processes) avoiding the curse of dimensionality, (ii) accounting for the decaying capital cost of DG, and (iii) solving the perfect foresight problem presented by Monte Carlo conventional simulations. We present in this paper the procedure to follow when applying the method to the wind power DG setting. Particularly, we discuss the standardization of the wind speed and spot price processes, and the advantages of building a state space model that includes all the correlated processes by adequately transforming Box–Jenkins and Ornstein–Uhlenbeck models. Also we discuss the representation of the capital cost forecast by means of learning curves. On the whole, we

The role of psychological ownership in retaining talent: A systematic literature review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chantal Olckers

2012-02-01

Full Text Available Orientation: Managing psychological ownership can have positive attitudinal and behavioural effects, promote organisational effectiveness and support talent retention.Research purpose: This paper seeks to explore and describe psychological ownership, distinguish it from other work-related attitudes and clarify the role that psychological ownership can play in retaining talent.Motivation for the study: Previous studies of human resource practices and organisational characteristics that affect organisational commitment and the retention of talent have reported that absent variables could be responsible for varied results. Psychological ownership could be one of them.Research design, approach and method: Based on a systematic review of the literature published over the last 20 years, the authors synthesised various research perspectives into a framework of psychological ownership and its links to retaining talent.Main findings: The authors found that psychological ownership was a comprehensive multidimensional construct. It is distinct from other work-related attitudes and seems capable of enabling organisations to retain the talents of skilled employees.Practical/managerial implications: Organisations can benefit from psychological ownership because it leads employees to feel responsible towards targets (like organisations and to show stewardship. It can help organisations to retain talent and influence the intentions of skilled employees to remain with their organisations.Contribution/value-add: Psychological ownership, as an integrated multidimensional construct, has expanded the existing theory about the organisational commitment and work-related attitudes that organisations need to retain talent in the 21st century.

Dynamic Pricing and Learning with Finite Inventories

OpenAIRE

Zwart, Bert; Boer, Arnoud

2015-01-01

We study a dynamic pricing problem with finite inventory and parametric uncertainty on the demand distribution. Products are sold during selling seasons of finite length, and inventory that is unsold at the end of a selling season, perishes. The goal of the seller is to determine a pricing strategy that maximizes the expected revenue. Inference on the unknown parameters is made by maximum likelihood estimation. We propose a pricing strategy for this problem, and show that the Regret - which i...

THE OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE AS A CORPORATE GOVERNANCE MECHANISM IN SERBIAN HOTELS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pero Petrovic

2010-06-01

Full Text Available This article analyses the development in Serbien tourism sector during the last decade. The article is focused on the ownership structure and company performance in the light of corporate governance theory and the actuel privatisation process. Previous research has proven that Serbien state is a poor and pasive owner,whereas private owners and amployees are more active and more interested in their company’s economic performance. This article shows that the transition to private ownership in the Serbian hotels sector has not been finished. Consequently, state-owned and investment funds remain important owners of Serbien hotels. The financial performance of hotel companies is below average in the economy and can be correlated with the current ownership structure. Since the current ownership structure has a negative impact on the hotel sector competitiveness, an ownership change is needed to boost the sector’s competitivensess and the competitivensess of Serbia as tourist destination.

Optimal models of extreme volume-prices are time-dependent

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rocha, Paulo; Boto, João Pedro; Raischel, Frank; Lind, Pedro G

2015-01-01

We present evidence that the best model for empirical volume-price distributions is not always the same and it strongly depends in (i) the region of the volume-price spectrum that one wants to model and (ii) the period in time that is being modelled. To show these two features we analyze stocks of the New York stock market with four different models: Γ, Γ-inverse, log-normal, and Weibull distributions. To evaluate the accuracy of each model we use standard relative deviations as well as the Kullback-Leibler distance and introduce an additional distance particularly suited to evaluate how accurate are the models for the distribution tails (large volume-price). Finally we put our findings in perspective and discuss how they can be extended to other situations in finance engineering

Joint Ownership of family land in Uganda: Examining the responses ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

It serves as an organizational unit in which members raise young ones ... Cultural and legal perspectives are very divergent on family land, joint ownership and on what ..... only ownership was more prominent among title deeds (84% vs 62%).

Long lasting insecticidal bed nets ownership, access and use in a high malaria transmission setting before and after a mass distribution campaign in Uganda.

Science.gov (United States)

Wanzira, Humphrey; Eganyu, Thomas; Mulebeke, Ronald; Bukenya, Fred; Echodu, Dorothy; Adoke, Yeka

2018-01-01

Uganda is conducting a second mass LLIN distribution campaign and Katakwi district recently received LLINs as part of this activity. This study was conducted to measure the success of the campaign in this setting, an area of high transmission, with the objectives to estimate LLIN ownership, access and use pre and post campaign implementation. Two identical cross sectional surveys, based on the Malaria Indicator Survey methodology, were conducted in three sub-counties in this district (Kapujan, Magoro and Toroma), six months apart, one before and another after the mass distribution campaign. Data on three main LLIN indicators including; household LLIN ownership, population with access to an LLIN and use were collected using a household and a women's questionnaire identical to the Malaria Indicator Survey. A total of 601 and 607 households were randomly selected in survey one and two respectively. At baseline, 60.57% (56.53-64.50) of households owned at least one net for every two persons who stayed in the household the night before the survey which significantly increased to 70.35% (66.54-73.96) after the campaign (p = 0.001). Similarly, the percentage of the household population with access to an LLIN significantly increased from 84.76% (82.99-86.52) to 91.57% (90.33-92.81), p = 0.001 and the percentage of household population that slept under an LLIN the night before the survey also significantly increased from 56.85% (55.06-58.82) to 81.72% (76.75-83.21), p = 0.001. The LLIN mass campaign successfully achieved the national target of over eighty-five percent of the population with access to an LLIN in this setting, however, universal household coverage and use were fourteen and three percent points less than the national target respectively. This is useful for malaria programs to consider during the planning of future campaigns by tailoring efforts around deficient areas like mechanisms to increase universal coverage and behavior change communication.

Factors associated with furry pet ownership among patients with asthma.

Science.gov (United States)

Downes, Martin J; Roy, Angkana; McGinn, Thomas G; Wisnivesky, Juan P

2010-09-01

Exposure to indoor allergens is an established risk factor for poor asthma control. Current guidelines recommend removing pets from the home of patients with asthma. This cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the prevalence of furry pet ownership in asthmatics compared to non-asthmatics and to identify factors associated with furry pet ownership among those with asthma. Secondary analysis assessed characteristics among asthmatics that might be associated with allowing a furry pet into the bedroom. Using data from The National Asthma Survey collected from 2003 to 2004, we carried out univariate and multiple regression analyses, in 2009, to identify independent predictors of furry pet ownership in asthma sufferers after controlling for potential confounders. Overall, asthmatics were more likely to own a furry pet than nonasthmatic individuals in the general population (49.9% versus 44.8%, p ownership among asthmatics. Additionally, 68.7% of patients with asthma who own a furry pet allowed them into their bedroom. Higher income and carrying out ownership is equally or more common among asthmatics compared to those without asthma. The majority of asthmatics with furry pets allow them into the bedroom. Recognizing and addressing these problems may help decrease asthma morbidity.

Ownership and Risk Management: Shareholder versus Stakeholder Satisfaction

OpenAIRE

Aabo, Tom

2002-01-01

The relationship between ownership structure and performance has received considerable attention in the literature. This paper focuses on the relationship between ownership structure and risk management. Specifically, the paper addresses the relationship between (1) the identity and influence of the largest shareholder and (2) whether risk management decisions are made in order to satisfy shareholders in particular or stakeholders in general. Covering a sample of Danish, non-financial compani...

Option Pricing using Realized Volatility

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Stentoft, Lars Peter

dynamics to be used for option pricing purposes in this framework, and we show that our model explains some of the mispricings found when using traditional option pricing models based on interdaily data. We then show explicitly that a Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic model with Normal...... Inverse Gaussian distributed innovations is the corresponding benchmark model when only daily data is used. Finally, we perform an empirical analysis using stock options for three large American companies, and we show that in all cases our model performs significantly better than the corresponding...... benchmark model estimated on return data alone. Hence the paper provides evidence on the value of using high frequency data for option pricing purposes....

The Cushing OK Crude Oil Futures Price Pass - Through to New York Harbor Reformulated RBOB Regular Gasoline Futures Price

OpenAIRE

Chu V. Nguyen

2017-01-01

This study utilizes an Autoregressive Distributed Lag model to investigate the nature of crude oil futures price pass-through since 2006. The empirical results reveal a very high but incomplete short-run pass-through rate from the crude oil futures price to the gasoline futures price of 0.849298 with a corresponding negative long-run pass-through rate of -0.2440894. These empirical findings suggest that traders in the U.S. oil and gasoline futures markets overreact to fluctuations in the crud...

Trends in Utility Green Pricing Programs (2005)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bird, L.; Brown, E.

2006-10-01

This report presents year-end 2005 data on utility green pricing programs, and examines trends in consumer response and program implementation over time. The data in this report, which were obtained via a questionnaire distributed to utility green pricing program managers, can be used by utilities to benchmark the success of their green power programs.

Optimal Dynamic Pricing for Perishable Assets with Nonhomogeneous Demand

OpenAIRE

Wen Zhao; Yu-Sheng Zheng

2000-01-01

We consider a dynamic pricing model for selling a given stock of a perishable product over a finite time horizon. Customers, whose reservation price distribution changes over time, arrive according to a nonhomogeneous Poisson process. We show that at any given time, the optimal price decreases with inventory. We also identify a sufficient condition under which the optimal price decreases over time for a given inventory level. This sufficient condition requires that the willingness of a custom...

INTERDEPENDENT ANALYSIS OF LEVERAGE, DIVIDEND, AND MANAGERIAL OWNERSHIP POLICIES: Agencies Perspectives

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wibisono Hardjopranoto

2006-06-01

Full Text Available This paper attempts to investigate interdependent mechanism among leverage, dividend, and managerial ownership policies. This paper considers firm size and economic conditions to control their effect on the relationship among the three policies. The interrelationship between leverage, dividend, and managerial ownership policies will be tested using two-stage least squares. Five exogenous variables are employed in simultaneous equation: current assets and structure of assets as leverage determinants, book to market and return on investment as dividend determinants, and relative return to risk as managerial ownership determinant. The research employs year 1994-2004 data, with 1717 firm years. The research findings can be summarised as follows. First, there is a negative relationship between managerial ownership and leverage policies as suggested by agency theory. Second, there is a relationship between managerial ownership and dividend policies, but the relationship between leverage and dividend is insignificant. Third, the relationship between leverage and dividend is insensitive to economic condition and firm size. Fourth, all exogenous variables have significant effect on endogenous variables, except relative return. Fifth, the effects of exogenous variables are not sensitive to control variables. Sixth, we find that managers show self-interest behaviours by reducing managerial ownership when the economic condition worsens.

Pet Ownership and Cancer Risk in the Women’s Health Initiative

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, David O.; Lander, Eric M.; Wertheim, Betsy C.; Manson, JoAnn E.; Volpe, Stella L.; Chlebowski, Rowan T.; Stefanick, Marcia L.; Lessin, Lawrence S.; Kuller, Lewis H.; Thomson, Cynthia A.

2016-01-01

Background Pet ownership and cancer are both highly prevalent in the U.S. Evidence suggest associations may exist between this potentially modifiable factor and cancer prevention, though studies are sparse. The present report examined whether pet ownership (dog, cat, or bird) is associated with lower risk for total cancer and site-specific obesity-related cancers. Methods A prospective analysis of 123,560 participants (20,981 dog owners; 19,288 cat owners; 1,338 bird owners; and 81,953 non-pet owners) enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) observational study and clinical trials. Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the association between pet ownership and cancer, adjusted for potential confounders. Results There were no significant relationships between ownership of a dog, cat, or bird and incidence of cancer overall. When site-specific cancers were examined, no associations were observed after adjustment for multiple comparisons. Conclusion Pet ownership had no association with overall cancer incidence. Impact This is the first large epidemiological study to date to explore relationships between pet ownership and cancer risk, as well as associated risks for individual cancer types. This study requires replication in other sizable, diverse cohorts. PMID:27365150

Distributional implications of higher energy prices in the UK

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Common, M

1985-06-01

Results presented are consistent with the claim that higher energy prices are regressive in impact in the UK. However, the size of the impact on the worst affected is not found to be as great as might be expected. It is not at all obvious that the size of impact established is such as to justify the use of terms such as fuel poverty or arguments for the subsidization of fuels purchased by those on low incomes. This is not to say that low income households in the UK have not in the last decade had serious problems with fuel bills. The evidence of, for example, the Supplementary Benefits Commission (1979) makes it obvious that large numbers of households have experienced real problems. However, from the evidence considered here, it is reasonable to suggest that the origin of such problems lies more with the technical characteristics of the consumption act, and with institutional arrangements for payment, in respect of heating and lighting, than with impact of higher fuel prices as such. Gas and electricity consumption is not readily monitored as use occurs, and payment is often by billing well after consumption. Casual observation suggests that the difficulties with fuel bills as reported to welfare agencies are predominantly difficulties with gas and electricity bills. The results also show that of the total impact of higher energy prices on cost of living indices, only 50% arises via the consumption of fuels in the home.

Effects of Ownership Rights on Conflicts between Toddler Peers

Science.gov (United States)

Ross, Hildy S.

2013-01-01

This study examined property conflicts in thirty-two 20-and 30-month-old peer dyads during eighteen 40-min play sessions. Ownership influenced conflicts. Both 20- and 30-month-old owners claimed ownership ("mine") and instigated and won property conflicts more often than non-owners. At 30 months, owners also resisted peers' instigations more often…

Evaluating drug prices, availability, affordability, and price components: implications for access to drugs in Malaysia.

Science.gov (United States)

Babar, Zaheer Ud Din; Ibrahim, Mohamed Izham Mohamed; Singh, Harpal; Bukahri, Nadeem Irfan; Creese, Andrew

2007-03-27

Malaysia's stable health care system is facing challenges with increasing medicine costs. To investigate these issues a survey was carried out to evaluate medicine prices, availability, affordability, and the structure of price components. The methodology developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Health Action International (HAI) was used. Price and availability data for 48 medicines was collected from 20 public sector facilities, 32 private sector retail pharmacies and 20 dispensing doctors in four geographical regions of West Malaysia. Medicine prices were compared with international reference prices (IRPs) to obtain a median price ratio. The daily wage of the lowest paid unskilled government worker was used to gauge the affordability of medicines. Price component data were collected throughout the supply chain, and markups, taxes, and other distribution costs were identified. In private pharmacies, innovator brand (IB) prices were 16 times higher than the IRPs, while generics were 6.6 times higher. In dispensing doctor clinics, the figures were 15 times higher for innovator brands and 7.5 for generics. Dispensing doctors applied high markups of 50%-76% for IBs, and up to 316% for generics. Retail pharmacy markups were also high-25%-38% and 100%-140% for IBs and generics, respectively. In the public sector, where medicines are free, availability was low even for medicines on the National Essential Drugs List. For a month's treatment for peptic ulcer disease and hypertension people have to pay about a week's wages in the private sector. The free market by definition does not control medicine prices, necessitating price monitoring and control mechanisms. Markups for generic products are greater than for IBs. Reducing the base price without controlling markups may increase profits for retailers and dispensing doctors without reducing the price paid by end users. To increase access and affordability, promotion of generic medicines and improved availability

Heterogeneous mobile phone ownership and usage patterns in Kenya.

Science.gov (United States)

Wesolowski, Amy; Eagle, Nathan; Noor, Abdisalan M; Snow, Robert W; Buckee, Caroline O

2012-01-01

The rapid adoption of mobile phone technologies in Africa is offering exciting opportunities for engaging with high-risk populations through mHealth programs, and the vast volumes of behavioral data being generated as people use their phones provide valuable data about human behavioral dynamics in these regions. Taking advantage of these opportunities requires an understanding of the penetration of mobile phones and phone usage patterns across the continent, but very little is known about the social and geographical heterogeneities in mobile phone ownership among African populations. Here, we analyze a survey of mobile phone ownership and usage across Kenya in 2009 and show that distinct regional, gender-related, and socioeconomic variations exist, with particularly low ownership among rural communities and poor people. We also examine patterns of phone sharing and highlight the contrasting relationships between ownership and sharing in different parts of the country. This heterogeneous penetration of mobile phones has important implications for the use of mobile technologies as a source of population data and as a public health tool in sub-Saharan Africa.

An Analysis of Price Determination and Markups in the Air-Conditioning and Heating Equipment Industry

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dale, Larry; Millstein, Dev; Coughlin, Katie; Van Buskirk, Robert; Rosenquist, Gregory; Lekov, Alex; Bhuyan, Sanjib

2004-01-30

In this report we calculate the change in final consumer prices due to minimum efficiency standards, focusing on a standard economic model of the air-conditioning and heating equipment (ACHE) wholesale industry. The model examines the relationship between the marginal cost to distribute and sell equipment and the final consumer price in this industry. The model predicts that the impact of a standard on the final consumer price is conditioned by its impact on marginal distribution costs. For example, if a standard raises the marginal cost to distribute and sell equipment a small amount, the model predicts that the standard will raise the final consumer price a small amount as well. Statistical analysis suggest that standards do not increase the amount of labor needed to distribute equipment the same employees needed to sell lower efficiency equipment can sell high efficiency equipment. Labor is a large component of the total marginal cost to distribute and sell air-conditioning and heating equipment. We infer from this that standards have a relatively small impact on ACHE marginal distribution and sale costs. Thus, our model predicts that a standard will have a relatively small impact on final ACHE consumer prices. Our statistical analysis of U.S. Census Bureau wholesale revenue tends to confirm this model prediction. Generalizing, we find that the ratio of manufacturer price to final consumer price prior to a standard tends to exceed the ratio of the change in manufacturer price to the change in final consumer price resulting from a standard. The appendix expands our analysis through a typical distribution chain for commercial and residential air-conditioning and heating equipment.

Pricing: A Normative Strategy in the Delivery of Human Services.

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, Stephen T.

1995-01-01

Discusses a normative strategy toward pricing human services, which will allow providers to develop pricing strategies within the context of organizational missions, goals, and values. Pricing is an effective tool for distributing resources and improving efficiency, and can be used as a tool for encouraging desired patterns of service utilization.…

Bodily ownership and self-location

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Serino, Andrea; Alsmith, Adrian John Tetteh; Costantini, Marcello

2013-01-01

Recent research on bodily self-consciousness has assumed that it consists of three distinct components: the experience of owning a body (body ownership); the experience of being a body with a given location within the environment (self-location); and the experience of taking a first-person, body......-centered, perspective on that environment (perspective). Here we review recent neuroimaging studies suggesting that at least two of these components—body ownership and self-location—are implemented in rather distinct neural substrates, located, respectively, in the premotor cortex and in the temporo-parietal junction....... We examine these results and consider them in relation to clinical evidence from patients with altered body perception and work on a variety of multisensory, body-related illusions, such as the rubber hand illusion, the full body illusion, the body swap illusion and the enfacement illusion. We...

Economic information from Smart Meter: Nexus Between Demand Profile and Electricity Retail Price Between Demand Profile and Electricity Retail Price

OpenAIRE

Yu, Yang; Liu, Guangyi; Zhu, Wendong; Wang, Fei; Shu, Bin; Zhang, Kai; Rajagopal, Ram; Astier, Nicolas

2016-01-01

In this paper, we demonstrate that a consumer's marginal system impact is only determined by their demand profile rather than their demand level. Demand profile clustering is identical to cluster consumers according to their marginal impacts on system costs. A profile-based uniform-rate price is economically efficient as real-time pricing. We develop a criteria system to evaluate the economic efficiency of an implemented retail price scheme in a distribution system by comparing profile cluste...

Option Pricing with Time-changed Lévy Processes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Klingler, Sven; Kim, Young Shin; Rachev, Svetlozar T.

2013-01-01

In this article, we introduce two new six-parameter processes based on time-changing tempered stable distributions and develop an option pricing model based on these processes. This model provides a good fit to observed option prices. To demonstrate the advantages of the new processes, we conduct...

12 CFR 701.36 - FCU ownership of fixed assets.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 12 Banks and Banking 6 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false FCU ownership of fixed assets. 701.36 Section... ORGANIZATION AND OPERATION OF FEDERAL CREDIT UNIONS § 701.36 FCU ownership of fixed assets. (a) Investment in Fixed Assets. (1) No Federal credit union with $1,000,000 or more in assets may invest in any fixed...

State Prices and Implementation of the Recovery Theorem

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alex Backwell

2015-01-01

Full Text Available It is generally held that derivative prices do not contain useful predictive information, that is, information relating to the distribution of future financial variables under the real-world measure. This is because the market’s implicit forecast of the future becomes entangled with market risk preferences during derivative price formation. A result derived by Ross [1], however, recovers the real-world distribution of an equity index, requiring only current prices and mild restrictions on risk preferences. In addition to being of great interest to the theorist, the potential practical value of the result is considerable. This paper addresses implementation of the Ross Recovery Theorem. The theorem is formalised, extended, proved and discussed. Obstacles to application are identified and a workable implementation methodology is developed.

Industry-specificities and Size of Corporations: Determinants of Ownership Structures

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Elst, C.

This paper analyses ownership concentration in six European countries and empirically studies the rent-seeking theory. This theory states that ownership concentration not only depends on the level of investor protection but also on company-specific and industry-specific parameters. This study

Ownership of Stocks and Mutual Funds : A Panel Data Analysis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Alessie, R.J.M.; Hochgürtel, S.; van Soest, A.H.O.

2001-01-01

In many industrial countries, ownership rates of risky assets have risen substantially over the past decade.This trend has potentially wide-ranging implications for the intertemporal and cross-sectional allocation of risk, and for the macro economy, establishing the need for understanding ownership

Asset ownership among households caring for orphans and vulnerable children in rural Zimbabwe: the influence of ownership on children's health and social vulnerabilities.

Science.gov (United States)

Crea, Thomas M; Lombe, Margaret; Robertson, Laura A; Dumba, Lovemore; Mushati, Phyllis; Makoni, J C; Mavise, Gideon; Eaton, Jeffrey W; Munatsi, Brighton; Nyamukapa, Constance A; Gregson, Simon

2013-01-01

The high prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome in sub-Saharan Africa has resulted in a dramatic increase in orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) over the past decade. These children typically rely on extended family networks for support, but the magnitude of the crisis has resulted in traditional familial networks becoming overwhelmed and more economically and socially vulnerable. Previous research consistently demonstrates the positive influence of household asset ownership on children's well-being. Using data from impoverished households caring for OVC in rural Manicaland Province, Zimbabwe, this study explores the influence of household asset ownership on OVC health vulnerability (HV) and social vulnerability (SV). Findings indicate that asset ownership is associated with significantly lower SV, in terms of school attendance and birth registration. Yet, assets do not emerge as a direct influence of OVC HV as measured by disease and chronic illness, although having a chronically ill adult in the household increases HV. These findings suggest that asset ownership, specifically a combination of fixed and movable assets, may offset the influence of other risk factors for children's SV.

Inflated medicine prices in Vietnam: a qualitative study.

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, Tuan Anh; Knight, Rosemary; Mant, Andrea; Razee, Husna; Brooks, Geoffrey; Dang, Thu Ha; Roughead, Elizabeth Ellen

2017-06-01

One third of the world's population lacks regular access to essential medicines partly because of the high cost of medicines. In Vietnam, the cost to patients of medicines was 47 times the international reference price for originator brands and 11 times the price for generic equivalents in the public sector. In this article, we report the results of a qualitative study conducted to identify the principal reasons for inflated medicine prices in Vietnam.Between April 2008 and December 2009, 29 semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff from pharmaceutical companies, private pharmacies, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Finance of Vietnam. Study participants were recruited using a combination of purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded using NVivo8® software and analyzed using a framework of structure-conduct-performance (SCP).Participants attributed high prices of originator medicines to a monopoly of supply. The prices of generic medicines were also considered to be excessive, reportedly due to the need to recoup the cost of financial inducements paid to prescribers and procurement officers. These inducements constituted a dominant cost component of the end price of generic medicines. Poor market intelligence about current world prices, as well as failure to achieve economies of scale because of unwarranted duplication in pharmaceutical production and distribution system were also factors contributing to high prices. This was reported to be further compounded by multiple layers in the supply chain and unregulated retail mark-ups.To address these problems a multifaceted approach is needed encompassing policy and legislative responses. Policy options include establishing effective monitoring of medicine quality assurance, procurement, distribution and use. Rationalization of the domestic pharmaceutical production and distribution system to achieve economies of scale is also required. Appropriate

Ownership concentration and bank risk (A study on banking sectors in Indonesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Etikah Karyani

2015-08-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to test empirically the relationship between ownership concentration and risk taking by banks which are proxied by the CAR and LDR (li-quidity ratio. The study was motivated by the limited previous studies that analyze the structure of ownership in financial institutions and the weaknesses in sampling. Our analysis focused on Indonesia because this country has implemented the Basel Accord II standards successfully. This regulatory compliance is expected can control banking risk. Using data from 2009 until 2013 and panel data. We found that the ownership concentration become important determinants of bank liquidity. These findings are expected to provide policy guidance for regulators, especially relating to the ownership structure of the bank. However, the ownership concentration proved to be involved in the management decision to risk taking in banks.

Determinants of Price Stabilization in IPOs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antonio Gledson de Carvalho

2010-12-01

Full Text Available In the most common mechanism for price stabilization in IPOs, the underwriter distributes stocks in excess of what was contracted (overallotment and eventually covers this short naked position by purchasing stocks in the secondary market (Aftermarket short covering , ASC. This mechanism can be used to avoid price drop or price volatility. This article provides a description of such activity in Brazil. We investigate the determinants of price stabilization in three aspects: amount overallotted, occurrence of ASC and its intensity. Our results indicate that price stabilization is an important activity in Brazilian IPOs and quite similar to that occurring in the US. The three different aspects of price stabilization have different determinants. The amount overallotted depends only on the ex-ante demand conditions. ASC occurs mostly on IPOs characterized by high risk, low ex-ante demand and carried by reputable underwriters. The intensity of the ASC increases with the riskiness and decreases with the ex-ante demand. None of the existing models fully explain these results.

The relationship between virtual body ownership and temperature sensitivity

Science.gov (United States)

Llobera, Joan; Sanchez-Vives, M. V.; Slater, Mel

2013-01-01

In the rubber hand illusion, tactile stimulation seen on a rubber hand, that is synchronous with tactile stimulation felt on the hidden real hand, can lead to an illusion of ownership over the rubber hand. This illusion has been shown to produce a temperature decrease in the hidden hand, suggesting that such illusory ownership produces disownership of the real hand. Here, we apply immersive virtual reality (VR) to experimentally investigate this with respect to sensitivity to temperature change. Forty participants experienced immersion in a VR with a virtual body (VB) seen from a first-person perspective. For half the participants, the VB was consistent in posture and movement with their own body, and in the other half, there was inconsistency. Temperature sensitivity on the palm of the hand was measured before and during the virtual experience. The results show that temperature sensitivity decreased in the consistent compared with the inconsistent condition. Moreover, the change in sensitivity was significantly correlated with the subjective illusion of virtual arm ownership but modulated by the illusion of ownership over the full VB. This suggests that a full body ownership illusion results in a unification of the virtual and real bodies into one overall entity—with proprioception and tactile sensations on the real body integrated with the visual presence of the VB. The results are interpreted in the framework of a ‘body matrix’ recently introduced into the literature. PMID:23720537

Global Cities, Ownership Structures, and Location Choice

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Geisler Asmussen, Christian; Nielsen, Bo Bernhard; Goerzen, Anthony

2018-01-01

Purpose: In this paper, we develop a more nuanced view of subnational location choice with a particular focus on global cities. We argue that multinational firms may use global cities to establish bridgeheads—subsidiaries at intermediate levels of the ownership chain that enable further internati......Purpose: In this paper, we develop a more nuanced view of subnational location choice with a particular focus on global cities. We argue that multinational firms may use global cities to establish bridgeheads—subsidiaries at intermediate levels of the ownership chain that enable further...... of these investments are associated with micro-location choices in a host country. Findings: We find that there are substantial differences between the types, roles, activities, and geographic origins of the firms locating in different areas, and in the ownership structures spanning them. We propose that this has...... managerial and theoretical implications which may be understood based on an organizing framework describing a tradeoff between the pursuit of global connectivity and local density on the one hand, and cost control on the other. Research limitations/implications: Empirical work on foreign location choices...

Ownership and use of insecticide-treated nets during pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa: a review.

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, Megha; Brown, Graham; Rogerson, Stephen J

2013-08-01

Over the past decade, significant gains have been made in the implementation of malaria prevention measures in pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa, including the distribution of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs). These have been shown to cause a reduction in the incidence of malaria and its consequences such as maternal anaemia, stillbirths and intrauterine growth restriction. Currently most nations in Africa have policies for distributing ITNs to pregnant women through various mechanisms, however coverage remains well below the targets. This review summarizes recent evidence regarding the correlation between ownership and use of ITNs and the determinants of both, in pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa, and reviews interventions directed at improving coverage. A review of the literature using Pubmed, CINAHL and scanning of reference lists was conducted in October 2012 and 59 articles were selected for final review. The research obtained was a mixture of national and district level surveys, and a narrative synthesis of the data was undertaken. Ownership of ITNs varied from as low as 3% to greater than 80%, and the main determinants were found to be education level, knowledge of malaria, community involvement, socio-economic status and parity, although the significance of each varied between the different settings and studies reviewed. In more than half the settings where data were available, the combination of lack of availability and lack of use of an available net meant that less than half of all pregnancies received the recommended intervention. Supply and cost remain major barriers to achieving optimal coverage, but the additional important contributor to reduced efficiency of intervention was the clear discrepancy between ownership and use, with available ITN use below 60% in several settings. Cited reasons for not using an ITN, where one was available, included discomfort, problems with hanging up nets and lack of space, low awareness of need, and seasonal variations in

Corporate Governance Rating and Ownership Structure in the Case of Turkey

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sevin Gurarda

2016-04-01

Full Text Available By using corporate governance data on 22 publicly traded Turkish companies we estimate the determinants of corporate governance ratings for these companies with a focus on ownership structure. Our results show that company earnings, financial risk and firm size positively influence the corporate governance ratings (CGR that Turkish firms receive. In the meantime, we find some weak evidence that family ownership has a negative and foreign ownership has a positive impact on CGR scores.

The estimation of risk-premium implicit in oil prices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Luis, J.B.

2001-01-01

The futures price can be seen as the sum of the expected value of the underlying asset price and a risk-premium. In order to disentangle these two components of the futures price, one can try to model the relationship between spot and futures prices, in order to obtain a closed expression for the risk-premium, or to use information from spot and option prices to estimate risk-aversion functions. Given the high volatility of the ratios between futures and spot prices, we opted for the latter, estimating risk-neutral and subjective probability density functions, respectively, from observed option and spot prices. looking at the prices of Brent and West Texas Intermediate light/sweet crude oil options, the obtained evidence suggests that risk-aversion is typically very low for levels near the futures prices. However, due to price volatility and, consequently, to the tails of distribution, the risk-aversion functions are badly behaved in extreme prices and futures prices do not anticipate sharp movements in oil spot prices. Therefore, futures oil prices seem to be useful in forecasting spot prices only when moderate price changes occur. (author)

Pengaruh Dimensi Pengungkapan Corporate Social Responsibility Terhadap Future Institutional Ownership

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rizky Eriandani

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Corporate social responsibility practice becomes important subject in company`s activity, because it will affect the company's reputation. Besides, institutional investors likely prefer to invest in companies that have a social responsibility as it is considered to increase the legitimacy and future performance. This study aims to investigate the effect of CSR disclosure on institutional ownership. We use percentages ownership to measure institutional ownership. CSR measurement instrument used in this study adopted a previous research. The instrument comes from research Hackston and Milne, which was adjusted with Bapepam regulation in Indonesia. We also divided CSR disclosures in four sub-dimensions. The samples used in this research were 115 listed agriculture, mining, and manufacturing companies in indonesian Stock Exchange which studied during the years of 2010. Using SPSS 20, The analysis methods of this research used multiple regression analysis. Studies shows that not all dimensions of CSR disclosure effect on institutional ownership. Only product dimensions of CSR disclosures has a significant positive impact on institutional ownership. However, this paper fail to find any significant impact of another CSR dimensions. Thus, our study suggests that the dimensions of the product can affect investment decisions. In contrast, institutional investors have not focused on environment, employee relation, and community activities in investment decisions.

Mitigating Distributed Denial of Service Attacks with Dynamic Resource Pricing

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Mankins, David

2001-01-01

.... By employing different price and purchase functions, the architecture can provide service quality differentiation and furthermore, select good client behavior and discriminate against adversarial behavior...

The Impacts of State Ownership on Information Asymmetry: Evidence from an Emerging Market

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jongmoo Jay Choi

2010-06-01

Full Text Available This study examines the effect of corporate ownership on information asymmetry as measured by bid-ask spread in the emerging markets of China. Government ownership has significant and positive impacts on bid-ask spread during the period 1995–2000, but disappears afterward during 2001–2003. The finding that state ownership raised bid-ask spread in the early period is consistent with recent studies on emerging markets including China, which indicate that firms with higher state ownership tend to have a greater deviation between cash flow rights and control rights (eg, Wei et al., 2005. This implies that lower state ownership is associated with lower information asymmetry in the market, an economic consequence of significant economic reform and privatization regarding the market microstructure. However, with more active control transfers and emergence of private controlling shareholders, regulatory changes in ownership structure and corporate governance mechanisms, and thus an improved legal and institutional environment, the link between the government ownership and information asymmetry turns to be insignificant in the later period. These results have important implications for transparency and information disclosure policies as well as privatization in emerging markets.

Do state minimum markup/price laws work? Evidence from retail scanner data and TUS-CPS.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Jidong; Chriqui, Jamie F; DeLong, Hillary; Mirza, Maryam; Diaz, Megan C; Chaloupka, Frank J

2016-10-01

Minimum markup/price laws (MPLs) have been proposed as an alternative non-tax pricing strategy to reduce tobacco use and access. However, the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of MPLs in increasing cigarette prices is very limited. This study aims to fill this critical gap by examining the association between MPLs and cigarette prices. State MPLs were compiled from primary legal research databases and were linked to cigarette prices constructed from the Nielsen retail scanner data and the self-reported cigarette prices from the Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey. Multivariate regression analyses were conducted to examine the association between MPLs and the major components of MPLs and cigarette prices. The presence of MPLs was associated with higher cigarette prices. In addition, cigarette prices were higher, above and beyond the higher prices resulting from MPLs, in states that prohibit below-cost combination sales; do not allow any distributing party to use trade discounts to reduce the base cost of cigarettes; prohibit distributing parties from meeting the price of a competitor, and prohibit distributing below-cost coupons to the consumer. Moreover, states that had total markup rates >24% were associated with significantly higher cigarette prices. MPLs are an effective way to increase cigarette prices. The impact of MPLs can be further strengthened by imposing greater markup rates and by prohibiting coupon distribution, competitor price matching, and use of below-cost combination sales and trade discounts. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

The Rubber Tail Illusion as Evidence of Body Ownership in Mice.

Science.gov (United States)

Wada, Makoto; Takano, Kouji; Ora, Hiroki; Ide, Masakazu; Kansaku, Kenji

2016-10-26

The ownership of one's body parts represents a fundamental aspect of self-consciousness. Accumulating empirical evidence supports the existence of this concept in humans and nonhuman primates, but it is unclear whether nonprimate mammals experience similar feelings. Therefore, the present study used rubber tails to investigate body ownership in rodents. When the real tails and rubber tails were synchronously stroked, the mice responded as if their own tails were touched when the rubber tails were grasped. In contrast, when the stimuli were delivered asynchronously, there was a significantly lower mean response rate when the rubber tail was grasped. These findings suggest that mice may experience body ownership of their tails, suggestive of the rubber hand illusion in humans. To explore the manner in which the ownership of body parts is experienced, this study specifically used the rubber hand illusion (RHI), in which self-consciousness can be extended out of one's own body. Accumulating empirical evidence supports the existence of this concept in humans and nonhuman primates, but it remains unclear whether nonprimate mammals experience similar feelings. This study demonstrated for the first time that mice may experience body ownership of their tails, which is suggestive of the RHI in humans and provides evidence that may highlight how humans experience the ownership of body parts. Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/3611133-05$15.00/0.

From Social to Private Ownership

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gregoric, Aleksandra; Masten, Arjana Brezigar; Zajc, Katarina

2011-01-01

of the multiple blockholder structures that these firms were assigned at privatization. We observe significant path dependence: patterns of ownership and control are in part determined by the persistence of the initial privatization owners (state funds, privatization investment funds, employees, and managers...

Firearm ownership among American veterans: findings from the 2015 National Firearm Survey.

Science.gov (United States)

Cleveland, Emily C; Azrael, Deborah; Simonetti, Joseph A; Miller, Matthew

2017-12-19

While the majority of veteran suicides involve firearms, no contemporary data describing firearm ownership among US veterans are available. This study uses survey data to describe the prevalence of firearm ownership among a nationally representative sample of veterans, as well as veterans' reasons for firearm ownership. A cross-sectional, nationally representative web-based survey conducted in 2015. Nearly half of all veterans own one or more firearms (44.9%, 95% CI 41.3-48.6%), with male veterans more commonly owning firearms than do female veterans (47.2%, 95% CI 43.4-51.0% versus 24.4%, 95%CI 15.6-36.1%). Most veteran firearm owners own both handguns and long guns (56.5%, 95% CI 51.1-61.8%); a majority cite protection as a primary reason for firearm ownership (63.1%, 95% CI 58.2-67.8%). The current study is the first to provide detailed, nationally representative information about firearm ownership among U.S. veterans. Better understanding firearm ownership among veterans can usefully inform ongoing suicide prevention efforts aiming to facilitate lethal means safety among vulnerable veterans during at-risk periods.

Equilibrium pricing in electricity markets with wind power

Science.gov (United States)

Rubin, Ofir David

precision is still low. Therefore, it is crucial that the uncertainty in forecasting wind power is considered when modeling trading behavior. Our theoretical framework is based on finding a symmetric Cournot-Nash equilibrium in double-sided auctions in both forwards and spot electricity markets. The theoretical framework allows for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, a model of electricity markets that explain two main empirical findings; the existence of forwards premium and spot market mark-ups. That is a significant contribution since so far forward premiums have been explained exclusively by the assumption of risk-averse behavior while spot mark-ups are the outcome of the body of literature assuming oligopolistic competition. In the next step, we extend the theoretical framework to account for deregulated electricity markets with wind power. Modeling a wind-integrated electricity market allows us to analyze market outcomes with respect to three main factors; the introduction of uncertainty from the supply side, ownership of wind power capacity and the geographical diversification of wind power capacity. For the purpose of modeling trade in electricity forwards one should simulate the information agents have regarding future availability of aggregate wind power. This is particularly important for modeling accurately traders' ability to predict the spot price distribution. We develop a novel numerical methodology for the simulation of the conditional distribution of regional wind power at the time of trading short-term electricity forwards. Finally, we put the theoretical framework and the numerical methodology developed in this study to work by providing a detailed computational experiment examining electricity market outcomes for a particular expansion path of wind power capacity.

Gun utopias? Firearm access and ownership in Israel and Switzerland.

Science.gov (United States)

Rosenbaum, Janet E

2012-02-01

The 2011 attempted assassination of a US representative renewed the national gun control debate. Gun advocates claim mass-casualty events are mitigated and deterred with three policies: (a) permissive gun laws, (b) widespread gun ownership, (c) and encouragement of armed civilians who can intercept shooters. They cite Switzerland and Israel as exemplars. We evaluate these claims with analysis of International Crime Victimization Survey (ICVS) data and translation of laws and original source material. Swiss and Israeli laws limit firearm ownership and require permit renewal one to four times annually. ICVS analysis finds the United States has more firearms per capita and per household than either country. Switzerland and Israel curtail off-duty soldiers' firearm access to prevent firearm deaths. Suicide among soldiers decreased by 40 per cent after the Israeli army's 2006 reforms. Compared with the United States, Switzerland and Israel have lower gun ownership and stricter gun laws, and their policies discourage personal gun ownership.

VaR and CVaR Implied in Option Prices

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Giovanni Barone Adesi

2016-02-01

Full Text Available VaR (Value at Risk and CVaR (Conditional Value at Risk are implied by option prices. Their relationships to option prices are derived initially under the pricing measure. It does not require assumptions about the distribution of portfolio returns. The effects of changes of measure are modest at the short horizons typically used in applications. The computation of CVaR from option price is very convenient, because this measure is not elicitable, making direct comparisons of statistical inferences from market data problematic.

7 CFR 1124.50 - Class prices, component prices, and advanced pricing factors.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 9 2010-01-01 2009-01-01 true Class prices, component prices, and advanced pricing factors. 1124.50 Section 1124.50 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued... prices, and advanced pricing factors. See § 1000.50. ...

7 CFR 1030.50 - Class prices, component prices, and advanced pricing factors.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 9 2010-01-01 2009-01-01 true Class prices, component prices, and advanced pricing factors. 1030.50 Section 1030.50 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued... prices, and advanced pricing factors. See § 1000.50. ...

29 CFR 779.223 - Control where ownership vested in individual or single organization.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... single business organization. Ownership sufficient to exercise “control” exist also where there is more... in individual or single organization. Ownership, sufficient to exercise “control,” of course, exists... “control” may exist with much more limited ownership, and, in certain cases exists in the absence of any...

The Impacts of the Mass Rapid Transit System on Household Car Ownership in Taipei

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wen-Hsiu Huang

2014-06-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates the impacts of Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT system on household car ownership and analyses how socioeconomic characteristics affect household car ownership. We employ a difference-in-difference (DID strategy integrated with generalized Poisson regression models to examine the effects of MRT. The results are as follows: first, the establishment of Taipei MRT significantly reduced the level of household car ownership. Expanding the network of MRT system can be a feasible policy to control car ownership. Second, the levels of household car ownership are related to household’s socioeconomic characteristics. Third, households with high dependence on public transport own fewer cars after Taipei MRT began operation. Hence, the traffic authority should adopt more effective methods to encourage public transit use in order to decrease household car ownership.

The Causal Pattern of Mobile Phone Ownership and Implications for ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This paper examined a number of predictors of mobile phone ownership amongst fish and vegetable sellers in Yola Metropolis, Nigeria. Using regression path analysis, it identified the causal pattern of mobile phone ownership for Male and Female in the study area. Although there were few significant differences between ...

Exploring the Self-Ownership Effect: Separating Stimulus and Response Biases

Science.gov (United States)

Golubickis, Marius; Falben, Johanna K.; Cunningham, William A.; Macrae, C. Neil

2018-01-01

Although ownership is acknowledged to exert a potent influence on various aspects of information processing, the origin of these effects remains largely unknown. Based on the demonstration that self-relevance facilitates perceptual judgments (i.e., the self-prioritization effect), here we explored the possibility that ownership enhances object…

77 FR 73461 - Commission Seeks Comment on Broadcast Ownership Report

Science.gov (United States)

2012-12-10

... business hours in the FCC Reference Center, 445 12th Street SW., Washington, DC 20554, and may also be.... The recently released Ownership Report confirms that minority and female ownership numbers remain low... latest step in the Commission's ongoing efforts to collect and publicly release minority and female...

26 CFR 1.382-2 - General rules for ownership change.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 26 Internal Revenue 4 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false General rules for ownership change. 1.382-2 Section 1.382-2 Internal Revenue INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY (CONTINUED) INCOME TAX (CONTINUED) INCOME TAXES Insolvency Reorganizations § 1.382-2 General rules for ownership change...

The adverse effects of bureaucracy for the hotel industry in China : the investment behaviors changed by different ownerships

OpenAIRE

Liao, Wang; Zeng, Le; Zhang, Luxin

2013-01-01

Purpose/aim The aim is to examine the distribution of hotel ownerships and star-rated levels in different regions. This thesis depends on the analysis of the examination to find out if the change of investment behaviors can decrease or avoid the adverse effects of bureaucracy in the Chinese hotel industry. Design/methodology/approach Data has been collected through the third-party electronic distribution channel. The analysis includes a description of the samples and statistical tests. Findin...

Energy prices, equalization and Canadian federalism : comparing Canada's energy price shocks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Courchene, T.J. [Queen' s Univ., Kingston, ON (Canada). School of Policy Studies; Institute for Research on Public Policy, Montreal, PQ (Canada)

2006-04-01

Revenues from natural resources during periods of high energy prices can create problems with the way the Canadian federal government distributes wealth through equalization. This paper traced the history of equalization in comparison with energy prices from the years 1973 to 2003. It was noted that the National Energy Program, section 92A of the Constitution, and the 5-province standard were all federal responses to initial energy price increases. It was suggested that current increases in energy prices demand a different response. The author examined a method of using the national average standard to calculate equalization payments as a means of eliminating the inequities created by the current 5-province standard, which excludes both Alberta and the Atlantic provinces. It was argued that the exclusion of Alberta's energy resources creates a false impression that other provinces such as British Columbia and Saskatchewan are rich in resources. It was suggested that fiscal imbalance between provinces is a significant challenge to the current Canadian government. New approaches to cash transfers to the provinces were discussed. A 2-tier equalization scheme was proposed that separated natural resource revenues from other revenues. It was concluded that the government's previous response to high energy prices will not be appropriate for addressing the current price shock. A 2-tier equalization scheme will mean that resource-rich provinces have an opportunity to participate more fully in federal decision-making. 53 refs., 3 figs.

27 CFR 1.27 - Change in ownership, management, or control of the applicant.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... BOTTLING OF DISTILLED SPIRITS Basic Permits Applications for Permits § 1.27 Change in ownership, management, or control of the applicant. In the event of any change in the ownership, management, or control of... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Change in ownership...

The implications of ownership concentration for shareholder protection and strategic decision-making

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nikolić Jelena

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The purpose of corporate governance mechanisms is to prevent opportunistic behaviour by managers, in order to align the interests of owners and managers. Following from this, our research topic is the analysis of ownership concentration as an internal mechanism to protect the interests of shareholders. In the study of the interdependence between ownership concentration and shareholder protection, particular importance needs to be given to the relationship between ownership structure, the role of the board, and strategic decision-making. Starting from this interdependence, our research aim is to examine the impact of ownership concentration on the protection of shareholders’ interests and the board’s responsibility for firm strategy. This paper presents the results of an empirical, pilot study in the Republic of Serbia. The research confirms the interdependence of corporate governance mechanisms and strategic decision-making. Our findings indicate that ownership concentration protects majority shareholder interests and leads to lower board responsibility for strategic decision-making.

On the Sense of Ownership of a Community Integration Project ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

On the Sense of Ownership of a Community Integration Project: Phenomenology as Praxis in the Transfer of Project Ownership from Third-Party Facilitators to a Community after Conflict Resolution. ... Alternatively, you can download the PDF file directly to your computer, from where it can be opened using a PDF reader.

Predicting Malaysian palm oil price using Extreme Value Theory

OpenAIRE

Chuangchid, K; Sriboonchitta, S; Rahman, S; Wiboonpongse, A

2013-01-01

This paper uses the extreme value theory (EVT) to predict extreme price events of Malaysian palm oil in the future, based on monthly futures price data for a 25 year period (mid-1986 to mid-2011). Model diagnostic has confirmed non-normal distribution of palm oil price data, thereby justifying the use of EVT. Two principal approaches to model extreme values – the Block Maxima (BM) and Peak-Over- Threshold (POT) models – were used. Both models revealed that the palm oil price will peak at ...

Income Migration and Home Price Trajectories in the United States

OpenAIRE

Samuel M. Otterstrom

2015-01-01

This paper models one facet of the relationship between housing market price shifts and income migration among U.S. regions: how income migration relates to regional housing price clusters. The tremendous negative slide in national housing prices from 2006 to 2012 had an uneven spatial distribution. These differences are explored within the context of net income and net population migration (movement of money with people). Median housing prices for urban areas from 2005 to 2010 and IRS county...

Evaluating Drug Prices, Availability, Affordability, and Price Components: Implications for Access to Drugs in Malaysia

Science.gov (United States)

Babar, Zaheer Ud Din; Ibrahim, Mohamed Izham Mohamed; Singh, Harpal; Bukahri, Nadeem Irfan; Creese, Andrew

2007-01-01

Background Malaysia's stable health care system is facing challenges with increasing medicine costs. To investigate these issues a survey was carried out to evaluate medicine prices, availability, affordability, and the structure of price components. Methods and Findings The methodology developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Health Action International (HAI) was used. Price and availability data for 48 medicines was collected from 20 public sector facilities, 32 private sector retail pharmacies and 20 dispensing doctors in four geographical regions of West Malaysia. Medicine prices were compared with international reference prices (IRPs) to obtain a median price ratio. The daily wage of the lowest paid unskilled government worker was used to gauge the affordability of medicines. Price component data were collected throughout the supply chain, and markups, taxes, and other distribution costs were identified. In private pharmacies, innovator brand (IB) prices were 16 times higher than the IRPs, while generics were 6.6 times higher. In dispensing doctor clinics, the figures were 15 times higher for innovator brands and 7.5 for generics. Dispensing doctors applied high markups of 50%–76% for IBs, and up to 316% for generics. Retail pharmacy markups were also high—25%–38% and 100%–140% for IBs and generics, respectively. In the public sector, where medicines are free, availability was low even for medicines on the National Essential Drugs List. For a month's treatment for peptic ulcer disease and hypertension people have to pay about a week's wages in the private sector. Conclusions The free market by definition does not control medicine prices, necessitating price monitoring and control mechanisms. Markups for generic products are greater than for IBs. Reducing the base price without controlling markups may increase profits for retailers and dispensing doctors without reducing the price paid by end users. To increase access and affordability

Evaluating drug prices, availability, affordability, and price components: implications for access to drugs in Malaysia.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zaheer Ud Din Babar

2007-03-01