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The Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF) bought commercial paper from highly rated issuers of U.S. dollar commercial paper during the financial crisis of 2008 to 2009. This is the only study to analyze the accounting characteristics of both financial and non-financial firms participating and not participating in this $738 billion Federal Reserve program. In logistic regressions, CPFF participants and non-participants differed little in solvency or liquidity ratios. Thus, there is little evidence of adverse selection by financial firms. Nevertheless, CPFF participants were significantly more likely to receive capital injections from the TARP bailout, to pose greater systemic risks and be based in North America. JEL Classification: G01, G18, G2, G28 Keywords: ABCP, Asset Backed Commercial Paper, Bailout, Banks, Capital Purchase Program (CPP), Commercial Paper, Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF), Emergency Lending, Federal Reserve, Multinational Firms, Section 13(3), Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), U.S. Treasury, Unsecured Commercial Paper, Unusual and Exigent Circumstances, I. Introduction The Federal Reserve, through its Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF), made aggregate purchases of commercial paper of $738.3 billion between October 27, 2008, and February 1, 2010. This [...]

This ISCEF special issue of The Energy Journal presents new results in the area of energy economics to provide new insights on commodity markets, which will be helpful for investors, policymakers and analysts. In particular, this issue focuses on studies that use recent modeling techniques and empirical design. It introduces seven studies, presented at the fifth International Symposium in Computational Economics and Finance organized in Paris on April 12-14th, 2018 (www.iscef.com). These studies focus on the investigation of the dynamics of commodity markets, discuss the consequences of uncertainty on energy prices and their effects on the real economy and financial markets, and use high frequency data and recent econometric methods to empirically investigate the interactions between commodity markets and financial markets. Keywords: Oil market, Commodities, Uncertainty, 1. INTRODUCTION Over the last decade, commodity markets have experienced high volatility and have shown important changes. For example, the WTI oil price per barrel was about US$58 in 01/2007, [...]

In this article, I explore conceptual connections between spirituality and business, and I advocate for the concept of business spirituality. I explain why the spiritual triad of love, communion, and gift is deeply related to the business triad of abundance, interaction, and resources. I also make clear why individual and collective intentions and cultural values are the main channels of interaction between business and spirituality. In the second part of the article, I argue that business evolves through spiritualization, among other ways: a) receiving meaning and purpose to business organizations; b) supporting its dematerialization; c) helping it overcome the dualism of the market; d) promoting cohesion; e) stimulating innovation; f) endorsing nonprofit institutions; g) inspiring Social Corporate Responsibility; h) encouraging spiritual leadership; i) illuminating the workplace; j) fostering respect for ethics; and k) helping it understand diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the first time since 1913, and as part of the 2017 tax reform, Congress adopted a tax regime that exempts from U.S. taxation dividends from foreign subsidiaries. By doing so, Congress abandoned the general principle that U.S. residents should be subject to tax on all income 'from whatever source derived.' This shift marks a good opportunity for considering the reasons the United States taxed such dividends in the first place. In 1962, Congress enacted 'Subpart-F,' which subjected certain earnings of the foreign subsidiaries of American parent corporations to current-base taxation. This was a deviation from the general tax principle of tax deferral, under which earnings of foreign subsidiaries are taxed only upon repatriation of these earnings. An example of a taxable instance would be by a dividend. The new legislation was the result of political compromise. Although the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) supported a wide-scale elimination of tax deferral, Congress eventually adopted a much narrower law which eliminated tax deferral only in instances where it was abused, such as when deferrals are used to avoid paying otherwise owed U.S. taxes.Seven internal Treasury Department reports found in the archives of Harvard Law School's Law Library reveal the dramatic sequence of events that led to the enactment of Subpart-F, one of the most prominent international tax reforms the United States has ever known. The reports unequivocally support the notion that Subpart-F was initially formed mainly due to the deteriorating U.S. Balance of Payment position, and that its 'original intent,' as designed by its main architect, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Stanley S. Surrey, was to eliminate tax deferral and protect the U.S. tax base. This was based on the principles of equity, efficiency (Capital Export Neutrality), and elegance. Congress, on the other hand, rejected the proposal and adopted a much narrower piece of legislation, mainly due to the concern that eliminating tax deferral would result in a competitive disadvantage to American corporations operating abroad.Based on the reports, as well as the controlling legal and economic concepts of the time, I argue that Congress was mistaken in limiting the original proposal to eliminate tax deferral. This mistake was the result of relying on overly-emphasized and exaggerated competitive concerns, rather than on concrete and sound tax and fiscal policies.Keywords: International Tax, Tax Policy, Tax Reform, Tax Deferral.JEL Classification: D63, E61, E62, F42, H21, H25, H26, K34, 038., I Inrtoduction2018 marks a century of deviation from a very predominant era of tax legislation in the United States. Through the Revenue Act of 1918, the U.S. Congress enacted a [...]

We use eleven-plus test and appeals data obtained from a large local authority to explore how the process of admission to grammar schools produces such a strong social gradient in [...]

The NBER working paper series reached a milestone in May with the distribution of the 30,000th paper. The series was launched in 1973 by labor economist Robert Michael to disseminate [...]

This paper extends the use of the Monopoly® board game as an economic simulation exercise designed to reinforce an understanding of how the accounting cycle impacts the financial statements used to evaluate management performance. This extension adds elements of debt not previously utilized to allow for an introduction of the fundamentals of ratio analysis at a foundation level in financial accounting instruction. This extended approach uses the rules and strategies of a familiar board game to create a simulation of business and economic realities, which then becomes an effective, interactive, in-class financial accounting practice set. The unique combination of each player's skill and luck provides for unlimited outcome possibilities, delivering an interpretive result that students can neither predict nor easily manipulate. This pedagogical approach serves to provide students with a sense of proprietorship in the activities of the instruction and fosters a competitive spirit to succeed in class activities that will ultimately be presented to the entire class. While the instructor surrenders a significant level of control in the class exercise, the uniqueness of each Monopoly® team's game results requires active engagement in-class and additional individual effort on the follow-up assignments outside the classroom. In the previous use of the Monopoly® board game, the class activity provided a valuable parallel for reality in practicing the financial accounting cycle and emphasizing its use by external parties. Because of the dynamic sense of capturing the "real-time" aspect of the game into finished financial statements for analysis, students start to sense a greater appreciation for the role that accounting cycle activities play in business reporting and the assessment of operating results. Using the Monopoly® board game in the first course in financial accounting tends to generate a higher level of competitive energy in the classroom experience, with more actively engaged students grasping the nature and purpose of the financial accounting system more quickly and actively than with other pedagogical approaches previously used. More recently, using Microsoft Excel to reflect the game results and present the financial statements has added to the robust learning experience achieved by incorporating the Monopoly® board game.

There is a large body of literature on the benefits of established lending relationships with banks, which is an intermediated debt market. We extend the literature by testing for benefits from direct lending relationships in the commercial paper market, which is a public debt market. Diamond (1991) suggests that firms access public debt markets when they have enough reputation to no longer require the close monitoring by banks. Using daily rate data for dealer-placed and directly placed commercial paper, we find that the year-end liquidity squeeze is less pronounced in the directly placed commercial paper than in the dealer-placed commercial paper, consistent with the existence of benefits from direct lending relationships in this public debt market., Introduction The global financial crisis has brought attention to the money markets with specific discussions related to their primary characteristics: low credit risk and high liquidity. As the first signs [...]

There is increasing interest in the role academic institutions can play as catalysts of change within the territories in which they are located, by contributing proactively to shaping socio-economic development processes. This role for universities takes us beyond the typical focus on knowledge transfer activities or broad economic impacts. It highlights in particular the contributions of 'softer' disciplines such as management, economics, the humanities and public policy. This paper explores this proactive strategic role for academia in regional development by means of an analysis of a particular case of institutional entrepreneurship in the Basque Country region of Spain. The telling of such stories is critical if we are to reach a better understanding of the impact universities can have in their regions beyond a quantitative, market-focused analysis.

The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing indicate that validation of assessments should include analyses of participants' response processes. However, such analyses typically are conducted only to supplement quantitative field studies with qualitative data, and seldom are such data connected to quantitative data on student or item performance. This paper presents an example of how data from an analysis of mental operations collected using a sociocognitive approach can be quantitatively integrated with other data on student and item performance to validate in part an assessment of higher education students' competency in business and economics. Evidence of forward reasoning and paraphrasing as mental operations is obtained using the think-aloud method. As part of the validity argument and to enhance credibility of the findings, the generalized linear models are expressed as multilevel models in which the analyses of response processes are aligned with quantitative findings from large-scale field studies.

Corporatised leadership in schools in England is being promoted through new actors and new types of school, these latter with corporate structures, values, regulatory freedoms and contractual arrangements with staff. Corporatised leadership is characterised "inter alia" by the promotion of the interests of business through the curriculum, school structure, learning materials and pupil experiences, and the adoption of business-derived leadership practices and identities. Corporate leadership produces and is produced through new actors--here, Chairs of Governors, the alignment of whose symbolic capital with the privileged corporate discourse increases their influence. The paper draws on semi-structured interviews with nine school leaders from a range of school types. The data were analysed using Bourdieu's concept of fields to explore the cross-field effects of business/economics and educational leadership.

In February, the receivership estate of Filefax, Inc., agreed to pay $100,000 to the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to settle [...]

This study investigates how exposure to a field of study influences students’ major choices. If students have incomplete information, exposure potentially helps them to learn about the scope of a field as well as how well the field matches their interest and abilities. We exploit a natural experiment where university students have to write a research paper in business, economics, or law during their first year before they choose a major. Due to oversubscription of business papers, the field of the paper is assigned quasi-randomly. We find that writing in economics raises the probability of majoring in economics by 2.7 percentage points. We show further that this effect varies across subfields: the effect is driven by assignment to topics less typical of the public's perception of the field of economics, suggesting students learn through exposure that the field is broader than they thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to 'It's time tor everyone to stop talking interoperability and actually achieve it' (First Take, June 10, 2017), as any physician who practices medicine knows, the electronic health [...]

Bibliometrics is the quantitative study of bibliographic information. It classifies the information according to different criteria including authors, journals, institutions and countries. This paper presents a general bibliometric overview of the most influential research in business & economics according to the information found in the Web of Science. It includes research from different subcategories including business, business finance, economics and management. For doing so, four general lists are presented: the 50 most cited papers in business & economics of all time, the 40 most influential journals, the 40 most relevant institutions and the most influential countries. The results permit to obtain a general picture of the most significant research in business & economics. This information is very useful in order to identify the leading trends in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 disease led to the most significant change in the world order over the past century, destabilizing the global economy and financial stock markets, the world's economy, social development, business, risk, financial management and financial markets, among others. COVID-19 has generated great uncertainty, and dramatically affected tourism, travel, hospitality, supply chains, consumption, production, operations, valuations, security, financial stress and the prices of all products, including fossil fuel and renewable energy sources. This Editorial introduces a Special Issue of the Journal of Risk and Financial Management (JRFM) on the "Risk and Financial Management of COVID-19 in Business, Economics and Finance". This Special Issue will attract practical, state-of-the-art applications of mathematics, probability and statistical techniques on the topic, including empirical applications. This paper investigates important issues that have been discussed in tourism, global health security and risk management in business as well as the social and medical sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the ownership and location strategies as contingency factors, which affect the relationship between SMEs’ open innovation activities and innovation performance in the context of emerging economies. Drawing from the corporate strategy and open innovation literature, we argued that SMEs with state and foreign ownership can more effectively capture economic rents from open innovation in a weak intellectual-property-rights regime. Meanwhile, the subnational environments in which SMEs locate their businesses is also crucial for them to capture value from open innovation. Using the data of 1050 SMEs in China, we found that state ownership positively and significantly moderates the relationship between openness and innovative performance, while foreign ownership partially supports the same effect. By disentangling the pro-business environment and the market development, we found that for SMEs that are located in a region with a stronger pro-business environment and a higher level of market development, open innovation can bring more value than it does for those located in regions with lower levels of those factors. Overall, this paper also contributes to our understanding of the complementary relationships between ownership and location strategies and open innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China announced a shift towards green infrastructure, green investment and green financing at the 2019 Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in response to criticisms of the negative environmental impact of some earlier BRI infrastructure projects. The objective of this paper is to explore whether there has been a shift in Malaysia towards the new green-aspired goals of the BRI in terms of green governance and projects. The key findings of this paper suggest that there is no discernible shift to green projects as non-green investments are also accepted. Malaysia has requirements for green governance, but implementation can be an issue. Host economies, like Malaysia, must take ownership of green requirements for there to be a sustained shift towards green governance. Likewise, China's investments have to comply with local laws, which can improve the environmental impact when local laws and regulations are judiciously implemented. Keywords: Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Malaysia, green investments, governance., 1. Introduction China launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013 as a platform for global and regional cooperation. Although it is closely and frequently associated with infrastructure development, [...]

Rapid urbanization, high city population growth rates, technological development, environmental impacts, and human wellbeing in urban areas have over the years become increasingly challenging concerns. These trends are related to the complex, multiple factors to be considered when evaluating “smart” cities, that is, municipalities that seek to improve residents’ quality of life by combining new technologies and environmentally sustainable practices. The above tendencies thus add to the myriad of indicators that need to be included in smart city assessments, whose intricacy hinders related decision-making processes. Based on the principles of multiple-criteria decision analysis, this paper seeks to integrate cognitive mapping and the Choquet integral to develop an assessment system that facilitates the evaluation of smart cities, which was named “SMART-C.” The research includes a panel of experts on smart cities who identifies the evaluation criteria and their respective interactions. The results of a real-life application of the assessment system developed in this paper are validated both by the panel members and a representative of the Lisboa E-Nova nonprofit association of the Lisbon City Council's Environment and Energy Department. These experts confirm that the proposed evaluation system facilitates making distinctions between cities according to how fully they develop “smartness.” The advantages and limitations of this assessment framework are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviewed the relevant scientific literature on the business and economics of biobanking to explore key themes and paradigms. The structural properties of the literature were investigated, such as key authors, journals, studies, as well as co-citation and co-authorship networks; the study revealed that the research on business and economics is a niche area within the vast biobanking literature. The research is concentrated in a relatively small number of journals, institutions, and countries, which is rather surprising given the substantial public investment in and concerns about biobank sustainability. The structural analysis also suggested major themes in research on biobanking business and economics and noted shifts in focus on specific themes. The commercialisation of samples is more acknowledged than before but under the condition of equitable sharing of benefits across various stakeholders. Most biobanks are heavily subsidised by the public sector and are considered public goods rather than business enterprises. This is OK, but underutilisation of specimens and low rates of cost recovery suggest that the current mainstream operating model is hardly sustainable. With many biobanks maturing, long-term sustainability became a key topic of the discussion on biobanking trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature on health inequalities often overlooks the nuanced dynamics, particularly among vulnerable children with chronic diseases and disabilities and fails to consider regional disparities within countries like South Africa. This paper asserts the necessity for a more granular analysis in South Africa, recognizing the varied health outcomes for children across different economic segments and geographical settings. Specifically, the health trajectories for children differ markedly between rural formal areas, regions under traditional authorities, formal urban areas, and informal urban settlements. Addressing the generalizations common in prior research, this study takes a precise, regionally focused approach to socio-economic-driven disparities in chronic illness or disability. It distinguishes between rural formal areas, traditional authority areas, formal urban areas, and informal urban areas, unveiling the intricate layers of health disparities. Using data from the National Income Dynamics Study, concentration indices, and the Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition method, the paper analyzed health inequality trends from 2008 to 2017. The results uncover significant inequalities, with alarming trends, particularly among children with chronic illnesses and disabilities in traditional authority regions and informal urban environments. The paper's evidence shows that rural formal areas have experienced a decline in health disparities as opposed to the deepening divide in traditional authority-led regions. The urban analysis reveals a split: while formal urban settings often favour the wealthier, informal urban areas indicate a shift towards lower socioeconomic brackets. The decomposition analysis highlights the evolving socioeconomic elements influencing each region over time. These insights emphasize the urgent necessity for geographically tailored policy interventions. By understanding the distinct socioeconomic landscapes across various regions, we can formulate policies that resonate with each area's specific realities and challenges. Such targeted strategies are essential in reducing health inequalities and enhancing the life quality of children with chronic health conditions and disabilities, playing a critical role in South Africa's journey toward comprehensive health equity. JEL Classification: I14 Keywords: Socioeconomic disparities, Chronic illness, Disability, South African children, Urban and rural variations, Health inequality, INTRODUCTION Globally, persistent health concerns and disabilities, including HIV and AIDS, respiratory ailments, undernourishment, and mental health issues, present considerable public health obstacles for children. A striking United Nations Children's [...]

It is widely held that smart contracts on a blockchain possess several unique properties, including immutability, disintermediation, and enhanced security, that can be advantageous to organizations. In particular, having these properties can enable smart contracts to benefit human resources departments in a number of ways, including applicant verification, tracking employee skills and tasks, and facilitating compensation. However, it is also reported that effectively implementing smart contracts involves a number of challenges to HR managers. To address these challenges, it would be valuable to establish criteria to help HR managers employ smart contracts successfully. The purpose of this paper is to develop a set of such criteria. The paper first provides an overview of the nature of blockchain and smart contracts and then, based on a review of relevant literature, describes how implementation of blockchain-enabled smart contracts in an HR department may benefit an organization by producing transaction cost savings through expediting processes, enhancing security, and reducing intermediaries. The paper then focuses on various challenges that have been identified in the literature to the successful use of smart contracts. These include issues regarding smart contract integrity, immutability, and security, as well as potential problems associated with a variety of legal issues. Synthesizing this information, the paper develops a set of best practice guidelines to help HR managers determine whether and how to employ smart contracts successfully for HR-related processes. The guidelines emphasize the importance of initial understanding and testing of planned smart contracts, protecting security by ensuring that only permissioned people can access smart contract data, and guaranteeing the integrity of smart contracts by paying very close attention to the translation of natural to programming language and establishing robust reviews of programmed contracts. Policy implications of the guidelines include the importance of HR departments ensuring that all employees who are involved in implementing the technology have a good understanding of the nature and capabilities of smart contracts, that robust methods be implemented to guarantee that the contracts are correctly programmed, and that HR managers keep abreast of legislative environment related to legal issues that may affect their department's use of smart contracts. JEL classifications: M12, M5, O33, L20 Keywords: Smart Contract, HRM, Blockchain technology, INTRODUCTION Utilizing smart contracts on a blockchain can improve processes common to human resource management (HRM), including refining applicant verification; accurately and securely tracking individual employees' skills, talents, and tasks; [...]

Estimation of empirical relationships is prone to bias. Economists have carefully studied sources of bias in structural and quasi-experimental approaches, but the randomized control trial (RCT) has only begun to receive such scrutiny. In this paper, we argue that several lessons from medicine, derived from analysis of thousands of RCTs establishing a clear link between certain practices and biased estimates, can be used to reduce the risk of bias in economics RCTs. We identify the subset of these lessons applicable to economics and use them to assess risk of bias in estimates from economics RCTs published between 2001 and 2011. In comparison to medical studies, we find most economics studies do not report important details on study design necessary to assess risk of bias. Many report practices that suggest risk of bias, though this does not necessarily mean bias resulted. We conclude with suggestions on how to remedy these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the growth of local-currency bond markets in Emerging Asia and the institutional and policy challenges facing the region's economies for their further development. It presents an empirical analysis of the relationship between local-currency government bond (LCGB) market development and the components of financial development, using panel data for selected Emerging Asian economies. The analysis seeks to identify the key determinants for the development of LCGB markets. The results show that the depth of and access to both financial markets and financial institutions have a significantly positive impact on LCGB market development. Critical factors associated with local-currency bond market depth include macroeconomic variables, the exchange-rate regime, capital account openness and creditor rights. Based on these results, the paper offers policy directions for fostering the development of local-currency bond markets in the region. Keywords: Local-currency government bond, bond market development, financial deepening, financial development, Southeast Asia, Asia, 1. Introduction Emerging Asia's bond markets have grown substantially over the last two decades. For instance, in the six ASEAN countries for which data are available (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, [...]

Theoretical papers have identified several sources of inefficiencies of flow-based market coupling (FBMC), the implicit congestion management method used to couple the Central Western European (CWE) electricity markets. These inefficiencies ultimately lead to welfare losses. In this paper, a large-scale model framework is introduced for FBMC assessments, focusing on modeling the capacity allocation and market clearing processes. The present paper completes this framework by presenting a newly developed redispatch model. Furthermore, we provide a case study assessing improved price zone configurations (PZCs) for the CWE electricity system, motivated by the debate on the currently-existing PZC. Our results show that improved PZCs--even while maintaining the number of price zones--can significantly reduce redispatch quantities and overall system costs. Moreover, making use of the insights of (Felten et al., 2021), we explain why increasing the number of price zones may not always increase welfare when using FBMC. Keywords: Price zones, Zonal pricing, Flow-based market coupling, Electricity market design, Welfare analysis, Redispatch, 1. INTRODUCTION With increasing amounts of variable non-dispatchable electricity generation from renewable sources, the locations of supply and demand of electricity frequently fall apart. Therefore, electricity transmission and congestion management [...]

With the deepening of electricity market reform in China, the competition in the electricity retail market becomes increasingly intense. Electricity retailers (ERs) need to explore new business models to enhance their competitiveness in the retail market. Meanwhile, with the improvement of industrial production and people's living standards, more and more nonlinear electrical equipment have been put into use, leading to severe harmonic pollution problems. Harmonic pollution causes loss of electricity, resulting in the economic loss of customers, especially for large industrial customers. In the above contexts, this paper proposes a novel business model that incorporates harmonic control as a value-added service into electricity retail contracts for utility-owned ERs. Both utility-owned ERs and customers can benefit from the designed business model. For customers, it helps them to improve the power quality while saving the electricity cost. For ERs, it helps them to cultivate the customer loyalty and improve the customer satisfaction. A case study is performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed business model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses to what extent Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) are applicable in sparsely populated areas (SPA) departing from the S3 concept's theoretical background and the experiences of S3 implementation in five European SPA. It was found that S3 has induced a transition in how innovation is addressed, for example, through a more decentralized support system and more proactive approaches to natural resource management unlocking new market opportunities for bio-based innovations. Finally, the research noted a drive to find new governance mechanisms (multi-actor, multi-sectoral and multilevel), in order to sustain human capital development, the most critical resource in the SPA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing relevance of business corporations to the lives of older persons, gerontology has given very little, if any, attention to this field. Further, it seems that both the conceptual and the empirical study of what we firstly term "corporate gerontology"—the rich and diverse ways that corporations interact with, influence, and are influenced by older persons and the aging of society—are quite rare. This systematic literature review was designed and executed to explore and present the current state of academic research in the multidisciplinary realm of aging and the business corporation. Of the 46 papers surveyed, the majority belong to the category in which aging is an independent variable that influences the performance of business corporations. Only 27% belong to the second category, which explores how the conduct of corporations can influence various aspects of aging. In light of the retreat of the welfare state and the rising neoliberal system, the lack of adequate governmental responses to aging has paved the way for profit-guided business corporations to enter the field. Their conduct should not be overlooked, and in establishing a new theoretical framework of corporate gerontology, we hope it will draw future research and public attention and raise awareness of this phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the process of scheduling multiple generating units, an up/down decision for every generating unit has to be made for every hour on the planning horizon. Once the unit commitment is decided for every generating unit, a generation level (economic dispatch) from the committed unit is calculated to minimize the total operation cost. Such a problem is known as a unit commitment problem (UCP). Because an up/down pattern is expressed with a vector of binary variables, one has to solve a combinatorial optimization problem. Due to electricity liberalization or the introduction of distributed power sources in recent years, the need to solve the UCP by autonomous distributed agents, that is, solving distributed UCP (DUCP), comes about. This paper proposes a method of solving the DUCP with a Walrasian auction. The main feature of the proposed method is that not only a generation-level pattern but also an up/down pattern can be determined. The results of computational experiments show that the DUCP is solved through the cooperation of autonomous distributed agents by using the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Artificial Intelligence is a disruptive technology developed during the 20th century, which has undergone an accelerated evolution, underpinning solutions to complex problems in the business world. Neural Networks, Machine Learning, or Deep Learning are concepts currently associated with terms such as digital marketing, decision making, industry 4.0 and business digital transformation. Interest in this technology will increase as the competitive advantages of the use of Artificial Intelligence by economic entities is realised. The aim of this research is to analyse the state-of-the-art research of Artificial Intelligence in business. To this end, a bibliometric analysis has been implement using the Web of Science and Scopus online databases. By using a fractional counting method, this paper identifies 11 clusters and the most frequent terms used in Artificial Intelligence research. The present study identifies the main trends in research on Artificial Intelligence in business and proposes future lines of inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unemployment remains a global challenge that requires additional ways of dealing with it. Therefore, the role of Reserve or Central Banks in reducing unemployment is of recent seeking more attention. This paper examines monetary policy shocks and unemployment nexus in the emerging market economies in Africa. The models of this study are designed within the panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) framework. The models majorly rely on the New Keynesian model. Given the nominal rigidities of the New Keynesian model, the monetary policy can therefore, serve as an important tool which can have a reasonable leverage on real variables. As claimed by Bernanke (2007) that the stance of monetary policy was appropriate to prevent deflation and high unemployment and as it has been empirically tested for developed economies, this paper provides a quantitative evaluation of an aspect of such statement in the context of emerging economies of Africa. We used annual data series on five emerging economies in Africa over the period 1991 to 2020, making 150 balanced panel data observations. The countries include, Egypt, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa. The selection was based on those African countries identified as emerging markets by various international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), James O'Neill, Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE), S&P Global Ratings, EM Bond Index, Dow Jones, Russell, Columbia University and Cornell University. The findings of the study revealed that unemployment falls for at most four periods in response to contractionary monetary policy shocks while the response dissipates afterwards. Individually, unemployment rate in Mauritius and Nigeria rose in response to contractionary monetary policy shocks while in South Africa, Egypt and Morocco, it falls in response to contractionary monetary policy shocks. By and large, the results seem to show credence to the effectiveness of monetary policy in each country to achieve desired macroeconomic targets. The main implication of the results is that, expansionary monetary and fiscal policy undertaken by policymakers of emerging economies in Africa can enhance the labor market to recover from the downturns recently experienced in these economies. JEL Classifications: C33, E24, E52, O55 Keywords: Monetary policy shocks; Unemployment; Vector Autoregressions; Emerging Market Economies in Africa, INTRODUCTION Some economies of the world have recently been characterized by a transition from traditional economies, which heavily relied on agriculture and export of raw materials, to a more industrialized [...]

This paper examines the effects of time-of-use (TOU) pricing on distributed renewable energy (DRE) investment for a non-power generating firm. We develop an electricity consumption cost-minimization model by considering the intermittent generation as well as the firm's electricity consumption. It has been found that implementing full retail prices compensation for the surplus renewable electricity is probably not good as it may lead to DRE over-investment. Moreover, we find that the firm's optimal investment strategy is not necessarily sensitive to the price signal of TOU pricing (i.e., the ratio of peak to off-peak price). Particularly, when the service-level difference in meeting a firm's electricity consumption between peak and off-peak periods by adopting DRE technology is above a critical threshold in relation to the peak time, a strong price signal will not promote the firm's optimal DRE capacity investment. This paper yields a policy insight that 'getting the time right' may be more important than 'getting the price right' in terms of enabling DRE investment for TOU pricing design. Keywords: Time-of-use pricing, Distributed renewable energy. Capacity investment, Intermittency, 1. INTRODUCTION Renewable energy development, including distributed and centralized renewable generation, is one important way for energy transition towards carbon neutrality (Baudry and Bonnet. 2019; Yang et al., 2022). From [...]

The aim of this paper is to examine how a shock in the oil industry affects firms' debt funding obligations using credit default swaps in different segments of the oil industry's value chain. In particular, it focuses on two types of shocks suffered by upstream, integrated and downstream firms in the industry, namely (1) endogenous shocks resulting from oil-market shocks, and (2) exogenous shocks resulting from the recent financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. Using a wide data set ranging from 2007 to 2020, this paper measures the dynamic relationships between the CDS spreads of oil-related firms, US dollar exchange rates, and crude oil prices at different sectors of the oil-industry value chain, namely, upstream, integrated and downstream. Overall results show that the upstream firms have suffered the largest impacts during the COVID-19 crisis, when experiencing shocks from USD rates or oil prices. Integrated firms have suffered the second-largest effects, however, and interestingly, no significant impacts from shocks are observed on CDS spreads for downstream firms. Keywords: CDS Spread, Oil, Corporate Funding, Upstream. Downstream, 1. INTRODUCTION Post the 1990s, the world has seen a further increase in debt-issuance activities by the corporate sector in financial markets not only due to the diversity of the [...]

This paper provides the first empirical analysis of the homeowner-renter gap for electric appliances. Using U.S. nationally representative data, the analysis shows that renters are significantly more likely than homeowners to have electric heat, electric hot water heating, an electric stove, and an electric dryer. The gap is highly statistically significant, prevalent across regions, and holds after controlling for the type, size, and age of the home, as well as for climate and household characteristics. The paper argues that this gap arises from the same split incentives that lead to the 'landlord-tenant problem' and discusses the implications of the gap for an emerging set of policies aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions through building electrification. Keywords: Electrification mandates, Natural gas bans, Electric-preferred building codes, Landlord-tenant problem, Principal-agent problem, Split incentives, 1. INTRODUCTION There is a growing consensus that building electrification will play a crucial role in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Several recent large-scale studies of the United States, for example, [...]

Fog computing is a paradigm which brings computing, storage, and networking closer to end users and end devices for better service provisioning. One of the crucial factors in the success of fog computing is on how to incentivize the individual users’ edge resources and provide them to end users such that fog computing is economically beneficial to all involved economic players. In this paper, we model and analyze a market of fog computing, from which we aim at drawing practical implications to uncover how the fog computing market should operate. To this end, we conduct an economic analysis of such user-oriented fog computing by modeling a market consisting of Infrastructure and Service Provider (ISP), end Service Users (SUs), and Edge Resource Owners (EROs) as a non-cooperative game. In this market, ISP, which provides a platform for fog computing, behaves as a mediator or a broker which leases EROs’ edge resources and provides various services to SUs. In our model, a two-stage dynamic game is used where in each stage, there exists a dynamic game, one for between ISP and EROs and another for between ISP and SUs, to model the market more practically. Despite this complex game structure, we provide a closed-form equilibrium analysis which gives an insight on how much economic benefit is obtained by ISP, SUs, and EROs from user-oriented fog computing under what conditions, and we figure out the economic factors that have a significant impact on the success of fog computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prosumer market, where energy surplus can be sold to consumers or utility, has emerged with the increasing penetration of renewable energy sources. The energy management system plays a key role in the prosumer market environment by controlling dispatchable sources—for example, the energy storage systems (ESSs)—to achieve operational goals, such as economic or stable operations. This paper, in this context, proposes the coordination scheme between day-ahead optimizing planning and real-time corrective operations of the ESS, aiming to achieve economic benefit—by reducing operational costs—and contract fulfillment—by providing designated power to customers in a grid-connected industrial complex at peak-load time. All in all, the ultimate goal of the proposed methodology is to maximize the profits of prosumers in various operating conditions, such as the cloudy weather and grid supporting. This paper also presents case studies with a test bed of prosumer market to validate the proposed method. Actual field data of renewable generations and load consumptions in an industrial complex are used as historical data, i.e., production and load profiles. For day-ahead optimization that minimizes operation costs as well as prevents battery deterioration, quadratic programming is used. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Researchers have long studied the effect of network embeddedness on innovation outcomes, resulting in mixed findings. In this paper, we aim to take a novel approach to reconcile prior conflicting perspectives. We argue that previous seemingly discrepant findings may stem from ignoring different forms of network embeddedness and innovation. An innovator has doubly embedded relations in innovation networks: relational and structural embeddedness (SE). Additionally, innovations are categorized into two distinct types: exploratory and exploitative innovations. Our analysis is based on 2936 patent records involving 1561 inventors from a large U.S. company over a 16-year period. The findings indicate that, both relational and SE contribute to promoting exploitative innovation, while they have inverted U-shaped relationships with exploratory innovation. Furthermore, we argue that the whole network structure (e.g., the small-world quotient) must be considered to fully understand the effectiveness of network embeddedness. The implications of our findings are discussed for embeddedness, innovation, and network theory. For policy practice, researchers and knowledge workers should be more aware of modifying the levels of relational and SE, adopt appropriate embeddedness levels in a different situation, and match their embeddedness strategy with the whole structure of the intrafirm network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies have used various datasets and methodologies to analyze the relationship between bilateral trade and income convergence among trading partners. However, most studies have not paid attention to the effect that income levels and nature of bilateral trade have on the speed of income convergence. In this paper, we argue that the income levels of trading partners and the nature of bilateral trade play important role in the relationship between bilateral trade and international income convergence. To account for the effect of income levels of trading partners, this paper presents an approach that explicitly accounts for bilateral trade among high-income (OECD) countries, bilateral trade between high-income and low-income (SSA) countries, and bilateral trade among low-income (SSA) countries. We also used total trade data for 25 OECD countries and 30 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1980-2018 to avoid the potential bias for selecting certain countries based on arbitrary percentage of trade relationship. We used the 2SLS estimations technique to avoid endogeneity problems due to the nature of the dataset. The paper finds that the bilateral trade-income convergence relationship for OECD to SSA is the strongest. This result throws light on the claim that the nature of bilateral trade between high-income and low-income countries promotes one directional knowledge spillover from high-income to low-income countries which enables low-income countries to adopt new technologies and grow faster than their high-income counterparts. Also, bilateral trade among OECD countries, which mostly comprises of differentiated products, promotes descent income convergence among them. However, bilateral trade among SSA countries has the least effect on income convergence. Findings of the study have important implications for bilateral trade among low-income countries and between low income and high income countries. First, if SSA countries want to develop and catch up with their rich counterparts, they should continue to promote free trade with high income countries by dismantling remaining protection policies. Second, the African Continental Free Trade Area's (AfCFTA) efforts to boost the manufacturing sector through industrialization is in the right direction to promote the production of more differentiated products in Africa which will create growth in income for member countries as they trade more. Finally, there is the need for SSA countries to increase investment rates and improve human capital accumulation to enable them to accelerate the adoption of new technologies and grow faster than their high-income counterparts, while bridging the income gap between them through trade. JEL Classifications: F11; F14; O33; O47 Keywords: Economic Openness; Income Convergence; Bilateral Trade; Economic Growth; 2SLS Estimator, INTRODUCTION The implications of international trade on income differential among trading nations have been professionally researched since the works of neoclassical growth theorists (Solow, 1956; Swan 1956) which generated the [...]

The manufacturing sector plays a strategic role as a major contributor to economic growth and development. However, the harsh business environment in Nigeria has constrained learning and capability building in the Nigerian manufacturing sector. The present state of the manufacturing sector underscores the need for firm-level learning and strategic policy actions. This paper utilized data from the Enterprise Survey Panel covering the periods 2007, 2009, and 2014/2015 to investigate firm learning and productivity in the Nigerian manufacturing sector. Case study illustrations were also undertaken to further provide insights into the links between learning variables and the productivity of selected firms in the sector. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics; dynamic panel model (DPM) via ordinary least squares (OLS) and General Method of Moments (GMM) techniques. The results of the estimation show there is a positive and significant relationship between export participation lagged by one period (t-1) and the current firm performance. A one-period lag of the learning variables, namely: skills and training increased the productivity of firms. The case study illustrations revealed that major learning capabilities include customer feedback; through employees, staff training/seminars/workshops, and supplier feedback. The paper provides evidence to conjecture that the STI mode of learning, which involves formal research and development (R&D) in firms is not deep enough, and that domestic firms have less productivity relative to firms with some proportion of foreign ownership. Also, some of the constraints to learning and productivity are an unstable regulatory environment, poor infrastructure and high cost of doing business. The paper recommends both formal and informal modes/mechanisms of learning are important to ensure improved productivity of manufacturing firms in Nigeria Also, learning opportunities may differ within and across manufacturing subsectors. Industry regulators or agencies should organize to provide a forum for firms and relevant stakeholders to regularly interact on learning experiences to learn from each other and collaborate to address obstacles to productivity. JEL Classifications: O14, O33 and D22 Keywords: Learning, innovation, productivity, manufacturing, Nigeria, INTRODUCTION The manufacturing sector of any economy plays a strategic role as a major contributor to economic growth and development. It holds the key to employment, income, and an improved [...]

The aim of this paper is to identify, discuss and find solutions to the major challenges which occur in the process of teaching negotiation skills, given the particular aspects which define the current context of higher education in the field of economics and business. By what means, to which extent and what challenges Business English teachers come across while trying to enable their students acquire these skills will be debated in the following parts of this paper. The first part of the paper will provide a definition of the term "negotiation" as well as an introduction in the current educational context at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University, Iasi, Romania. The second part of the paper will identify and discuss the major challenges which occur in the process of teaching ESP and BE, in general, and in negotiations, in particular. Finally, a practical example of how our purpose could be achieved will be provided in the third part. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of the Smart Specialisation Strategy (S3) has required European regions to identify the technological domains in which they show superior innovative capabilities. This choice should promote specialization and facilitate diversification into new sectors. Given that regional specialization shows path dependence, successful diversification can be achieved in domains closely related to the existing knowledge base. The paper provides a first empirical assessment of the coherence between the technological domains chosen by Italian regions and those in which they show actual innovative capabilities, as measured by their patenting activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides some insights into the way a fabrication laboratory (FabLab) increases local entrepreneurial capabilities by offering a new and collective way to co-shape novelties based on a bricolage mode of innovation. With an original survey of 48 international FabLabs, it was observed that FabLabs tend to co-produce more unstabilized prototypes or drafts when interacting with small firms, whereas they co-produce more spin-offs and related variety when in a partnership with large firms. Moreover, FabLabs produce more outputs when they are connected to both small and large firms. In other words, the FabLab's output is sensitive to its industrial partnerships and can be a driver for regional diversification under specific conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]