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This article details the creation of two algorithms to improve upon Annie Moore optimization software to aid refugees in finding resettlement locations with employment opportunities. The authors apply the new algorithms to the United States resettlement agency HIAS’ data from 2014 to 2019 in comparison to Annie’s baseline hindsight-optimal employment. The new algorithms take future employment of new arrivals into account and are incorporated into an updated version of the Annie software.

We study a general cost minimization game in which each player minimizes the cost of its resource consumption while achieving a target utility level. The player strategies are coupled through both their cost functions and their utility functions. Equilibrium exists only for certain target utility levels, and is characterized by the equilibrium of a dual game in which each player maximizes its utility while keeping the cost of its resource consumption below a cost threshold. We show that the dual game possesses equilibrium under very mild conditions, in particular with no a priori assumption on the compactness of player strategy sets. We also obtain an inner estimate of the set of equilibrium utility levels in the case of decoupled cost functions by a minimax approach. We then relax the hard constraint on achieving a target utility level, and introduce an unconstrained weighted cost minimization game which always possesses equilibrium. Under mild conditions, we recover the original equilibrium as the penalty on not achieving the target utility levels increases. Finally, we discuss the possibility of learning to play an equilibrium strategy via the best response dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on papers to be discussed at the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research's Program on Public Economics meeting. Presentation of a general equilibrium model of the market for higher education; Various approaches to the political and economic control of global public goods; Role of information and social interactions in employees' decision to enroll in a retirement plan.

The article lists the papers discussed during the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Organizational Economics Working Group meeting on May 18-19, 2012 in Cambridge, Massachusetts including one on the theory of formulated strategy, another on equilibrium, and one on human capital.

Looks at papers to be discussed at the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research's Program on Monetary Economics meeting. Posterior densities for several objects relevant to designing and evaluating monetary policy; Explanation on the reduced effect of monetary policy shocks; Effects of monetary policy on output and inflation in a dynamic general equilibrium model.

The article presents economic forecasts in the U.S. as of November 23, 1981. Topics discussed include the unlikely occurrence of credit crunch due to softening economy and reducing economy and stability in the short-term borrowing despite crowding of borrowers. Also mentioned is the possibility of shrinking money market funds which will lead to falling interest rates and opening of the bond market.

The article presents a discussion of the performance of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, adapted from a working paper published by libertarian think tank Cato Institute. Topics explored include the failure of the agency to improve economic stability of the country, the efforts launched by the Federal Reserve to address the 2008 financial crisis, and the capital regulations for commercial banks implemented by the agency in collaboration with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Abstract: The aim of minimal cost flow problem (MCFP) is to find the least transportation cost of a single commodity through a capacitated network. This paper presents a model to deal with one particular group of such problems in which the supply and demand of nodes and the capacity and cost of edges are represented as fuzzy numbers. For easier reference, hereafter, we refer to this group of problems as fully fuzzified MCFP. To represent our model, Hukuhara’s difference and approximated multiplication are used. Thereafter, we sort fuzzy numbers by an order using a ranking function and show that it is a total order, i.e., a reflexive, anti-symmetric, transitive and complete binary relation. Utilizing the proposed ranking function, we transform the fully fuzzified MCFP into three crisp problems solvable in polynomial time. From this standpoint, combinatorial algorithms are provided to solve the above-mentioned problem and find the fuzzy optimal flow. Furthermore, the proposed order is related to the importance weights of the center, the left spread and the right spread of each fuzzy number. Thus, this method is capable of handling the decision maker’s risk taking. By comparing some previous ranking function-based works with our method, the efficiency of the latter is revealed. Finally, an application of our proposed method to petroleum industry is presented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

It's tough to get consumers to adopt innovations--and it's getting tougher all the time. That's because more and more markets are taking on the characteristics of networks. The interconnections among today's companies are so plentiful that often a new product's adoption by one player depends on its systematic adoption by other players. Consider the disparate companies involved with the popularization of digital photography: software vendors, camera manufacturers, broadband communications companies, printer manufacturers, and so on. By contrast, Kodak was pretty much the sole player involved with popularizing film photography. The traditional levers executives use to launch products--such as targeting unique customer segments or developing compelling value propositions--don't work as well in this new environment. Instead, innovators must orchestrate a change of behaviors across the market, unraveling the status quo so that a large number of players adopt their offerings and believe they are better off for having done so. In this article, Monitor Group's Bhaskar Chakravorti outlines a four-part framework for doing just that. The innovator must reason back from a target endgame, implementing only those strategies that maximize its chances of getting to its goal. It must complement power players, positioning its innovation as an enhancement to their products or services. The innovator must offer coordinated switching incentives to three core groups: the players that add to the innovation's benefits, the players that act as channels to adopters, and the adopters themselves. And it must preserve flexibility in case its initial strategy fails. Chakravorti uses Adobe's introduction of its Acrobat software as an example of an innovator that took into account other players in the network--and succeeded because of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on research into market efficiency and how anomalies in financial markets can be caused by the way investors choose fund managers. It comments on the paper "Two Centuries of Trend Following" by Yves Lempérère, Philip Seager, Marc Potters, and others on hedge fund momentum and short selling of commodities. It talks about the paper "Asset Management Contracts and Equilibrium Prices" by Dimitri Vayanos, Paul Woolley, and Andrea Buffa concerning low beta stocks.

Existing executive compensation schemes sound good in theory but end up rewarding managers regardless of whether they've created value for shareholders. According to the Iron Law School, pay depends on how much the executive needs to subsist and reproduce. Twenty years ago, executives could subsist on $1 million a year. Now, seemingly as a result of acid rain and ozone depletion, they need much more. The School of Supply and Demand says that salaries are based on the supply of people qualified for top-level jobs and the demand for them. Should we assume, then, that the salaries for Wall Street upstarts are high because so few young people have the required postgraduate degree in moral philosophy? The Hay Entitlement School says that you pay the job title, not the job holder. But personnel departments are ever ready to adjust job titles to avoid disappointing people. The Pay for Performance School ties salary to things like ROE and EPS. But too often this doctrine links pay to how the company wishes the executive would perform. A new compensation scheme, the shareholder-executive linkage formula, does a better job of relating CEO salary to shareholder value. Its tenets are simple: limit pay to 250% of the salary of the president of the United States or 25% of the most valuable player of the National Basketball Association, pay additional compensation in stock bought only at market rates, and replace stock options with simultaneous puts and calls. This plan makes the important connection between the goals of the top executive and the goals of the shareholders. If the shareholders win, the executive wins, otherwise, he or she pays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the attempted international control of the supply of tin ore by the tin industry in order to stabilize prices. The author first looks at how tin production is distributed. The U.S. uses most of the tin produced in the world, although it does not have any mines or smelting industries. When tin prices hit an all-time high in 1926, production increased dramatically which caused an over abundance of stock. Prices fell and companies merged to lower their operating costs. Tin producing countries banded together to limit the production and output of tin. Prices continued to fall, however, because of production still exceeded consumption. The author includes the prospects for tin restriction in the future.

The article discusses why the reasons given for Austria's economic slump are insufficient, and that its condition can only be explained by taking into account factors inherent in its economic system. Others have attributed the economic slump to the breakup of the economic unity under the former Empire in the area and the world collapse in the price of agricultural and raw materials. However, the author attempts to show that the economic conditions stem from the movements in production and prices, and the changes in the cost of production in industry, in the value of industrial capital, in savings, and in the volume of consumption.

This article argues that financial downturns in the U.S. may be important safety valves for the world's economy. The author offers evidence of several down periods in the U.S. that did not lead to a loss of global economic growth. The short bursts of market volatility in the U.S. scared investors and borrowers enough to temper spending. It is the author's opinion that a financial crisis every five years is part of the self-equilibrating mechanism of the world economy.

The article focuses on the external debts and debt crises as the challenges for global economic stability. Topics discussed include macroeconomic level system that has failed to reduce volatility in financial markets; sovereign debt which was the major challenge in Mexico, the Russian Federation, Argentina and Brazil; and pattern of crises that was repeated Ireland and Spain during the Eurozone crisis.

In economics, people want to find out the equilibrium set of actions of each agents in each markets as well as the associated prices and quantities. As agents and markets increase in number, the computing power required to solve this problem increases exponentially in nm, and inversely with the level of precision one wishes to achieve. The article focuses on the Synthetic Economy for Analysis and Simulation (SEAS) project. SEAS is a distributed interactive, real-time environment for conducting large-scale experiments and simulations in areas where interactions among agents need to be studied. It is a dynamically reconfigurable environment structured around the interplay of human decisions and game events that requires active involvement of participants. It helps participants understand sources and motivations underlying the decisions by placing them in shoes of executives running firms in different points in time and challenging them to do better. Games dealing with current or future situations help explore the potential implications of various courses of action.

The article offers tips on how to prevent oil-separation in peanut butter. People need to keep peanut butter in a cool place. Then, they must combine nut butter with hard fat or hydrogenated oil which slightly dilutes the flavor. In response to the research, Procter & Gamble Co. has submitted a paper titled "On a Probability Mechanism to Attain an Economic Balance Between the Resultant Error of Response and the Bias of Nonresponse."

The article focuses on the plan created by the British government to recover fiscal equilibrium, to recover national balance of payments and reduce the load of internal public debt. The 5% war loan will be converted to gather 100 million dollars of annual saving in interest payments. Tariffs are expected to redress both economic and fiscal lack of equilibrium and ease burdens. Tariff advocates are claiming advantages such as lower foreign payments on imports and protection of hard-pressed industry.

This article focuses on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) final 1984-85 soybean crop report. The report contained a little surprise for bean traders. However, the bullish report was diluted somewhat by the bearish corn report. Utilizing the USDA supply/demand estimates, it appears that the carryover will be only 174 million bushels, instead of the 270 million bushels envisioned by the trade. These smaller numbers are causing more attention than usual to be devoted to the southern hemisphere crop. The leading Brazilian producing states have been dry and hot in recent weeks.

The article discusses the state of the economy in India as of early 2012. According to the article, the Indian economy suffered following a period of prosperity during the 1990s. The article states that India's economy in early 2012 was plagued by high inflation, declining agricultural productivity, and a relative lack of foreign investment. The article examines the alleged relationship between the private sector and the stability of government in India.

The article reports that Professor Gerard Debreu of the University of California at Berkeley has received the Nobel Prize in Economics for his investigations into the theoretical tendency of open markets to reach optimal equilibrium. Critics claimed that it was wrong to assume that Debreu's economic models proved anything about the optimal character of any particular market.

Expresses opinion on the 1971 India-Pakistan conflict and its impact on the global equilibrium. Impact of the India-Pakistan war on China; Presence of Soviet operation in the war and its implication for the Soviet Indian Ocean strategy; Effect on the petroleum market.

The article provides information on the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA) in The U.S. According to the Wall Street Journal, the EESA 2008 has attained up $800 billion from $700 billion public funds and cites how it will turn the country's federal government into the biggest hedge-fund. It also highlights that problem has been cited with this dilemma due to insufficient trust among the financial firms.