Proposition of a framework for interpretation of complex problems and initiatives focused on sustainability： The food, energy and biofuel crisis

The world faces a double crisis： the food crisis and energy crisis. The agribusiness is at the center of this societal dilemma, involving aspects from the volumes of production and productivity up to the way to produce them. Furthermore, there is a discussion about the need for establishing a trade-off between production of food and energy. A central aspect regarding the way of production is on how existing resources to be used and, especially, when its degradation occurs. These discussions indicate the need for interpretation and for proposition of solutions, under a complex perspective, for this double crisis. Accordingly, this paper proposes a framework for the interpretation of complex problems and for initiatives focused on sustainability that was applied to the context of food, energy and biofuel crisis. The theoretical background comprises two theories. The first is the complexity theory, which enabled the proposition of a system to understand the reality, distinguishing and combining the several existing realities without losing the global notion; The second is the sustainability theory, which enabled the systematization of stages for the planning of more sustainable actions to operate in that context; Lastly, it was possible to infer desirable characteristics that other theories could also be included, aiming to propose solutions that are more appropriated for this specific context.     

A model of biased intermediation

We study situations in which consumers rely on a biased intermediary's advice when choosing among sellers. We introduce the notion that sellers' and consumers' payoffs can be congruent or conflicting, and show that this has important implications for the effects of bias. Under congruence, the firm benefiting from bias has an incentive to offer a better deal than its rival and consumers can be better‐off than under no bias. Under conflict, the favored firm offers lower utility, and bias harms consumers. We study various policies for dealing with bias and show that their efficacy also depends on whether the payoffs exhibit congruence or conflict.     

The Effect of the Arab Spring on Preferences for Redistribution in Egypt

This paper investigates the effect of the revolution that occurred in January 2011 in Egypt on the demand for redistribution in that country, which has drastically increased since that period. This shock has been an important event, enhancing freedom and the political structure. In a first step, taking into account the main determinants of preferences for redistribution in the literature, our results differ, showing a positive impact of religion and a negative impact of altruistic attitudes. In a second step, we rely on a diff-in-diff approach to estimate the effect of the revolution, using three similar countries as a control group. We find that Egyptians became much more favorable to redistribution after the Arab Spring. Moreover, the revolution effect is stronger for the poorest people and those who are interested in politics.     

Commons and cooperatives: A new governance of collective action

The Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) is emerging as a social movement capable of moving society beyond the imbalances of the capitalist market economy and its top‐down regulation by the state. But the SSE's progress has been slow while unresolved challenges (e.g., climate, inequality) continue to intensify. Among communitarian responses to these challenges, the commons have shown great potential as a shared governance mechanism for the responsible management of common‐pool resources. To the extent that this success encourages broader applicability for commons, we focus also on commoning as crucial social practice rooted in collective action and adaptive governance. Adding this dimension of activism opens the possibility of enriching the SSE both in theory and practice for the purpose of strengthening its institutional make‐up, in particular cooperatives occupying a central position in SSE. Commoning enables us to conceive of tangible connections between commons and cooperatives as complementary modes of anti‐capitalist organization. We can illustrate this complementarity by analyzing how Ostrom's “design principles” for commons can help strengthen the ICA's Cooperative Principles. Useful lessons can be learned from concrete examples of commons–cooperative alliances, such as Ecuador's Buen Vivir initiative, the Enercoop PACA project in France, and Oakland's OmniCommons space.     

Environmental Policy and GHG Emissions: The Case of Southern Europe

International Advances in Economic Research -     

The role of no-arbitrage on forecasting: Lessons from a parametric term structure model

Parametric term structure models have been successfully applied to numerous problems in fixed income markets, including pricing, hedging, managing risk, as well as to the study of monetary policy implications. In turn, dynamic term structure models, equipped with stronger economic structure, have been mainly adopted to price derivatives and explain empirical stylized facts. In this paper, we combine flavors of those two classes of models to test whether no-arbitrage affects forecasting. We construct cross-sectional (allowing arbitrages) and arbitrage-free versions of a parametric polynomial model to analyze how well they predict out-of-sample interest rates. Based on US Treasury yield data, we find that no-arbitrage restrictions significantly improve forecasts. Arbitrage-free versions achieve overall smaller biases and root mean square errors for most maturities and forecasting horizons. Furthermore, a decomposition of forecasts into forward-rates and holding return premia indicates that the superior performance of no-arbitrage versions is due to a better identification of bond risk premium.     

Groups of companies in the Recast European Insolvency Regulation: Around and about the “group”

Regulation (EU) 2015/848 (Recast European Insolvency Regulation/Recast EIR) contains a set of articles dedicated to the insolvency proceedings relative to members of groups of companies. No substantial consolidation or any procedural nature is envisaged. Article 2(13) of Regulation 2015/848 clarifies that, for the purposes of the same, a “group of companies” must be understood as “a parent undertaking and all its subsidiary undertakings.” However, many doubts arise when one goes deeper into that definition. The author deals with some of those problems and gives some suggestions to overcome them.     

Strategic automation and decision-making authority

This paper studies how automation impacts the structure of decision-making in organizations. We develop a theoretical model of a firm, where a principal makes a decision about how much to prioritize the new product development division when the division is led by a manager who holds private information specific to this division and has misaligned preferences with the principal. The principal chooses whether to decentralize this decision by delegating it to the manager, resulting in more informed but unbiased decision. In this setting, we investigate how automation which reduces operational variability may alter this choice of organizational structure. The findings from our analysis show that firms deploy automation resources differently depending on their organizational structure: centralized firms choose to automate divisions that face more uncertainty, while decentralized firms do the opposite. Moreover, increasing access to automation results in higher centralization of decision-making in firms. In the extensions, we show that the strategic use of automation reduces the informativeness of intrafirm communication, and also, that automation can be a strategic substitute to monetary contracts.     

A continuous model for supply planning of assembly systems with stochastic component procurement times

This paper studies a customized product assembly scenario where some components cannot be stocked due to high component cost and risk. We consider the case where these key components are ordered after a demand has been registered with a promised delivery date. Component lead-times are stochastic and associated distribution function is known in advance. The objective is to determine the ordering time for each component such as to minimize the sum of expected holding and backlogging costs. An approach to solve this problem is proposed and the algorithm is tested on a randomly generated data set.