Remaining life estimation of used components in consumer products: Life cycle data analysis by Weibull and artificial neural networks

Environmental awareness and legislative pressures have made manufacturers responsible for the take-back and end-of-life treatment of their products. To competitively exploit these products, one option is to incorporate used components in “new” or remanufactured products. However, this option is partly limited by a firm's ability to assess the reliability of used components. A comprehensive two-step approach is proposed. The first stage phase statistically analyzes the behavior of components for reuse. A well-known reliability assessment method, the Weibull analysis, is applied to the time-to-failure data to assess the mean life of components. In the second phase, the degradation and condition monitoring data are analyzed by developing an artificial neural network (ANN) model. The advantages of this approach over traditional approaches employing multiple regression analysis are highlighted with empirical data from a consumer product. Finally, the Weibull analysis and the ANN model are then integrated to assess the remaining useful life of components for reuse. This is a critical advance in sustainable management of supply chains since it allows for a better understanding of not only service requirements of product, but the remaining life in a product and hence its suitability for reuse or remanufacture. Future work should assess: (1) reduction in downtime of process equipment through the implementation of this technique as a means to better manage preventative maintenance; (2) reduce field failure of remanufactured product; (3) selling-service strategy through implementation of the proposed methodology.     

Diehard or delicate? Violence and young firm performance in a developing country

Business Economics - The genesis and survival of new businesses is an important determinant of entrepreneurial dynamism. With the recent surge in security challenges, the issue of young...     

From Maputo to Malabo: public agricultural spending and food security in Africa

Africa is the world’s biggest battleground in the fight against hunger. African governments and the international development community have increasingly focused on finding ways and means to end hunger and ensure the right and access to food for the continent’s burgeoning population. Public spending on agriculture is one such measure. This study examines the role government spending on agriculture has played in enhancing the state of Africa’s food security over the past 25 years. We examine the existing relationship between the two, whether this relationship varies over time and space, and whether it depends on the amount spent. We explore various aspects of food security and check whether spending on research and development follows the same patterns as the overall public agricultural spending. We find some evidence of significant beneficial effects of public agricultural spending on food security but only for the countries which allocate greater proportions of their budgets to agriculture. Spending on agricultural research and development also shows a positive impact on Africa’s food security. There also exists some evidence supporting the temporal effects of public spending. We consider that the Maputo Declaration commitment to allocate at least 10% of public spending to agriculture pertinent.     

Institutional quality and environmental pollution: MENA countries versus the rest of the world

Using data for over 100 nations over the years 2004–2007, this study examines the effect, of institutional quality on environmental pollution, focusing primarily on influences of corruption, and the shadow economy, and paying special attention to MENA countries. Controlling for a, number of factors, results show that both more corrupt nations and nations with large shadow sectors have qualitatively and quantitatively similar effects in yielding fewer (recorded) emissions; however, MENA nations have higher pollution rates. Policy implications are noted.     

Cereal production,undernourishment, and food insecurity in South Asia

South Asia remains one of the major strongholds of hunger in the world, despite the fact that, following the Green Revolution, cereal production in the countries of this region tripled during the second half of the 20th century. This study examines the role played by this increase in cereal production in improving the region’s nutrition and food security situation. We study the association between the different aspects of food security and cereal production in South Asia that have prevailed over the past 25 years. We find a beneficial role of the production and yield of cereals in lowering the extent of undernourishment. A 1% increase in cereal production and yield is associated with up to 0.84% decrease in the prevalence of undernourishment. The impact is significant over a period of 3 years. The positive effect is particularly evident in the case of rice and maize production. An improvement is seen in the aspects of availability, stability, and utilization of food security but not in the aspect of access. These findings are robust to alternative specifications and techniques. The results explain, in part, the means by which South Asian nations have managed to stall relative increases in extreme hunger and food insecurity.     

Ex-Dividend Returns and the Tax Reform Act of 1986

As previously recognized, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduced observed ex-day returns to stocks that do not attract dividend capture trading. However, by decreasing the top corporate tax rate, and decreasing the corporate dividend income deduction, the Act also reduced the return to dividend capture by U.S. corporations. The ex-day returns for stocks that had previously attracted corporate dividend capture should therefore increase. This prediction is consistent with evidence that ex-day returns increased after the Act was implemented, among low-transaction cost, high-dividend yield stocks and among low-risk, high-dividend yield stocks.     

Women empowerment and insecurity: firm-level evidence

Business Economics - Women’s engagement in the formal economy is generally considered an important means to economic empowerment. In many developing countries, however, increasing female...     

Labour effects of foreign and domestic remittances – evidence from Pakistan

Remittances are playing an increasingly important role in the economies of developing countries. In this paper, we study the effects of these flows on Pakistan’s labour market. We employ the 2007–2008 Household Integrated Economic Survey and Probit as well as Propensity Score Matching techniques to examine the impact on labour participation, quantity of work and activities of working as well as non-active members of remittance-receiving households. We find that both foreign and domestic remittances tend to lower labour supply of the recipient households. This impact is higher among women and among the young. The impact is more pronounced in the rural areas. In addition, foreign remittances increase the likelihood of household members attending middle school. We also examine the quantity of labour supplied by the remittance-recipient households. Results show little difference in the number of months and days worked between the households receiving and not receiving remittances. Furthermore, we find that the likelihood of being self-employed and cultivating one’s own land is higher among remittance recipients. In sum, our analysis highlights a higher role of foreign remittances in the labour market as compared to internal remittances.     

AN INDIRECT TEST FOR DIVIDEND RELEVANCE

This paper provides an indirect test of dividend relevance conducted in periods that straddle the tax law changes effected by the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Using the abnormal ex-dividend day return to proxy for the tax penalty of dividends, I find a negative relation between changes in this tax penalty and changes in dividends paid. This result is consistent with corporations' equating, at the margin, the costs of dividend payout to its benefits. Hence, this is indirect evidence of dividend relevance.     

Migrant remittances,agriculture investment and cropping patterns

We investigate how the receipt and amount of domestic or international transfers influences household decisions regarding farm investment and the selection of capital and labour-intensive crops. We argue that, even though recipient households may use additional income to increase agricultural investment, investment can fall in the short run if labour constraints arising from the migrant member's absence are binding and capital accumulation is suboptimal. Employing a set of endogenous treatment estimates, we test this hypothesis on data from 5636 rural households in Pakistan. Our findings show a substantial difference between recipient and non-recipient households in terms of their economic behaviour. Recipient households make 100% less agricultural investment and generate 82% less production compared to non-recipient households. The estimates are found to be robust when tested with alternate empirical techniques (Heckman Selection and matching). The impact is stronger in the case of households that receive domestic transfers, with 100% less farm investment and 77% less production than non-recipient households. Remittances result in a decrease in production of both capital- and labour-intensive crops, reflecting a decline in overall farm activity. Similar farm investment and cropping patterns are observed relative to the amount of remittances received. The results are robust to different model specifications and estimation procedures.