Pattern extraction for high-risk accidents in the construction industry: a data-mining approach

Accidents involving falls and falling objects (group I) are highly frequent accidents in the construction industry. While being hit by a vehicle, electric shock, collapse in the excavation and fire or explosion accidents (group II) are much less frequent, they make up a considerable proportion of severe accidents. In this study, multiple-correspondence analysis, decision tree, ensembles of decision tree and association rules methods are employed to analyse a database of construction accidents throughout Iran between 2007 and 2011. The findings indicate that in group I, there is a significant correspondence among these variables: time of accident, place of accident, body part affected, final consequence of accident and lost workdays. Moreover, the frequency of accidents in the night shift is less than others, and the frequency of injury to the head, back, spine and limbs are more. In group II, the variables time of accident and body part affected are mostly related and the frequency of accidents among married and older workers is more than single and young workers. There was a higher frequency in the evening, night shifts and weekends. The results of this study are totally in line with the previous research.     

Linking Environmental and Financial Performance for Privately Owned Firms: Some Evidence from Australia

The debate over whether the “green” strategy pays off has been centered overwhelmingly within large public firms. It remains unclear whether “being green” matters to smaller firms such as privately owned or family controlled firms, which are equally heavy polluters but subject to much less public scrutiny. Using a sample of 138 private companies registered in the Australian National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting database over the 2009–2013 period, this study finds that embracing environmental/carbon responsibility has helped these companies gain higher financial returns. However, reducing carbon emissions has not paid off for environmentally sensitive firms, although lowering energy consumption is evidenced to be value creation.     

The impact of public R&D subsidy on small firm productivity: evidence from Korean SMEs

This paper explores the effects of R&D promotion policy on SME performance. We use a large panel data set on public R&D subsidies to Korean manufacturing firms. We control for counterfactual outcomes employing the DID (difference in differences) estimation procedure as well as for the endogeneity of the R&D investment and the R&D subsidy using the 2-stage Tobit/Logit DPD (dynamic panel data) procedure. We find significant evidence for positive effects of the public R&D subsidy on both the R&D expenditure and the value added productivity of Korean manufacturing SMEs. The policy thus appears to have been successful in fostering technological advancement and in promoting economic growth.     

不完全信息条件下基于产品质量的出口政策选择

在产品质量信息不完全性普遍存在的情况下,企业产品质量选择与国家产品质量声誉相互影响。提高国家产品质量声誉可以提高企业期望收益和国家福利,但由于产品质量外部性的存在以及国家产品质量声誉的"公共产品"性质,企业的自主产品质量选择行为并不会必然导致较高的国家产品质量声誉,从而存在国家干预的必要性。在一般情况下,实施"税收—补贴"组合政策是较优的政策选择。     

Trends and characteristics of injuries in the State of Qatar: hospital-based study

Injuries account for a large burden of mortality and morbidity in the State of Qatar. No comprehensive study has been conducted on all types of injuries in the State of Qatar. The objective of this study was to determine the trend in the number, incidence and pattern of injuries in the State of Qatar. This hospital-based study is a retrospective analysis of 53,366 patients treated at the accident and emergency and trauma centres for injuries during the period from 2006 to 2010. Injuries were determined according to the ICD 10 criteria. The details of the entire trauma patients who were involved in occupational/domestic injuries were extracted from the database of the Emergency Medical Services (EMS), Hamad Medical Corporation. Our results demonstrated that the rates of injury remained relatively stable in the State of Qatar over the five–year period. Those most at risk of injury were non-Qatari males who were below 30 years. Road traffic accidents (RTA) (36.7%) followed by falls causing back injuries (11.0%) were the most common types of injuries during the period. Most of the injuries occurred at the head for both males (17.7%) and females (13.5%); this was consistently the case across all of the age groups. The greatest proportion of RTA (21.2%), industrial machinery injuries (16.4%), construction injuries (15.5%), recreational sporting injuries (20.5%) and beach/sea/ocean injuries (15.0%) resulted in head injuries. Intervention efforts need to be aimed at reducing occupational injuries, RTA injuries and work–related hazards in the State of Qatar.     

The food superstore revolution: changing times,changing research agendas in the UK

This article considers the changing scope of research into UK food superstores over some three decades. Rather than catalogue changing market shares by format, we seek instead to show how such change links to national policy agendas. Academic research has evolved to address the growing complexities of the social, technological, economic and political impacts of the superstore format. We exemplify this by tracing the progression of retail change in Portsmouth, Hampshire, over 30 years. We discover that academic research can conflict with the preconceptions of some public policy makers. The position is exacerbated by a progressive decline in public information – and a commensurate rise in factual data held by commercial data companies – that leaves policy makers with a choice of which data to believe. This problem casts a shadow over the objectivity of macro-policy as currently formulated. Concerns currently arise because the UK Competition Commission (2006–2009 but ongoing) starts each inquiry afresh with a search for recent data. Furthermore, it has recently called for changes to retail planning – the very arena in which UK superstore research commenced.     

国外对华反补贴现状及中国补贴政策分析

国外对华反补贴已经呈现出案件数量快速增长、双反同时进行、反补贴税率高等显著特点。文章通过对国外对华反补贴现状的分析,探讨我国现行补贴政策中哪些是需要特别予以关注的措施,通过分析指出我国现行补贴政策中既有与WTO规则相一致的内容,也存在某些仍需进一步调整和改进的措施。针对不同情况,我国应当对现有补贴政策进行调整与完善,以期减缓对华反补贴案件和多边补贴争端案件的增长。     

Price limits,investor sentiment,and initial public offering underpricing: A quasi-natural experiment based on ChiNext

Based on the data on initial public offerings (IPOs) listed on Growth Enterprises Market (ChiNext) in 2009–2018, this paper examines the impact of first-day listing price limits on IPO underpricing by adopting the event study and regression discontinuity design models. Our research indicates that the implementation of price limits significantly increases IPO underpricing by intensifying investor sentiment and encouraging market speculation. We also find that price limits have different impacts on companies with different characteristics such as innovation capacity and ownership structure. Our research may suggest how to improve the effectiveness of regulatory policy as well as current ChiNext and IPO market reforms.     

Economic Development and the State: Lessons from Singapore

Analysis and case studies have indicated that intervention by the Singapore government in fostering economic development has not always been successful. In particular, past intervention in the labour market like the high wage policy of the early 3980s has proved to be an unmitigated disaster. However, interventions that lead to the direct creation of national competitive advantage, like the information-telecommunications infrastructure, R & D subsidy and manpower development, have proved t o be more successful. A strong, non-corrupt and market-oriented public sector appears to be crucial t o ensure that interventions are market facilitating, correcting and enhancing rather than distorting.     

Auditee Religiosity,External Monitoring,and the Pricing of Audit Services

This paper demonstrates the political perspective of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures and, drawing on Weber’s notion of traditionalism, seeks to explain what motivates companies to make such disclosures in a traditional setting. Annual reports of 23 banking companies in Bangladesh are analysed over the period 2009–2012. This is supplemented by a review of documentary evidence on the political and social activities of corporations and reports published in national and international newspapers. We found that, in the banking companies over the period of study, apparently neutral, corporate, philanthropic activities disclosed and promoted in CSR reports are inextricably linked to powerful leaders’ personal projects and the ruling party’s agendas. We have demonstrated elements of traditional societies, including personal loyalty and the public display of loyalty, the master–servant relationship, and obedience to personal rather than formal authority, provide an understanding of why banks (with or without explicit political linkages with the ruling party) have employed politically charged CSR disclosure strategies. The paper contributes to disclosure studies where political motivations of corporate disclosure rarely discussed. The paper extends the debate on political CSR by demonstrating that the role of family and familial values at the organisational and national levels may be much more important when it comes to CSR disclosure and activities.     

The ineffectiveness of entrepreneurship policy: is policy formulation to blame?

Entrepreneurship policy has been criticised for its lack of effectiveness. Some scholars, such as Scott Shane in this journal, have argued that it is ‘bad’ public policy. But this simply begs the question why the legislative process should generate bad policy? To answer this question this study examines the UK’s enterprise policy process in the 2009–2010 period. It suggests that a key factor for the ineffectiveness of policy is how it is formulated. This stage in the policy process is seldom visible to those outside of government departments and has been largely ignored by prior research. The application of institutional theory provides a detailed theoretical understanding of the actors and the process by which enterprise policy is formulated. We find that by opening up the ‘black box’ of enterprise policy formulation, the process is dominated by powerful actors who govern the process with their interests.     

The Tunisia Wheat Market in the Context of World Price Volatility: A Stochastic Partial Equilibrium Approach

Food security is a key objective of agricultural and food policy in Tunisia. The 2007–2008 food crisis highlighted the negative impacts of price volatility on international markets both in terms of food insecurity and budget exposure. Tunisian food subsidy expenditures ranged from $180 million to $710 million in 2006–2010, so volatile world prices meant volatile subsidy costs. Moreover, cereal production in Tunisia still has much instability due to climate conditions, which also influences imports and, consequently, subsidy expenditures. This study applies a structural model to conduct stochastic analyses of trade and policy impacts on food security and budget expenditures in the Tunisian wheat market. The methodology disaggregates durum wheat and soft wheat markets and generates projections of import prices of durum wheat and soft wheat, using projections of world prices provided by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at University of Missouri (FAPRI-MU). The key innovation is the generated stochastic analyses of subsidy costs based on stochastic world price projections and stochastic domestic wheat yields based on historic yield variances. The analysis highlights the sensitivity of subsidy costs to world prices, volumes imported and domestic production, so that alternative policy tools can be considered.     

政府补贴、国际知识产权保护与企业创新——来自战略性新兴产业上市公司的证据

政府补贴对企业创新的影响存在争议,在美国重点打击中国战略性新兴产业的背景下,补贴这一产业政策的有效性再次引起热议。本文以2012-2017年沪深A股战略性新兴产业上市公司为样本,研究在国际知识产权保护加强的背景下政府补贴对战略性新兴产业创新绩效的影响。研究发现:中国政府实施的补贴政策有利于促进战略性新兴产业创新,但国际知识产权保护加强约束了中国政府补贴的规模和空间,从而抑制了补贴政策对战略性新兴产业创新的激励作用;此外,基于企业和产业异质性视角,国际知识产权保护的加强主要抑制了补贴对国有企业、内资企业和新材料产业创新的促进作用。进一步完善补贴政策和国内的知识产权保护制度,有利于提升中国在构建国际经济新秩序中的话语权。     

Occupational accidents in the Finnish local government sector: Utilisation of national statistics

Occupational accidents in the Finnish local government sector in 2004 are analysed by gender, age and occupation class in order to identify particular risk groups. The accident data are compared with data concerning the number of employees, using frequency distributions and accident incidence rates. The possibilities of providing occupation class-specific accident incidence rates are also discussed. According to the results, commuting accidents are more common and severe in the local government sector than in general in Finland. In the local public sector occupational accidents more often involved women than men. Compared to other age groups and occupational classes, occupational accidents are more common in the age band of 45–54 and in the occupational class of medical and nursing work. However, compared to the employees' data, men and younger employees had an increased workplace accident risk, while women and older employees had an increased risk of commuting accidents. The highest accident incidence rate was in farming and animal husbandry work. Currently, the calculation of occupation class-specific accident incidence rates is difficult. Improving the consistency of the occupation classifications used in the various data sources would facilitate more reliable calculation of rates.     

Pattern of childhood falls in a low-income setting: a cross-sectional study in Dar es Salaam

The objective was to determine patterns and circumstances of childhood falls in a low-income setting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. This cross sectional study is based on a household survey conducted in July 2009.

A total of 3927 children up to age 18 from 1928 households in 15 sampled wards were surveyed through a structured questionnaire. The current study includes information regarding fall occurrence, socio-demographic and economic factors. Data were analysed using chi-square, t-test and logistic regression. Male children had 42% higher odds of falls compared to females, and rural residents had more than two times higher odds compared to urban residents. Falls occurred three times more among age group 1–4 and two times more among age group 5–9 compared to those between 15 and 18 years. Most falls occurred outdoors (62%) while playing (51%) with boys being over-represented. Females and children aged 1–4 years fell more from stairs whereas most infants fell from furniture. Male gender, younger age groups and rural residence were significant factors for fall injuries. The circumstances in which these falls occur also differ significantly. Intervention efforts should emphasise these patterns.     

A Multivariate Time‐Series Examination of Motor Carrier Safety Behaviors

Motor carriers’ operational safety affects multiple stakeholders including truck drivers, motor carriers, insurance companies, shippers, and the general public. In this article, I devise and test theory regarding motor carriers’ longitudinal performance for three classes of safety behaviors linked to carriers’ accident rates—Unsafe Driving, Hours‐of‐Service Compliance, and Vehicle Maintenance—tracked by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration as part of the Compliance, Safety, and Accountability (CSA) program. Specifically, I draw on core concepts from sociological agency theory and resource dependency theory to devise middle‐range theory that generates never‐before‐tested hypotheses regarding carriers’ longitudinal safety performance for these classes of safety behaviors after the start of the CSA program. The hypothesized predictions are tested by fitting a series of multivariate latent curve models to four years of panel data for a random sample of 484 large, for‐hire motor carriers operating in the United States. The empirical findings corroborate the theoretical predictions and remain after robustness testing. These findings have important implications for scholars, motor carrier managers, procurers of motor carrier transportation services, and public policy makers.     

Trade policy under firm-level heterogeneity in a small economy

We explore the effect of trade policy on productivity and welfare in the now standard model of firm-level heterogeneity and product differentiation with monopolistic competition. To obtain sharp results, we restrict attention to an economy that takes as given the price of imports and the demand schedules for its exports (a “small economy”). We first establish that welfare can be decomposed into four terms: productivity, terms of trade, variety and curvature, where the last is a term that captures heterogeneity across varieties. We then show how a consumption subsidy, an export tax, or an import tariff allows our small economy to deal with two distortions that we identify and thereby reach its first-best allocation. We also show that an export subsidy generates an increase in productivity, but given the negative joint effect on the other three terms (terms of trade, variety, and curvature), welfare falls. In contrast, an import tariff improves welfare in spite of the fact that productivity falls.     

Is Scale and Cost Inefficiency in the Swiss Bus Industry a Regulatory Problem? Evidence from a Frontier Cost Approach

The aim of this study is to analyze the scale and cost inefficiencies in operation for the Swiss regional bus companies. For this purpose,we have considered estimation of a stochastic and a deterministic frontier cost model for a sample of 93 bus companies in 1989. The estimates of inefficiency from the frontier models are compared and discussed within the political and regulatory setting within which the Swiss regional bus companies operate. The empirical results indicate that regulation does not seem to influence the cost efficiency significantly. Only the tariff subsidies have a negative influence on efficiency. This is an interesting result because in the current transport policy debate, the abolition of this kind of subsidy has been raised.     

Much ado about nothing: No fear of becoming a multinational

This paper compares the home employment performance of Spanish “switching” companies, which carry out Foreign Direct Investment for the first time, with employment performance corresponding to non investing local (national) companies. We use data from manufacturing firms for the period 2000–2013. The counterfactual group of national companies is obtained using the Propensity Score Matching technique with a large sample of firms. The analysis shows that the reduction in employment was less relevant among switching companies in comparison with local ones. This result permits us to conclude that internationalization through foreign direct investment is not causing a more intense reduction in employment among parent companies than among local firms. This holds also true for the period prior to the crisis (2000–2007).