Developing a model to evaluate the impacts of science,technology and innovation foresight on policy-making

Technology foresight as a policy intelligence tool can offer vital inputs for policy-making in various domains. The relationship between foresight and policy-making has been presented in the literature by the policy-related functions of foresight, but the literature reflects a theoretical gap with the systematic evaluation model for the impact of foresight on policy-making. This research seeks to bridge the existing gap and uses the mixed method for this purpose. The mixed method approach used in this paper is the sequential exploratory design. First, the conceptual model is developed in the qualitative part of this research by using meta-synthesis and constant comparative method (CCM) of analysis. Second, in the quantitative part, quantitative tests are used to evaluate the dimensions and components of the developed theoretical model. The data collection tool is a questionnaire. The results confirm the proposed dimensions of the evaluation model.     

On the advantages of economically designed variable sample sizes and sampling intervals T2 control chart: double warning lines scheme

Faraz and Parsian (Stat Pap 47:569–593, 2006) have shown that the double warning lines (DWL) scheme detects process shifts more quickly than the other variable ratio sampling schemes such as variable sample sizes (VSS), variable sampling intervals (VSI) and variable sample sizes and sampling intervals (VSSVSI). In this paper, the DWL T² control chart for monitoring the process mean vector is economically designed. The cost model proposed by Costa and Rahim (J Appl Stat 28:875–885, 2001) is used here and is minimized through a genetic algorithm (GA) approach. Then the effects of the model parameters on the chart parameters and resulting operating loss is studied and finally a comparison between all possible variable ratio sampling (VRS) schemes are made to choose the best option economically.     

Financial development,corporate governance and cost of equity capital

Existing research suggests that external governance is more relevant than internal governance in affecting a firm’s value. We contribute to the literature by explicitly examining the interactive role played by country-level financial development and legal institutions in influencing the impact of firm-level governance on the cost of equity capital. Using a comprehensive sample of 7380 firm years drawn from 22 developed countries, we show that firm-level corporate governance attributes affect the cost of equity capital primarily in the Common Law countries with high levels of financial development. Our study is the first to highlight the complementary effects of legal origin, financial development and firm-level governance attributes in influencing the cost of equity capital.     

Political institutions and government spending behavior: theory and evidence from Iran

This study examines how the quality of political institutions affects the distribution of the government budget in Iran. We first introduce a mechanism through which democracy can shift government expenditure from national defense (military) to productivity-enhancing public spending (e.g., education). Using impulse response functions and a variance decomposition analysis on the basis of a vector autoregressive (VAR) model, our results imply that the response of military spending to an improvement (a deterioration) of democratic institutions is negative (positive) and statistically significant, whereas that of education spending is positive (negative) and significant. Our results are robust to other indicators of political institutions, different orderings of variables in the VAR, and alternative specifications of government spending categories.     

Precious metals,oil and the exchange rate: contemporaneous spillovers

We investigate the contemporaneous spillovers among precious metals, crude oil and the US$ exchange rate. We contend that conventional reduced-form vector autoregressive (VAR) models based on lead/lag relations do not fully capture the interactions among these series as these models ignore the contemporaneous effects. Using a Structural VAR model, we identify these contemporaneous spillovers, which are shown to be strong and asymmetric. We further show that not taking into consideration the contemporaneous interactions among these assets leads to inaccurate findings and inevitably to inaccurate interpretations of the causal relations among them.     

Asymmetric information and price competition in small business lending

This paper examines the relationship between bank lending rates and their cost of funds in New Zealand. Our results show that on average mortgage rates respond more quickly to changes in the cost of funds than base business lending rates. We also find an asymmetry in the initial (short-run) response of banks to changes in funding costs; in particular, our results show banks adjust mortgage rates downwards faster than upwards. The speed to which lending rates revert back to their equilibrium relationship with funding costs varies across the lending markets. We find the adjustment speed is faster when mortgage rates are below equilibrium, whereas it is slower when business lending rates are above long-run levels in relation to funding costs. Our analysis suggests that banks prefer the plain-vanilla type of lending such as mortgages in comparison to small business lending consistent with asymmetric information associated with business loans.     

Market Quality around Macroeconomic News Announcements: Evidence from the US and Canadian Markets

We investigate changes in market quality in the US and Canada during macroeconomic news announcements. We measure market quality in terms of returns dependence, the cost of trading, and pricing errors. Using a sample of cross‐listed stocks and macroeconomic news from both countries, we document that market quality is generally higher in the US than in Canada. The pattern of intraday serial dependence in returns reveals that it takes investors about 5 min less to react to order imbalances in the US than in Canada. We further observe that, around announcement periods, transaction costs increase more in Canada than in the US, suggesting that the US market offers better liquidity. More information is also incorporated into the US market. These results support the view that the US is a prime target for cross‐listing, and are robust to different types of assets and time specifications.     

Optimizing transit maintenance and rehabilitation to support human development and sustainability: A case study of Costa Rica’s railroad network

Public transportation plays a critical role in improving human development and consequently the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by United Nations. Convenient and efficient transit enable inhabitants to reach labor markets, access social support facilities as well as health and education services. This study develops a decision-making support framework for transit agencies to select optimum maintenance, rehabilitation, and upgrade alternatives to accomplish good levels of service and improve human development and sustainability indexes. A case study of Costa Rica’s great metropolitan area is used to illustrate the study with various budget scenarios. The results show that the proposed system can accomplish significant improvements on both level of service and human development. It is also confirmed that the explicit consideration of human development and sustainability made a significant difference as compared to the classical approach, which only considers the level of service (LOS). The proposed model could be used by other public transit systems.