Interfund linkage analysis: the case of the polish pension fund sector

Although fund activities whose target is to attract the members of rivals would seem to be very important for a proper evaluation of pension fund achievements, this topic has not been looked at by researchers. This paper presents an approach to assess the interfund effects of savings transfers based upon Polish tables of transfers published by the KNUiFE over the period from the fourth quarter of 2001 to the first quarter of 2004. Some useful indicators are suggested. By means of these indicators a taxonomy of pension funds operating in Poland was carried out. We also find which transfers of savings are the most important, i.e. which changes in the relative level of such transfers cause the largest perturbations in the whole pension fund sector.     

Enabling the Circular Economy transition: a sustainable lean manufacturing recipe for Industry 4.0

Over the past 10 years, the concepts and objectives of circular economy have been increasingly detailed and become strategic issues of international, European, and national policies. However, the transition towards circular production models continues to be affected by several barriers and critical factors that make the transition difficult to achieve. The paper tries to design a relationship between sustainable production and lean production, highlighting the opportunity to invest in reverse-logistics and how Industry 4.0 system represents a breeding ground for circular economy targets application. The aim of the current study is to examine the relationships among sustainable production, lean production, and Industry 4.0 in order to evidence the need to adopt a lean methodology and Industry 4.0 technologies in a sustainable development perspective for companies. Following a holistic vision, the authors summarize the production principles and formulas, which, although in parallel, lead to similar results and therefore represent the pillars of a competitive and sustainable business. In conclusion, exploring the circular economy principles and production chain model, challenges, opportunities, and future outlooks are formulated.     

Physics competition to inspire learning and improve soft skills: a case of the Chain Experiment

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - The Chain Experiment competition has been held successfully for 6 years in Poland and is attracting growing interest. The...     

Financial Distress Prediction in an International Context: A Review and Empirical Analysis of Altman's Z‐Score Model

This paper assesses the classification performance of the Z‐Score model in predicting bankruptcy and other types of firm distress, with the goal of examining the model's usefulness for all parties, especially banks that operate internationally and need to assess the failure risk of firms. We analyze the performance of the Z‐Score model for firms from 31 European and three non‐European countries using different modifications of the original model. This study is the first to offer such a comprehensive international analysis. Except for the United States and China, the firms in the sample are primarily private, and include non‐financial companies across all industrial sectors. We use the original Z′′‐Score model developed by Altman, Corporate Financial Distress: A Complete Guide to Predicting, Avoiding, and Dealing with Bankruptcy (1983) for private and public manufacturing and non‐manufacturing firms. While there is some evidence that Z‐Score models of bankruptcy prediction have been outperformed by competing market‐based or hazard models, in other studies, Z‐Score models perform very well. Without a comprehensive international comparison, however, the results of competing models are difficult to generalize. This study offers evidence that the general Z‐Score model works reasonably well for most countries (the prediction accuracy is approximately 0.75) and classification accuracy can be improved further (above 0.90) by using country‐specific estimation that incorporates additional variables.     

A note on the estimation of total weight in chemical balance weighing designs

Summary This paper studies the problem of estimation of the total weight of objects using a chemical balance weighing design under the restriction |L−R| ≤a, whereL andR represent the number of objects placed on the left and right pans, respectively. A lower bound for the variance of the estimated total weight is given and a necessary and sufficient condition for this lower bound to be attained is obtained. Finally, weighing designs for which this lower bound is attainable are constructed.     

When product type experimental design is optimal? Brief survey and new results

In the paper the problem of optimum experimental design for estimating parameters of multivariate regression functions is considered. We address the question: under what conditions one can compose the optimal design from partial designs, obtained by considering partial regressions, which depend on reduced number of variables. After reinterpreting and reviewing briefly existing results we provide some new conditions.     

Firm-specific Human Capital Accumulation: Evidence from Brazil*

We introduce firm-specific returns to experience and tenure into a standard two-way fixed effects model, show that they are separately identified under the standard exogenous mobility assumption and with sufficient between firm mobility, and provide a new evidence on heterogeneity of returns to experience and tenure across firms using the administrative data from Brazil over the years 1999–2014. We document that (1) returns to tenure are not strongly related to firm wage premia, (2) returns to experience are strongly negatively correlated with firm wage premia, (3) the relationship between firm wage premium and return to experience is stronger for ‘blue collar’ firms.     

Forecasting crude oil prices with DSGE models

In this study, we conducted an oil prices forecasting competition among a set of structural models, including vector autoregression and dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models. Our results highlight two principles. First, forecasts should exploit the fact that real oil prices are mean reverting over long horizons. Second, models should not replicate the high volatility of the oil prices observed in samples. By following these principles, we show that an oil sector DSGE model performs much better at real oil price forecasting than random walk or vector autoregression.     

Systemic analysis of a manufacturing process based on a small scale bakery

The main aim of the article is to present two new innovative concepts of reliability of a functioning manufacturing system in the process of making bread in small-scale bakeries. Reliability is understood as one of the representations of an operator acting on specific streams in time t_o to t. One of these represents the global reliability of a system as a function of parallel action of all the streams of the system in time t_o to t and is denoted as P_g^(t). The second representation of reliability is a scalar value, P_ss It shows a new function of global reliability of a manufacturing process as a product of system stream reliability. In order to plot the flow of the manufacturing process’s global reliability function, we need to perform detailed calculations, computations, and analysis of the differences of individual values in real time, as well as plan an algorithm of the flow of system streams. This needs a lot of effort, translating however, to a detailed picture of the process. In the analysed example, measurements and research revealed an important increase of the value of reliability in a transition from a traditional to a robotised bakery. The article also presents a new concept of the reliability of a technological process, based on the analysis of relations of elements of the following streams: energy, matter, information, time, and finances. It shows the method of specifying streams and the method for defining the reliability of important and supportive relations. Important relations between stream elements are defined as having the reliability value of one in time. Supportive relations bear the reliability within a continuum between zero and one. Important relations are designated based on research, experience, and knowledge. Stream systemic reliability P_ss is a scalar value, i.e. a number from the continuum between zero and one. The P_ss value characterises failure-free operation of the whole system. Its average value in the normative time t_n expresses the efficiency of the manufacturing system. The value P_ss is a quotient of the number of important relation and the sum of important and supportive relations. The formula for P_ss shows the method of optimising the process through the increasing of the number of important relations between the input stream components. The concept has been applied to study the efficiency of operation of a small-scale bakery. Systemic analysis of a bakery allows for important increase in the reliability of baking bread if robotisation has been implemented. The concept of systemic-stream reliability P_ss may be applied to analyse the efficiency of any technological process and optimisation of any manufacturing process.

     

A fractionally cointegrated VAR analysis of economic voting and political support

We use a fractionally cointegrated vector autoregressive model to examine the relationship between Canadian political support and macroeconomic conditions. This model is well suited for the analysis because it allows multiple fractional time series and admits simple asymptotic inference for the model parameters and tests of the hypotheses of interest. In the long‐run equilibrium, we find that support for the Progressive Conservative Party was higher during periods of high interest rates and low unemployment, while support for the Liberal Party was higher during periods of low interest rates and high unemployment. We also test and reject the notion that party support is driven only by relative (to the United States) economic performance. Indeed, our findings suggest that US macroeconomic variables do not enter the long‐run equilibrium of Canadian economic voting (political opinion poll support) at all.