Loading optimization of palletized products on trucks

In this paper we analyze the application of an optimization model to solve problems of arranging products (packed in boxes) on pallets, and arranging loaded pallets on trucks. Initially the model is applied to solve thousands of randomly generated experiments. Then, in order to assess the effectiveness of the solutions in practice, the model is applied to two Brazilian case studies: a food company distribution center and a large wholesale distribution center. We also discuss the use of this approach for optimizing the sizes of packages, pallets and trucks. In particular, we analyze the performance of the Brazilian standard pallet (PBR), adopted by the Brazilian Association of Supermarkets (ABRAS) and recommended by the Brazilian Logistics Association (ASLOG), in comparison with other standard pallets. By examining not only the loading of products on pallets, but also the loading of pallets on trucks, we can obtain global utilization indices which are useful to evaluate the economical performance of unit load systems in the logistics chain of a company.     

Career success schemas and their contextual embeddedness: A comparative configurational perspective

We introduce career success schemas as critical for understanding how people in different contexts perceive and understand career success. Using a comparative configurational approach, we show, in a study of 13 countries, that two structural characteristics of career success schemas—complexity and convergence—differ across country contexts and are embedded in specific configurations of institutional factors. Adopting complexity and convergence as primary dimensions, we propose a taxonomy of career success schemas at the country level. Based on this taxonomy, we contribute to the understanding of subjective career success across countries, discuss the importance of schemas for organisational career systems in multinational enterprises, and propose specific guidelines for future comparative careers research.     

A dynamic semester-long social dilemma game for economic and interdisciplinary courses

The authors present a semester-long game to teach the role of economics in natural resources management. The game is framed within a fisheries context: multiple student fisheries harvest fish to maximize yield/profit, which is measured using a piecewise linear function. There are prizes for both the student and the group with the highest semester-long catch, which brings forth the social dilemma associated with dynamic stock externalities in fisheries. The game can be played in large classes, is robust to student attrition, and requires 5–10?minutes per class period. Given its features, it can be used to teach behavioral economic principles in resource management, incentives versus command-and-control regulations, role of cheap talk, social preferences, punishment, and community management as well as solutions such as aquaculture.     

Are yield-curve/monetary cycles’ approaches enough to predict recessions?

Business Economics - This paper proposes a new framework that identifies a threshold between the fed funds rate and the 10-year Treasury yield and, when the threshold is breached, the risk of a...     

Public budgetary rules and GDP growth: An empirical study on OECD and twelve european countries

We study the long-term effects of budgetary rules on GDP growth rate and analyse the determinants of the short-term GDP growth dynamics. For both a sample of 19 OECD and a subsample of 12 European countries, we show that, in the long run, improvements in the cyclically adjusted budget balance, as well as increases in the tax burden, have negative effects on GDP growth. The highest effect of fiscal policy on GDP growth would be obtained if the structural deficits were used to increase the market size by reducing the tax burden. In line with Barro (1990), a deficit-financed reduction of tax burden has a stronger effect for European than for OECD countries, because in Europe the government size with respect to market size is too large. Therefore, if GDP growth is a dominant policy objective, in Europe specific actions should redress the 2012 Treaty toward a reduction of the tax burden.     

Experiences of Urban Militarism: Spatial Stigma,Ruins and Everyday Life

A key question in urban sociology is how people interpret the urban environment. At a time when cities are increasingly militarized, this question is particularly important for understanding how militarism impacts urban life. However, urban sociologists have not addressed how people experience militarized environments. This article turns to this question by considering the case of Lydda‐Lod, an Israeli city that has been demographically and physically transformed by war, displacement and securitization. Drawing on Wacquant's sociology of spatial stigma and adding insights from works on emotions in (post‐)conflict cities, I examine how poor Palestinians think and feel about the surveilled districts where they live within the city's broader landscape of ruins. I show how the Israeli military, security and policing agencies have collectively produced spatial stigmatization of these districts. I discuss how Palestinians respond to this spatial stigma by attaching a sense of worthlessness to their districts. However, this reproduction of spatial stigma is punctuated by expressions of care for the built environment and by a desire to revalorize collective Palestinian life in the city. I conclude by discussing how a perspective on militarized cities focused on everyday responses to militarism and attentive to marginalities enriches urban sociology and urban studies more generally.     

The importance of informal professional networks in developing a proactive organizational culture: a public value perspective

Public value theory was used by the authors to investigate informal professional networks, perceived discretionary power, and the organizational culture that forms in physical asset management organizations. The results, from a structural equation model, indicated that informal professional networks are positively associated with higher discretionary power and a proactive asset maintenance organizational culture. In the absence of public managers promoting public value, professionals use their informal networks as a source of power to be proactive and contribute to asset reliability and public safety (public value).     

Small‐sample testing inference in symmetric and log‐symmetric linear regression models

This paper deals with the issue of testing hypotheses in symmetric and log‐symmetric linear regression models in small and moderate‐sized samples. We focus on four tests, namely, the Wald, likelihood ratio, score, and gradient tests. These tests rely on asymptotic results and are unreliable when the sample size is not large enough to guarantee a good agreement between the exact distribution of the test statistic and the corresponding chi‐squared asymptotic distribution. Bartlett and Bartlett‐type corrections typically attenuate the size distortion of the tests. These corrections are available in the literature for the likelihood ratio and score tests in symmetric linear regression models. Here, we derive a Bartlett‐type correction for the gradient test. We show that the corrections are also valid for the log‐symmetric linear regression models. We numerically compare the various tests and bootstrapped tests, through simulations. Our results suggest that the corrected and bootstrapped tests exhibit type I probability error closer to the chosen nominal level with virtually no power loss. The analytically corrected tests as well as the bootstrapped tests, including the Bartlett‐corrected gradient test derived in this paper, perform with the advantage of not requiring computationally intensive calculations. We present a real data application to illustrate the usefulness of the modified tests.     

Survival expectations,subjective health and smoking: evidence from SHARE

This article aims to assess how the risk perceptions of smokers affect survival expectations and subjective health. Data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, which include a numerical measure of subjective survival probability, are used to estimate a joint recursive system of equations that describe the relationships among survival expectations, subjective health status and smoking duration. A finite mixture model is used to address endogeneity and unobservable heterogeneity. This approach allows for two types of individuals with different observable characteristics to be identified in the examined population. We find that only in the population of the first type, current and former smokers incorporate the effects of smoking duration into their assessments of survival probabilities. For both types, quitting smoking affects current perceptions of smoking risks, causing the overestimation of both survival probability and subjective health.