Natural Oligopolies: A Vertical Differentiation Model

This article contains a more complete characterization of conditions under which vertically differentiated markets are or are not natural oligopolies than has been found previously in the literature. Specifically, previous results on markets in which firms have cost functions with constant returns are incomplete; these results are expanded. Moreover, results are provided for markets with firms having increasing or decreasing marginal cost functions.     

Is partial privatization of universities a solution for higher education?

This paper accounts simply for the link between higher education and the productive economy through educated workers. We study a model of vertical successive monopolies where students/workers acquire qualification from a University then “sell” skilled labor to a monopoly which itself sells its final product to consumers, linking through quality the education sector to the labor and output markets. We determine the optimal share the State should keep in the University to compensate for the market imperfections, while taking into account the inefficiencies of public management. The resulting partially privatized University fixes the tuition fees so as to maximize a weighted sum of profits and social welfare. We derive the optimal public share under the hypothesis that the State may subsidize the tuition fees/University losses, then under the constraint that the University should make a nonnegative profit. We prove that in both cases, the State should keep a substantial share (higher under the first hypothesis) in the University, unless public management is too inefficient in which case the University's management should be completely private.     

Democracy and competition: Vertical differentiation and labor in a general equilibrium model

We consider a general equilibrium model with vertical preferences and one or two firms, where workers and consumers are differentiated, respectively, by their sensitivity to effort and their preference for quality. The question in this paper is whether a decentralized choice through majority vote would lead to more or less competition. We compare the duopoly and the monopoly cases from the viewpoint of each individual, then we deduce the choice of the majority. We prove that, under concentrated ownership (where owners have a null density), duopoly is always preferred by the majority; while under egalitarian ownership (where firms are equally shared by all the population), the choice of the majority depends on the relative size of workers' and consumers' segments.     

The Role of Accountants in Decision-Making in Lebanese Firms

The issue of accountants＇ role in decision-making has been the center of attention of lots of studies in the last decade but never did it get the adequate coverage in Lebanon. This paper studies to what extent accountants are involved in the managerial decision-making in Lebanon. Two hundred experienced accountants from all over the country were randomly selected for a questionnaire survey. This survey provides evidence as to what factors contribute to the variance of influence accountants have in managerial decision-making. The results from the questionnaires varied, but we conclude that accountants＇ involvement in new product development （NPD）, the skills that accountants have, their role in the financial analysis of the firm, and how much the finn they work for encourages them to advice on business decisions affect the degree of contribution an accountant has to decision-making. The findings of this research could be used as a reference to help in understanding the role of accounting in Lebanon by various finns and organizations.     

Causality Between Corporate Social Performance and Financial Performance: Evidence from Canadian Firms

This study assesses the causal relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and financial performance (FP). We perform our empirical analyses on a sample of 179 publicly held Canadian firms and use the measures of CSP provided by Canadian Social Investment Database for the years 2004 and 2005. Using the “Granger causality” approach, we find no significant relationship between a composite measure of a firm’s CSP and FP, except for market returns. However, using individual measures of CSP, we find a robust significant negative impact of the environmental dimension of CSP and three measures of FP, namely return on assets, return on equity, and market returns. This latter finding is consistent, at least in the short run, with the trade-off hypothesis and, in part, with the negative synergy hypothesis which states that socially responsible firms experience lower profits and reduced shareholder wealth, which in turn limits the socially responsible investments.     

Unidimensional and multidimensional fuzzy poverty measures: New approach

the analysis of deprivation is usually seen as a unidimensional condition. However, recently it is considered to be a multidimensional one. A useful tool for such analysis is to view deprivation as a degree providing a quantitative expression to its intensity for individuals. Such fuzzy conceptualisation has been widely adopted in poverty and deprivation research. This paper aims to further develop and refine this strand of research. First, we re-examine two aspects introduced by the use of fuzzy measures, as opposed to conventional poor/non-poor dichotomous measures, namely the choice of membership functions and the rules to manipulate, resulting fuzzy sets. Secondly, we propose fuzzy monetary and non-monetary measures with the membership functions of poor and non-poor. An application based on individual well-being data from Tunisian households in 1990 is presented to illustrate use of one of the proposed concept.     

Economic Effects of the Consumer‐oriented Genetically Modified Products in Markets with a Labelling Regime

This paper builds on the literature on the economic effects of the second‐generation, consumer‐oriented genetically modified products (GMPs). It analyses the market and welfare impacts of the introduction of these new products in markets, like the EU, that mandate the segregation and labelling of the first‐generation, producer‐oriented GMPs. Developing an empirically relevant model of heterogeneous consumers and producers, the study determines the effects of the consumer‐oriented GMPs on the markets of conventional, GM and organic products, and the welfare of consumers and agricultural producers. Analytical results indicate that the market effects of the new GMPs are case specific and depend on: (i) the consumer valuation of the quality‐enhancing attribute of the new GMP; (ii) the level of consumer aversion to GMOs; (iii) the strength of consumer preference for organic products; and (iv) the production costs and marketing margins in the different supply channels. The policy on the labelling of the first‐generation GMPs does not affect the impacts of the second‐generation GMPs on the quantities and market shares of the different products. However, it does affect their price effects and welfare implications. The introduction of consumer‐oriented GMPs under a mandatory labelling regime can result in losses for some GM consumers and all producers of the conventional product.     

RST–GCBR‐CLUSTERING‐BASED RGA–SVM MODEL FOR CORPORATE FAILURE PREDICTION

Corporate bankruptcy is perceived as a shocking event. Several researchers focused on the prediction of these phenomena using various methods aiming to avoid high generated costs. In this paper, a new hybrid approach is proposed to deal with corporate failure prediction. Based on financial ratios as input data and in order to predict if the business unit will fail or not, our approach integrates rough set theory, Gaussian case‐based reasoning‐clustering, real‐valued genetic algorithm with support vector machines. This combination is justified by a high accuracy rate, reaching 100% at 1 year before failure and 94.0925% at 3 years before failure. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Scheduling Shipbuilding Using a Constraint Directed Graph Search: DAS-ERECT

To build a scheduling system for shipbuilding, we have adopted a hierarchical architecture and developed a constraint directed graph search technique for erection scheduling at the dock. First, in the hierarchical architecture, detailed schedules for the lower-level assembly plants are delegated to the individual plant's schedulers as long as the requirements from the higher-level scheduler are satisfied. However, if lower-level scheduling is impossible, the higher-level scheduler attempts to adjust the original requirements. Second, in the constraint directed graph search, the concepts of graph expansion and constraint directed pruning are amalgamated into an algorithm. The approaches are implemented in the DAS-ERECT system which is a sub-system of the DAS project undertaken for the Daewoo Shipbuilding Company.     

Spillover analysis across FinTech,ESG, and renewable energy indices before and during the Russia–Ukraine war: International evidence

This study is epicentral to analyze the impact of the Russia–Ukraine war on the financial markets, specifically focusing on the connectedness and spillover dynamics of FinTech, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), renewable energy, gold, and Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) indices in developed and emerging countries. Data are collected from Thomson Reuters, ranging from May 8, 2020, to May 11, 2022, and a time-varying parameter vector autoregression (TVP-VAR) and the dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) t-Copula (DCC-GARCH t-Copula) are used to analyze the data. The results show that FinTech, ESG, and MSCI are net transmitters in developed countries, whereas gold and renewable energy are net receivers pre- and during war periods. ESG and MSCI are net transmitters in emerging countries, while FinTech, renewable energy, and gold become net receivers in both periods. The hedging ratio sheds light on the costs and weights of efficient pair investments that might change in the context of each region and under the combined scenario. The study has important implications for merchant bankers, policymakers, investors, hedgers, and risk managers.