The effects of reforming regulation in resolving insolvency towards EODB rank improvement: Evidence from Indonesia

This article examines the effectiveness of policy reform and implementation in resolving insolvency in Indonesia. The Ease of Doing Business (EODB) in Indonesia has significantly increased over the last 6 years, from ranking 129th in 2012 to 73rd in 2019. Among the 10 EODB indicators, resolving insolvency was identified to be the highest contributing indicator. In 2019, this indicator ranked 36th—far above the overall aforementioned Indonesian EODB score, a 73rd worldwide ranking. This article examines the factors leading to a high bankruptcy settlement score as well as the indicators that must be improved to raise Indonesia's EODB ranking.     

The Sustainability of Indonesia's Upland Conservation Projects

The Upland Agricultural and Conservation Project in Central and East Java is representative of Indonesia's upland conservation efforts. An important component of the project was the use of subsidies to promote activities which increased farmer incomes and soil conservation. Two types of subsidies were used: an operating subsidy for annual inputs such as seed, fertiliser and pesticides; and a capital subsidy for terracing and related construction. This study measures the extent to which the effects of the subsidies were sustained over varying periods following termination of the project. The results show that the effects of the operating subsidies are clearly not sustainable; the effects of the capital subsidies may persist longer, but they too are probably not sustainable.     

A note on generalized wald’s method

Let {v _n(θ)} be a sequence of statistics such that whenθ =θ ₀,v _n(θ ₀) N _p(0,Σ), whereΣ is of rankp andθ εR ^d. Suppose that underθ =θ ₀, {Σ _n} is a sequence of consistent estimators ofΣ. Wald (1943) shows thatv _n ^T (θ ₀)Σ _n ⁻¹ v _n(θ ₀) x ²(p). It often happens thatv _n(θ ₀) N _p(0,Σ) holds butΣ is singular. Moore (1977) states that under certain assumptionsv _n ^T (θ ₀)Σ _n ⁻ v _n(θ ₀) x ²(k), wherek = rank (Σ) andΣ _n ⁻ is a generalized inverse ofΣ _n. However, Moore’s result as stated is incorrect. It needs the additional assumption that rank (Σ _n) =k forn sufficiently large. In this article, we show that Moore’s result (as corrected) holds under somewhat different, but easier to verify, assumptions. Research partly supported by the U.S. Army Research Office through the Mathematical Sciences Institute at Cornell University.     

Residential grid storage technology battles: a multi-criteria analysis using BWM

This article focuses on the battle for dominance between various battery technologies in the residential grid storage market (< 10?KWh) in the context of residential energy systems and the related home energy management systems. We focus on five major battery technologies that are available in the market (lithium-based batteries, lead-based batteries, flow batteries, nickel-based batteries, and sodium-based batteries). Based on a literature review and expert interviews, we study the factors for technology success in the residential grid storage market. By applying the best worst method (BWM), we assign the relative importance to the factors and predict which technology will have the highest chance of achieving success. We compare this to the technology that now has the highest market share and conclude that BWM is a useful method to indicate technology dominance in this market.     

Constrained mixture distributions

The problem of estimating the weights associated with mixture distributions subject to several constraints, such as the percentile and/or moment constraints, is analyzed using the general theory of polyhedral convex cones and systems of inequalities. We address three problems associated with constrained mixture distributions: (a) Compatibility: a set of inequalities is obtained to check whether or not any given set of constraints lead to a feasible solution for the weights, (b) Feasible solutions: a general expression for building feasible solutions for the weights associated with the given constraints is obtained, and (c) Equivalence: the set of all feasible weights is obtained. In addition, the problem is shown to lead to a new mixture distribution, without extra constraints. This new mixture distribution can then be easily used for the statistical analysis (e.g. estimation and hypotheses testing) instead of the original mixture distribution with extra constraints. The proposed methods are illustrated by numerical examples.     

On Reliability Evaluation of Multistate Weighted k-out-of-n System Using Present Value

A new reliability evaluation methodology for multistate weighted k-out-of-n systems is presented in this article. The present value of the cash flow generated by the system components is used as a reliability value. We take a financial view of reliability and consider functioning periods and the time value of money in system reliability analysis. Two approaches, the universal generating function (UGF) and recursive algorithm, are applied to evaluate the reliability of the multistate weighted k-out-of-n system. An illustrative example is calculated based on the proposed system reliability evaluation methodology. It is shown that this evaluation method can also be used to find the value of the maintenance policy. Finally, the UGF and recursive algorithm approaches are compared with each other for large system reliability assessment.