Adaptive Bayesian Networks for quantitative risk assessment of foreign body injuries in children

Injuries due to foreign body (FB) aspiration/ingestion/insertion represent a common public health issue in paediatric patients, which causes significant morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study is to present a Bayesian Network (BN) model for the identification of risk factors for FB injuries in children and provide their quantitative assessment. Combining a priori knowledge and observed data, a BN learning algorithm was used to generate the pattern of the relationships between possible causal factors of FB injuries. Finally, the BN was used for making inference on scenarios of interest, providing, for instance, the risk that an accident caused by a spherical object swallowed by a male child aged five while playing leads to hospitalization. BNs as a tool for quantitative risk assessment may assist in determining the hazard of consumer products giving an insight into their most influential specific features on the risk of experiencing severe injuries.     

Corporate Ethical Policies in Large Corporations in Argentina, Brazil and Spain

This paper examines the status of Corporate Ethical Policies (CEP) in large companies in Argentina, Brazil and Spain, with a special emphasis on Corporate Ethics Statements (CES), documents that define the firms’ philosophy, values and norms of conduct. It is based on a survey of the 500 largest companies in these nations. The findings reveal many similarities between these countries. Among other things, it emerges that most companies give consideration to ethics in business and have adopted some kind of formal or informal ethical policies. Regardless of whether or not they have a CES, companies agree that ethical conduct must be taken into account when selecting, appraising and promoting personnel as an important ethical policy. There is a growing tendency to draw up formal corporate ethics documents. These documents are perceived, first and foremost, as supporting the development of corporate culture. Most respondents believe that primary responsibility for ethical issues in the company rests with the CEO. Finally, the findings indicate that most companies that devote more resources to communicating and implementing CESs have two or more formal ethics documents. The main differences between the countries included in the study concern the emphasis given to specific aspects, such as avoiding misconduct or taking ethical criteria into account when selecting personnel. The emphasis is greatest in countries where corruption seems most prevalent.     

A SPECIALIST'S QUOTED DEPTH AS A STRATEGIC CHOICE VARIABLE: AN APPLICATION TO SPREAD DECOMPOSITION MODELS

Although there is a sizable literature demonstrating that liquidity and transaction costs are multidimensional, researchers continue to estimate adverse‐selection costs using only prices. We present a model of a profit‐maximizing specialist who posts prices and depths. The model is simulated to measure changes in the adverse‐selection component of the spread that result under different levels of informed trading. We find that spread decompositions fail to capture the full extent of adverse‐selection risk when specialists choose depth. We recommend that researchers use adverse‐selection measures that account for depth as well as spread to mitigate this problem.     

Is polarization bad?

The adverse effects of political and social polarization on government policies are empirically well documented, yet some democracies seem to cope well or even benefit from diversity. In this paper we develop a theoretical model to show how elections in polarized societies contribute to improve quality of government. We consider both polarization among citizens and political actors (political polarization), where the second is endogenously determined by parties competing to win the support of the majority of voters. We find that more heterogeneous societies are more likely to be politically polarized, but that the divergence of positions in the political arena helps the electorate control government corruption by raising electoral stakes. Our results, which are consistent with the findings of a substantial empirical literature, suggest that, when funneled into political competition, polarization may help improving quality of government and policies.     

Endogenous strength of intellectual property rights: Implications for economic development and growth

The key institution that determines sustained growth in R&D-based growth models is the strength of intellectual property rights, which are usually assumed to be exogenous. In this paper we endogenize the strength of the intellectual property rights and show how private incentives to protect these rights affect economic development and growth. Our model explains endogenous differences in intellectual property rights across countries as private incentives to invest in property rights generate multiple equilibria. We show that the resulting institutional threshold offers an explanation for why the effect of a transfer of institutions from one country to another depends on the quality of the institutions that were imported.     

Conflict and control in MNC new product introduction

One of the advantages of the multinational corporation (MNC) is that it can exploit new product ideas globally in a rapid manner. This raises the issue of control of MNC new product introductions. It has been demonstrated that control over MNC subsidiaries differs depending on the strategic role assigned to the subsidiary. But, in addition to its role in the MNC, a subsidiary also has a role in a business network of relationships with important customers, suppliers, and other business partners. There is a latent conflict between these two roles. This article formulates and analyzes a structural model in which the dependencies associated with the two roles are related to conflict and control in subsidiary new product introduction. The model is supported empirically and demonstrates that control is a matter of handling the latent conflict between the two roles.     

Influence of Information on the Acceptance and Purchase Intention of an Irradiated Food: A Study With Brazilian Consumers

This study investigated the effect of information on the acceptability and purchase intention of an irradiated watercress salad and its non-irradiated counterpart among Brazilian consumers (N = 236). Both the irradiated and the non-irradiated products were fairly accepted (ratings about 6.0–7.0 in the hedonic scale). Significant effects (p ≤ 0.05) of gender, education, and age were also observed: acceptance and purchase intention was lower among male participants who received both information and an identified irradiated product, and higher among female participants who received only information about the process. Adults (30–39 years old) were more critical, and the higher the educational level, the lower the acceptability and purchase intention ratings. Brazil is one of the major irradiators in the world, but there is still a lack of consumer studies focusing the acceptability of irradiated foods. So the findings presented herein would favor Brazilian producers and regulators to develop effective communication strategies and to promote the irradiation technology.