Economics

The algorithms of three automated trade execution systems are compared with respect to price discovery and quantity determination in markets for futures, options, and stocks. Efficiency of these systems is measured using the classical benchmark of Walrasian equilibrium pricing; welfare is measured in terms of trader and customer surplus. Floor trading is analyzed similarly and provides another benchmark for comparison of system performance.

Automated markets are becoming increasingly widespread, and their efficiency properties are of corresponding concern to regulators and exchange policy makers. Many systems are implemented in settings characterized by a distinct lack of liquidity, however, often by design. We evaluate the performance of such a market, the GLOBEX overnight trading system, in absolute terms and relative to a liquid benchmark, the floor market of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Our results with respect to bid-ask spreads and adverse selection suggest that the nature of the environment is an important determinant of market performance, but that an automated market can operate well in a relatively illiquid setting. Price clustering, indicative of a lack of pricing efficiency, is prevalent on the automated system, but price resolution improves as trading frequency increases.

An error correction model is derived from a stochastic dynamic programming problem incorporating rational expectations. A parametric restriction is derived that allows a test for the theoretical proposition that the optimal strategy behind the error correction from entails the failure to asymptotically close the gap between the choice variable and the growing target. This is accomplished by nesting a partial adjustment model with forward‐looking expectations within the error correction paradigm. The counterintuitive behaviour embodied in the error correction model is not supported by the data in the context of a cross‐country comparison of cash balances relationships.

We document international changes in bankruptcy law pertaining to personal liabilities. Implications are investigated within a theoretical model, focusing on interest rates, employment, and bankruptcy incidence. Small‐firm employment rises as bankruptcy law becomes more stringent, but interest rates may increase. A tightening of bankruptcy law may not decrease bankruptcy probabilities, except in the stark case of no debt discharge. Strict rules pertaining to debt repayment are desirable, as opposed to court or pre‐court discretion. Pending international agreements with respect to cross‐border insolvency may lower interest rates, but do not necessarily imply a decrease in bankruptcy incidence.

A forecasting model is constructed for the analysis of the long-run electricity and natural gas requirements of the commercial sector of a regional economy. The methodology combines an econometric model to generate baseline forecasts, a detailed end-use model to evaluate conservation and regulatory program impacts, and a disaggregated economic/demographic model to provide internally consistent forecasts of commercial employment and other relevant economic conditions. The model is estimated and used to provide forecasts of energy use and regulatory impacts in San Diego County, California.

Vietnam is conducting an export-led growth model and labour-intensive industries contributing majorly to the total export value. In the context of Industry 4.0, the labour-based industries are significantly affected; hence, enhancing productivity is the key measure to maintain these industries. The garment industry contributes significantly to the total export value of Vietnam. Based on meta-frontier framework, the approach of data envelopment analysis is used to measure technical efficiency of Vietnamese garment firms and the global Malmquist TFP index is utilised to identify productivity change and its components including efficiency, technology and technical gaps between different groups of firms. The data of Vietnamese garment firms from 2013 to 2018 collected from the Vietnam General Statistic Office is used in this study. The results show that: (i) The total factor productivity of Vietnamese garment firms growth, technical progress is the main contributor; (ii) The private garment sector is the leading group; (iii) There is a large technological gap among Vietnamese garment sectors. The private and FDI garment firms have experienced a growth in all components of total factor productivity change. Meanwhile, technological progress change is the main reason to constrain the productivity growth of state-owned garment firms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the antecedents and the consequences of the Greece debt crisis as well as highlighting the reforms capacity. The approach adopted in this paper is to answer the questions such as “what is the background of the Greece debt crisis and how it is originated?”, “which antecedents caused the Greece vulnerable to the crisis?”, “what are the twin constraints being faced by Greece and its consequences?”, “which measures are taken to gain fiscal stability in the Greece under Stability and Growth Pact?” and “what are the rescue possibilities available to Greece to withstand the crisis? Is bail out the only possible solution?” These questions are used to guide the search or studies and analysis thereof and major emerging themes are presented. The key findings of the study are some main factors that triggered the crisis. These are misstated statistics by Greek government, weak co-ordination and organization, high expenditures in com...

We use a quantitative model to study the implications of European integration for welfare and migration flows across 1,318 regions. The model suggests that an increase of trade barriers to the level of 1957 reduces welfare by about 1-2 percent on average, depending on the presumed trade elasticity. However, remote regions may face initial welfare losses of up to 4 percent causing an estimated migration of about 8 million individuals to the European core. This implies that the dismantling of trade barriers in Europe has led to a more homogeneous spatial distribution of economic activity. With regard to the Brexit, we find moderate welfare losses for the UK of -0.44 percent in the most pessimistic scenario while continental Europe's welfare declines by 0.18 percent. In the most unfavorable scenario, about 500,000 people would leave the UK in the long run.

Many countries shift substantial public resources across jurisdictions to mitigate spatial economic disparities. We use a general equilibrium model with multiple asymmetric regions, labor mobility, and costly trade to carve out the aggregate implications of fiscal transfers. Calibrating the model for Germany, we find that transfers indeed deliver smaller disparities across regions. This comes at the cost of lower national output, however, because activity is diverted away from core cities and towards remote areas with low productivity. But despite this output loss, national welfare may still increase, because the transfer scheme countervails over-congestion in large cities.

The ant colony optimization (ACO) is widely used for combinatorial optimization problems, although it can suffer from fast convergence to local minima. In order to provide a versatile implementation of ACO, we present a parallel multicolony strategy with an improved cooperation scheme for binary combinatorial problems. Our proposal is based on a self-adaptive method, which assigns appropriate run-time cooperation levels to each problem based on its size and available computational resources. We evaluate this proposal with problems with different levels of cooperation and number of processes. All these configurations combined show its flexibility as a versatile solver for this type of problems.

This paper empirically investigates the nature of the underlying stochastic processes characterizing real oil prices using a Structural Time Series Model for the period 1960 to 2016. Based on the state space framework the STM decomposes the data into separate stochastic components by the maximum likelihood via the Kalman Filter. In contrast to the extant literature, this approach obviates the need to attain stationarity. Instead, it explicitly represents the nonstationarity properties of real oil prices through time varying structures and incorporation of structural breaks. The results establish that real oil prices are a composite of a long term trend, effect of shocks and short term fluctuations. The trend exhibits stochastic evolution and is punctuated by distinctive breaks triggered by unpredictable and significant events. Short term fluctuations are driven by transitory market influence and result in mean reverting patterns. Overall, the model captures, in a nonstructural framework, oil price movements and allows generation of forecasts based on the concrete implications of data characteristics.

This paper empirically investigates the nature of the underlying stochastic processes characterizing real oil prices using a Structural Time Series Model for the period 1960 to 2016. Based on the state space framework the STM decomposes the data into separate stochastic components by the maximum likelihood via the Kalman Filter. In contrast to the extant literature, this approach obviates the need to attain stationarity. Instead, it explicitly represents the nonstationarity properties of real oil prices through time varying structures and incorporation of structural breaks. The results establish that real oil prices are a composite of a long term trend, effect of shocks and short term fluctuations. The trend exhibits stochastic evolution and is punctuated by distinctive breaks triggered by unpredictable and significant events. Short term fluctuations are driven by transitory market influence and result in mean reverting patterns. Overall, the model captures, in a nonstructural framework, oil price movements and allows generation of forecasts based on the concrete implications of data characteristics.

This paper empirically investigates the nature of the underlying stochastic processes characterizing real oil prices using a Structural Time Series Model for the period 1960 to 2016. Based on the state space framework the STM decomposes the data into separate stochastic components by the maximum likelihood via the Kalman Filter. In contrast to the extant literature, this approach obviates the need to attain stationarity. Instead, it explicitly represents the nonstationarity properties of real oil prices through time varying structures and incorporation of structural breaks. The results establish that real oil prices are a composite of a long term trend, effect of shocks and short term fluctuations. The trend exhibits stochastic evolution and is punctuated by distinctive breaks triggered by unpredictable and significant events. Short term fluctuations are driven by transitory market influence and result in mean reverting patterns. Overall, the model captures, in a nonstructural frame...

This paper empirically investigates the nature of the underlying stochastic processes characterizing real oil prices using a Structural Time Series Model for the period 1960 to 2016. Based on the state space framework the STM decomposes the data into separate stochastic components by the maximum likelihood via the Kalman Filter. In contrast to the extant literature, this approach obviates the need to attain stationarity. Instead, it explicitly represents the nonstationarity properties of real oil prices through time varying structures and incorporation of structural breaks. The results establish that real oil prices are a composite of a long term trend, effect of shocks and short term fluctuations. The trend exhibits stochastic evolution and is punctuated by distinctive breaks triggered by unpredictable and significant events. Short term fluctuations are driven by transitory market influence and result in mean reverting patterns. Overall, the model captures, in a nonstructural frame...

This paper empirically investigates the nature of the underlying stochastic processes characterizing real oil prices using a Structural Time Series Model for the period 1960 to 2016. Based on the state space framework the STM decomposes the data into separate stochastic components by the maximum likelihood via the Kalman Filter. In contrast to the extant literature, this approach obviates the need to attain stationarity. Instead, it explicitly represents the nonstationarity properties of real oil prices through time varying structures and incorporation of structural breaks. The results establish that real oil prices are a composite of a long term trend, effect of shocks and short term fluctuations. The trend exhibits stochastic evolution and is punctuated by distinctive breaks triggered by unpredictable and significant events. Short term fluctuations are driven by transitory market influence and result in mean reverting patterns. Overall, the model captures, in a nonstructural frame...

In this paper we explore the trade effects of bilateral real exchange rate changes between the 50 US states and China over the period of 2005-2012. The empirical results based on state-level trade flows and state-level relative prices suggest that the long-run real exchange rates elasticity of US exports to China is in the range of [-3.77, -2.85] and that of Chinese exports to the US is in the range of [-0.23, -3.34]. We also find that state-level differences in human capital and financial development are significant determinants of their export performances with respect to China. Based on the most optimistic scenario, our results suggest that the RMB needs to further appreciate against the dollar by at least 1.8 percent a year for 16 years for the US to achieve balanced trade with China.

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Cambridge Journal of Economics following peer review. The version of record Mustafa Caglayan, Firat Demir, Exchange rate movements, export sophistication and direction of trade: the development channel and North-South trade flows, Cambridge

The effects of trade openness on within-country income inequality in developing countries are found to be inconclusive in existing literature. This study proposes a "threshold effect" to address this issue. We argue that when exports benefit a large portion of population, it is more likely to decrease income inequality within a country; otherwise, increasing exports will likely increase the income inequality. Using a data-set of 55 developing countries from 1981 to 2005, we find that if the employment share of manufacturing industry is above (below) a threshold, the increase in the share of manufactures exports reduces (increases) the within-country income inequality.

Using micro-level panel data, the paper analyzes the impacts of macroeconomic uncertainty and country risk on real investment under financial liberalization. The results suggest that increasing macroeconomic volatility and country risk hurt fixed investment spending of real sector firms.

Employing a matched employer-employee dataset, this paper explores the effects of exchange rate volatility on the growth performances of domestic versus foreign, and publicly traded versus non-traded private manufacturing firms in a major developing country, Turkey. The empirical results using dynamic panel data estimation techniques and comprehensive robustness tests suggest that exchange rate volatility has a significant growth reducing effect on manufacturing firms. However, having access to foreign, and to a lesser degree, domestic equity markets is found to reduce these negative effects at significant levels. These findings continue to hold after controlling for firm heterogeneity due to differences in export orientation, external indebtedness, profitability, productivity, size, industrial characteristics, and time-variant institutional changes.

Employing a unique panel of 691 private firms that accounted for 26% of total valueadded in manufacturing in Turkey, the paper explores the impacts of exchange rate volatility on employment growth during the period of 1983 -2005. The empirical analysis using a variety of specifications, estimation techniques, and robustness tests suggests that exchange rate volatility has a statistically and economically significant employment growth reducing effect on manufacturing firms. Using point estimates, the results suggest that for an average firm a one standard deviation increase in real exchange rate volatility reduces employment growth in the range of 1.4 -2.1 percentage points.

The article is based on the second essay of my PhD dissertation. I am thankful to Jaime Ros, my dissertation advisor, and to my committee members, Amitava K. Dutt, Kwan S. Kim, and Kajal Mukhopadhyay, for their helpful comments and suggestions.

We provide a mathematical definition of fragility and antifragility as negative or positive sensitivity to a semi-measure of dispersion and volatility (a variant of negative or positive "vega") and examine the link to nonlinear effects. We integrate model error (and biases) into the fragile or antifragile context. Unlike risk, which is linked to psychological notions such as subjective preferences (hence cannot apply to a coffee cup) we offer a measure that is universal and concerns any object that has a probability distribution (whether such distribution is known or, critically, unknown). We propose a detection of fragility, robustness, and antifragility using a single "fast-and-frugal", model-free, probability free heuristic that also picks up exposure to model error. The heuristic lends itself to immediate implementation, and uncovers hidden risks related to company size, forecasting problems, and bank tail exposures (it explains the forecasting biases). While simple to implement, it outperforms stress testing and other such methods such as Value-at-Risk.

There is overwhelming evidence that one of the most important challenges facing society today is the growing scale and unequal distribution of consumption of natural resources. Both the socio-economic implications of resource scarcities and the documented decline in provision of and rising threats to ecosystem services have spurred parts of the academic and policy communities into identification of problems and solutions. Some of the most fundamental debates, led by researchers from various disciplines, centre around economic growth and sustainable consumption. However, there is often a lack of knowledge exchange between these researchers as well as between researchers and policy makers. Together with other factors this results in slow policy progress. In this paper, we seek to contribute to the dialogue and understanding between sustainability science and policy by identifying a set of important research questions that link the challenges of sustainable consumption with economic growth debates and critiques. The research questions have been identified through an extensive participatory process involving leading researchers and policy makers responsible for sustainability policies throughout the whole EU and cover five areas (food, housing, mobility, information and communication technology, finance). The aim of the research questions is to orient researchers towards important research priorities as well as guide policy makers and public authorities in funding of research and use of sound scientific evidence and policy advice to inform decision making. We anticipate that addressing these questions will contribute to rethinking of societal institutions and forms of consumption in order to transition towards sustainability, while improving the synergy between policy and sustainability science. This paper presents some results of the RESPONDER project, Linking Research and Policy Making for Managing the Contradictions of Sustainable Consumption and Economic Growth, funded by the European Commission's 7 th Framework Programme, 2011-2014.

This study examines a recent change in voluntary disclosure by investigating the issuance of management cash flow forecasts for a sample of 690 UK non-financial firm-year observations which are drawn from the top 500 UK listed firms by total market capitalization as listed by Financial Times on 30 March 2007. Automated content analysis is used to search for cash flow forecasts in annual reports narratives using QSR NVivo 8. The results of regression analysis provide support for institutional theory that companies try to imitate the disclosure practices of other companies in the same industry. Also, the results document that operating cash flow, industry behaviour, cross-listing, and company size are positively and significantly related to disclosure of cash flow forecasts, whereas performance and competition rate are negatively and significantly related to disclosure of cash flow forecasts. However, the results fail to find any significant relationship between normative or coercive isomorphism proxies and disclosure of cash flow forecasts.

We provide a mathematical definition of fragility and antifragility as negative or positive sensitivity to a semi-measure of dispersion and volatility (a variant of negative or positive "vega") and examine the link to nonlinear effects. We integrate model error (and biases) into the fragile or antifragile context. Unlike risk, which is linked to psychological notions such as subjective preferences (hence cannot apply to a coffee cup) we offer a measure that is universal and concerns any object that has a probability distribution (whether such distribution is known or, critically, unknown). We propose a detection of fragility, robustness, and antifragility using a single "fast-and-frugal", model-free, probability free heuristic that also picks up exposure to model error. The heuristic lends itself to immediate implementation, and uncovers hidden risks related to company size, forecasting problems, and bank tail exposures (it explains the forecasting biases). While simple to implement, it outperforms stress testing and other such methods such as Value-at-Risk.

Many argue that autocratic regimes allocate revenues from foreign aid with the aim of stabilizing their rule rather than serving economic and social development. However, donors often condition foreign aid on reforms in recipient states. We argue that when those conditions for reform focus on participative processes and government accountability, they positively affect democratization. We evaluate our claim based on different types of World Bank and IMF lending programs for a panel of 100 low-and middle-income countries over the years 1980-2011. Our results suggest that aid positively affects democratization when it strengthens domestic accountability mechanisms and thereby reduces its fungibility for recipients. The World Bank and the IMF's poverty reduction strategy programs provide a notable case of this effect.

This article provides a review of the contributions that the discipline of geography is making to gender and migration research. In geographic analyses of migration, gender differences are examined most centrally in relation to specific spatialities of power. In particular, feminist geographers have developed insight into the gender dimensions of the social construction of scale, the politics of interlinkages between place and identity, and the socio-spatial production of borders. Supplementing recent reviews of the gender and migration literature in geography, this article examines the potential for continued cross-fertilization between feminist geography and migration research in other disciplines. The advances made by feminist geographers to migration studies are illustrated through analysis of the findings and debates tied to the subfield's central recent conceptual interventions.

This article examines the mobility patterns of migrant domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates. It identifies and explains the emergence of serial labor migration, which we define as the multi-country, itinerant labor migration patterns of temporary low-skilled migrant workers. It argues that policy contexts shaping temporary labor migration, as they impose precarious and prohibitive conditions of settlement in both countries of origin and destination, produce the itinerancy of low-skilled migrant workers. We offer a holistic analysis of the migration process of temporary labor migrants, shifting away from a singular focus on the process of emigration, integration, or return and toward an examination of each stage as a co-constitutive step in the migration cycle. Our analytic approach enables us to illustrate the state of precarity and itinerancy that follows low-wage migrant workers across the various stages of the migration cycle and produces serial migration patterns among m...

It has been proven that the anti-crisis management program can determine the presence of three enterprise development systems that determine the choice of directions for anti-crisis management: "conditionally stable system," in which passive anti-crisis management is sufficient, "system with the manifestation of crisis phenomena," and "general crisis system," which requires the application of active anti-crisis measures. The goals of enterprise anti-crisis management vary depending on the type of financial system of the enterprise. Thus, anti-crisis management under the conditionally stable system aims to diagnose the indicators of enterprise activity for timely detection of manifestations of crisis phenomena. In the system expressing crisis phenomena, anti-crisis management aims to localize detected crises, overcome their negative impact, and restore pre-crisis indicators. The goal of anti-crisis management under the general crisis system is to manage the enterprise in conditions of prolonged crisis (stagnation). Each model of anti-crisis management has corresponding stages, the implementation of which is aimed at minimizing the negative impact of crisis phenomena on the enterprise's activity. The methods of anti-crisis management during the war have been systematized. The methods of anti-crisis management can be attributed to the entire set of methodological tools that include a complex of measures from pre-crisis diagnosis to methods of its elimination and overcoming. Based on the essential characteristics and the need to decide on applying anti-crisis methods at each stage of the enterprise's life cycle, their consideration from the perspective of diagnostic and crisis management methods is envisaged. Based on the application of a methodological approach to the formation of the system of forecasting anti-crisis management measures at the enterprise, the use of an algorithm for anti-crisis management to choose the direction of anti-crisis management at enterprises (passive or active) has been proposed. m It has been proven that the anti-crisis management program can determine the presence of three enterprise development systems that determine the choice of directions for anti-crisis management: "conditionally stable system," in which passive anti-crisis management is sufficient, "system with the manifestation of crisis phenomena," and "general crisis system," which requires the application of active anti-crisis measures. m Based on the application of a methodological approach to the formation of the system of forecasting anti-crisis management measures at the enterprise, the use of an algorithm for anti-crisis management to choose the direction of anti-crisis management at enterprises (passive or active) has been proposed

Streszczenie: W artykule podejmuję istotną kwestię dla każdego typu działalności gospodarczej jaką jest przestrzeń. Rozpatrywana jest ona przez pryzmat kształtującej się ciągle dyscypliny wiedzy jaką jest ekonomia przestrzenna. Dociekania w nim podjęte zostały skoncentrowane na: przesłankach wykorzystania ekonomii przestrzennej dla kreacji procesów rozwojowych, rozpoznaniu obszarów i determinant możliwości wykorzystania dorobku ekonomii przestrzennej oraz na koncepcjach zastosowania ekonomii przestrzennej.

If a chronological economic history of India were prepared with eighteen 'Books' in the style of the Mahabharata, the experiences of the period 1951-1991 ought to appear in "Padkalpana Parvan", the Book on Planning. It is often difficult to appreciate just a chapter from such a Book in isolation. When I reflect upon this substantial volume, introduced as "an analytical macroeconomic history of India from 1964 to 1991 " (page 1), I feel that the time span and the macro economic approach make it a useful supplement to the earlier studies such as Sukhamoy Chakravarty's Development Planning: The Indian Experience (1987), Bimal Jalan's India's Economic Crisis (1991) and Jagdish Bhagwati's India in Transition: Freeing the Economy. (1993). From such an insightful collection, it is now possible to gain a spectrum of views on the successes and failures over the entire period. In commenting upon the year 1990-91, a year which was "among the cruellest in India's post independence history ", Bimal Jalan pointed out that, in addition to the critical social and economic crises facing the government, there was "a widespread feeling in the country that something is 'missing' or wrong in the way we have organized our economy in the last forty years. True there has been progress. But our achievements seem to have fallen far short of original expectations. The economy seems to lurch from one crisis to another" (p. 4). If one enjoys looking primarily at India's "crises ", one will find a number of features of Joshi and Little particularly appealing; on the other hand, one has to turn to other sources to gain a balanced view of the "progress" that Jalan refers to. Let me first start with a thumb-nail sketch• Part 1 of the book provides an impressionistic historical account and a description of the nature of markets and the role of the public sector. Part 2 is a canto on crises. It starts with an account (Chapter 3) of the macroeconomic events of the whole period 1964-91. The reader is then guided through the entire time-interval by a closer view of four major

The paper summarizes some issues involved in developing a theory of decentralized resource allocation mechanism in infinite horizon economies. Even in a classical environment, a competitive mechanism may lead to an inefftcient or nonoptimal allocation for an infinite horizon economy. It remains. however, to explore whether the usual price-quantity messages can be supplemented to design decentralized mechanisms generating optimal outcomes.

Efficient water resource management is a topic of major importance in the field of sustainable development. In arid and semi-arid regions characterized by limited and irregular water availability, the agricultural sector is under constant pressure to receive and ensure water for their crops. Finding an optimal way to share this limited resource requires numerous negotiations between water suppliers and farmers. A multi-agent system, as presented in this paper, is a computer simulation that models the interactions between different types of agents in order to gain insight into the group’s behavior as a whole. This paper claims that such a system can be used at the beginning of the agricultural season to predict potential outcomes of the interactions between water suppliers and farmers, which can inform management on how to optimally plan for the allocation of water. One objective was to take an interdisciplinary approach in order to simulate imagined consequences to complex decisions...

A partir de las reflexiones de Karl Menger sobre el método de las ciencias sociales, la Escuela Austriaca ha desarrollado una teoría sobre las organizaciones humanas, tanto sociales como empresariales, basada en la existencia de un conocimiento disperso y fragmentado entre todos los individuos que participan en ella. Tal situación ha obligado a definir mecanismos de gobernabilidad y de administración para la sociedad y para las empresas. El artículo se concentra en describir la naturaleza y posibilidades de gestión de las organizaciones empresariales de acuerdo con el pensamiento austriaco.

complace en presentar a toda la comunidad universitaria esta publicación, resultado de un esfuerzo iniciado en el año 2006, para dar a conocer los trabajos y las investigaciones que vienen desarrollando los profesores en el área de la teoría y el pensamiento económico. Esta idea tiene su génesis en la apertura de un espacio académico formal y permanente, bautizado como la Cátedra Abierta de Teoría Económica, desarrollada cada semestre, donde se convoca a docentes y estudiantes de la Universidad, a participar en ella. En esta primera publicación presentamos el resultado de la Cátedra, realizada en los semestres 01 y 02 de 2006, son en total cinco ponencias: Distribución económica: una mirada desde la justicia dinámica; Historiografía de la teoría neoclásica de la demanda; Una visión general de la escuela austriaca; Los costos de transacción: un hallazgo no tan reciente. Aproximación a la teoría de los costos de circulación de Karl Marx; La solidaridad como un factor de producción desde la teoría económica comprensiva. Esperamos que este documento se convierta en fuente de consulta autorizada para los profesores y los estudiantes, no solo del área de teoría económica, sino para todos los interesados en estos temas.

Smart City is a governance that utilizes information and communication technology in all its fields, so that it will facilitate public access and mobility. One dimension in the smart city concept is the smart economy which focuses on the governance of the city's economic growth.  This study aims to determine the efforts made by the Semarang City Government in order to achieve Smart Economy to develop the economy of the people in Semarang City. This research is qualitative research with a descriptive approach. Research data was obtained from literature studies analyzed with a content analysis approach. The results showed that the Semarang City government has pursued various programs to be able to achieve a smart economy in the Semarang Smart City system. These efforts include attracting investors through business meetings, strengthening the workforce, increasing home production, improving farmers' welfare, and revitalizing traditional markets. Investor networking efforts are ...

" The ORC bottoming section for a commercial micro gas turbine has been studied. " Six different organic working fluids have been considered and compared. " The preliminary designs of both axial and radial turbines have been developed. " Also scroll and reciprocating expanders have been analyzed for comparison. " The best suited machine has to be selected after a detailed analysis in each case.

Small scale Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) systems has been the object of a large number of studies in the last decade, because of their suitability for energy recovery and cogenerative applications. The paper presents an ORC numerical model and its applications to two different case studies; the code has been obtained by combining a one-dimensional model of a scroll machine and a thermodynamic model of a whole ORC system. Series production components, such as scroll compressors, from HVAC field, have been first considered in order to reduce costs, because this is a critical issue for small scale energy recovery and cogeneration systems. The detailed model of the scroll machine is capable to calculate the performances of both a compressor and an expander, as function of the geometry of the device and of the working fluid. The model has been first tested and validated by comparing its outputs with experimental tests on a commercial scroll compressor, then used to calculate the working curves of commercial scroll machines originally designed as compressors in the HVAC field, but operating as expanders. The model of the expander has been then integrated in the thermodynamic model of the ORC system. A series of comparisons have been carried out in order to evaluate how the performances are influenced by cycle parameters, scroll geometry and working fluid for different applications. The results confirm the feasibility of small scale CHP systems with acceptable electrical efficiency, taking into account the lowtemperature thermal source, the small power output and the low-cost series production components employed.

Rapid urbanization, demographic pressure, and sprawl of cities are key factors in the vulnerability and damage related to geo-hydrological hazards. Dysfunctional urban services that favor informal settlements are at the forefront of elements that increase vulnerability. Cases of cities that suffer from geo-hydrological hazards are increasingly reported in many regions, especially in tropical countries in the Global South. Yet, studies on such examples are rare and commonly overlook the human and societal components of hazard risks. Here, we focus on Bujumbura, a city in Africa that has experienced rapid unplanned growth and sprawl into unserviced areas because of the non-application or a lack of a valid urban planning law. After filling in the gap in data collected using high-resolution field surveys and focus group discussions, this study highlights various factors of vulnerability to geo-hydrological hazards in the urban area. Indeed, 108 events of flood and flash floods and 81 gu...

Psychiatric disorders are 1.5 to 2 times more prevalent in persons with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) than in the general population, with pooled prevalence estimates of 21% for clinical anxiety and 15% for depression. Rates are even higher when considering mental health symptoms, as nearly one-third of persons with IBD experience elevated anxiety symptoms and one-quarter experience depression symptoms. Rates of these symptoms were much higher during periods of disease activity, more common in women than men, and more common in Crohn’s disease than ulcerative colitis. There is robust evidence of the detrimental effects of comorbid depression and anxiety on the subsequent course of IBD based on longitudinal studies tracking outcomes over time. However, psychiatric disorders and IBD have bidirectional effects, with each affecting risk of the other. Elevated mental health concerns have been consistently associated with greater healthcare utilization and costs related to IBD. There i...

We consider a two-sector model of intertemporal resource allocation in which the investment good sector exhibits an initial phase of increasing returns in production. The economy maximizes a discounted sum of one period utilities derived from the consumption good. If it is autarkic, it may face a poverty trap from which it cannot escape even if it follows an optimal policy. If it engages in trade with the outside world as a price taker, it may escape from the trap. The optimal patterns of production and trade are analysed for such an economy.

Efficient water resource management is a topic of major importance in the field of sustainable development. In arid and semi-arid regions characterized by limited and irregular water availability, the agricultural sector is under constant pressure to receive and ensure water for their crops. Finding an optimal way to share this limited resource requires numerous negotiations between water suppliers and farmers. A multi-agent system, as presented in this paper, is a computer simulation that models the interactions between different types of agents in order to gain insight into the group’s behavior as a whole. This paper claims that such a system can be used at the beginning of the agricultural season to predict potential outcomes of the interactions between water suppliers and farmers, which can inform management on how to optimally plan for the allocation of water. One objective was to take an interdisciplinary approach in order to simulate imagined consequences to complex decisions...

Efficient water resource management is a topic of major importance in the field of sustainable development. In arid and semi-arid regions characterized by limited and irregular water availability, the agricultural sector is under constant pressure to receive and ensure water for their crops. Finding an optimal way to share this limited resource requires numerous negotiations between water suppliers and farmers. A multi-agent system, as presented in this paper, is a computer simulation that models the interactions between different types of agents in order to gain insight into the group’s behavior as a whole. This paper claims that such a system can be used at the beginning of the agricultural season to predict potential outcomes of the interactions between water suppliers and farmers, which can inform management on how to optimally plan for the allocation of water. One objective was to take an interdisciplinary approach in order to simulate imagined consequences to complex decisions...