Deregulation Of Industry Research Articles

Analyzing India's National Civil Aviation Policy and Global Trends in Contemporary Civil Aviation Policies

The expansion of the Indian economy is expected to extend to remote regions, and while market-driven processes are ideal for regional air connectivity, there is recognition of the valuable role of public policy in this endeavor. The UDAN Scheme follows a market-oriented approach where operators assess demand, propose routes, and navigate variables like traffic rights, slot allocation, regulatory restrictions, and infrastructure limitations. Global airline industry deregulation has introduced healthy competition, enhancing efficiency and service quality, leading to increased passenger traffic. Studies have highlighted the constructive impact of improved air connectivity on the economic development of regions. Efficient airports are vital economic catalysts, but research suggests that some regional airports operate inefficiently, missing opportunities for profitability. Government subsidies and policies for enhancing regional and remote air connectivity are common practices worldwide, with schemes like EAS in the United State and PSO in Europe bridging the accessibility gap. Research is crucial to understand policy effects on air connectivity and identify factors that improve outcomes. Route dispersal guidelines, such as those in India, can create financial redistribution between route categories, affecting airlines' profitability and serving state capitals over remote regions. Policymakers must find effective ways to enhance air transport to underserved areas where market dynamics might not naturally establish viable transportation links. In summary, this study emphasizes the importance of government-supported policies like UDAN and the role of market-oriented approaches in promoting regional air connectivity. It underlines the need for research to assess policy impacts and identifies the challenges and opportunities in enhancing air connectivity to remote and underserved regions.

Finance and intergenerational mobility: Evidence from US banking reforms

We investigate the impact of US banking industry deregulation on intergenerational mobility. In order to do so, we use a quasi-natural experimental research design to investigate how a change in state level bank competition (following geographic deregulation) affects the intergenerational mobility of individuals born to (poorer) families at the lower end of the income distribution. We find that individuals born to poorer families who spend their first years as adults in an area with a more competitive banking system, experience higher mobility relative to counterparts located in areas characterised by lower levels of bank competition. Increased educational opportunities and entrepreneurship are important underlying factors driving the observed increases in intergenerational mobility.

An Appraisal of the Legal Frameworks and Policy Shift in the Nigerian Energy Sector

This paper will explore policy shifts in Nigeria’s oil and gas, solar, nuclear, and mineral energy sectors. This policy shift by way of a transition, indigenization, and Nigerianization, has given way to deregulation, decentralization, and de-indigenization of many industries, most notably in the oil and gas sector, through the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) of 2021 and the Local Content Act of 2010 (LCA). The paper recommends, amongst others, the establishment of a new legal regime that grants resource-based and property rights to resource-bearing communities and incorporates principles of international law, energy diplomacies, International Environmental Law, and international best practices.

The ACT in Health Activism: Teaching Street Theater to College Students

Street theater is historically a form of political performance art used to foster social change and is characterized by unscheduled performances in public spaces, interactive audience participation, and short performances often repeated in the same spot for passersby. Long used as a creative tool within social movements, street skits not only entertain but are used to educate and build awareness on pressing issues. It is an art form for the people, by the people, making theater available for all (“on the streets”) rather than solely for those who can afford it. Street theater also has its uses in public health education and organizing and has been used globally as an effective method of health promotion, especially in rural and low-literacy areas. This paper looks at a street theater project that university students at Clark University in Worcester, MA participated in as part of a “Health Rights: Advocacy and Action” course. Students were tasked with developing a street theater skit that educates on a public health issue and publicly perform the skit on campus. Three skits were produced: (1) “Deadly Derailment”: raised awareness on industry deregulation and the 2023 toxic chemical spill in East Palestine, OH; (2) “Harm Reduction Saves Lives”: addressed humane and non-victim blaming ways to address substance use; and (3) “End the STIgma”: educated on sexual health on a college campus. Teaching street theater as part of public health pedagogy is a creative approach to inspire students to use their voices and link health promotion and activism.

Employer Concentration and Wages for Specialized Workers

This paper studies how wages respond to a sudden change in employer concentration by using the deregulation of the Swedish pharmacy industry. The reform involved a substantial and policy-driven increase in the number of employers that varied by local labor market. Exploiting this variation, elasticities of wages with respect to labor market concentration are estimated between −0.025 and −0.061. The positive wage effects from reduced employer con centration are most prevalent for more mobile workers as well as younger and foreign-born workers. Overall, the paper finds that employer concentration matters for wages in a context where skills are industry specific. (JEL J24, J31, J42, L13, L81, L88)

Risk assessment and optimal scheduling of serial projects

The valuation and planning of complex projects are becoming increasingly challenging with rising market uncertainty and the deregulation of many industries, which have also raised the need for efficient risk management. We take the perspective of a private firm interested in sequential capacity expansion of a project and develop a framework for measuring the downside risk of the serial project and optimising the sequence of the stages. Under general distributional assumptions for the duration of each stage, we present an accurate representation of the project’s net present value (NPV) distribution based on a Pearson curve fit, leading to closed-form expressions for the associated risk measures. We then assess the impact of duration variability on the value at risk and demonstrate its role in stochastic project scheduling. We also account for the trade-off between maximising the expected NPV and minimising the risk exposure, and obtain the optimal schedule for risk-averse decision-makers. It becomes obvious that both the duration variability of each stage and the decision-makers’ risk preferences can significantly affect the optimal sequence of the stages and that high duration variability is not always undesirable, even for risk-averse decision-makers.

Evaluating Airport Terminals from the Users’ Perspective: Are Service, Experience, Liking, and Satisfaction Equivalent?

In the era of globalization and the deregulation of the air transportation industry, public and private stakeholders have been increasingly interested in making airports attractive for passengers and airlines. Multiple service-like indicators (i.e., satisfaction, experience, liking, and quality of service) have been used to evaluate transportation infrastructure and systems, including airport terminals. Despite literature providing a clear definition of the different indicators separately, the similarities and differences are not clear, nor is it clear whether they are equivalent and could be used interchangeably. The purpose of this paper is to further understanding of the roots and essence of the four frequently used service indicators (SIs) in airport terminals—namely satisfaction, liking, quality of service, and experience—by comparing regressors. Using a travelers’ perception survey ( N = 377) at the domestic terminal in Bogotá’s El Dorado Airport, we found that, despite their correlation, the four service proxies were, in essence, different from each other conceptually, meaning that they have to be carefully chosen for the successful evaluation of a terminal. Each SI comprises different categories, representing a unique user perception. Recognizing and acknowledging that all these terms are different furthers the transparency in defining what each indicator measures.

Strengthening economic security through the zero waste concept in sustainable business

Global economic security initiatives are aimed at the survival of humanity by increasing the requirements for life cycle quality, the assessment of investment projects, and their environmental efficiency. An urgent task is forming a strategy for the post-war economic development of Ukraine, focused on sustainability, environmental friendliness, deregulation, and demonopolization of industries. It is substantiated that the circular economy is a system of long-term growth of the organization's value that aims to minimize waste and maximize resource efficiency by developing products and processes that can be reused, repaired, recycled, or regenerated. It is a critical component of corporate social responsibility (CSR). It can help businesses reduce their environmental impact, save costs, improve their reputation, and create new opportunities for innovation and collaboration. Applying the cyclical economy approach is possible on condition of awareness of its global role, determination of feasibility components in modern conditions, prediction, and management of associated risks. Even in difficult times, Ukraine demonstrates growth indicators, offers enterprises the availability of energy resources, developed energy infrastructure, and programs for the use of the latest energy-saving technologies, which allows many enterprises to maintain the role of the leader of the national economy, increase the pace of economic development, and be in demand and competitive in the global economic space. The economic catastrophe caused by military aggression reduced energy consumption and increased population migration, which led to a decrease in anthropogenic impact on the environment, which, on the one hand, contributes to the transition to a circular economy, but military actions, increasing other risks, are one of the most significant factors of pollution environment, show a prolonged and long-term adverse effect. With the annual increase in production and life waste and considering the consequences of military conflicts, the need to dispose of the consequences of pollution is an urgent problem of the present and future decades. The risks and priorities of the strategic management of the enterprise's economic security by ensuring sustainable economic development and reducing the ecological burden on the environment in the current state of Ukraine's economy are considered. Economic and socio-political factors are analyzed, and the basic principles that lead to a negative impact are singled out. Awareness of the impact on the economy and society of climate change and the consequence of environmental pollution proves the need to ensure the sustainable use of natural resources, motivates the introduction of "green" technologies, renewable energy sources, and the creation of sustainable partnerships and infrastructure. In today's conditions of instability, the enterprise is offered to develop a set of strategic measures to implement the principles of sustainability and environmental friendliness, which must be followed for production and economic activity to be effective. The economic security strategy should focus on building ESG's reputation for overcoming the risks caused by military aggression and equalizing economic advantages, finding growth opportunities, and investment-oriented access to global markets with the help of "green" partners. It has been proven that ignoring the principles of sustainable development leads to significant reputational risks for organizations and the loss of opportunities for effective communications focused on sustainable development. The studies created the basis for further improvement of the methodology for assessing enterprises' economic security risks. Keywords: safe economic activity, environmentally-oriented concept, "zero waste", risk, environmental, social and management reporting (ESG), enterprise, economic security system, ecological and economic security, sustainability, reputation, ESG indicators, economic growth.

The media coverage of antitrust enforcement: Evidence from Italy

This paper studies the media coverage of the antitrust proceedings completed by the Italian Antitrust Authority between 1994 and 2019. The empirical analysis considers the news on antitrust investigations published in the top Italian newspapers by circulation. The data reveal that the newspapers favor the conclusion (against the start) of proceedings, antitrust cases regarding immaterial services and investigations that establish a violation of antitrust law. In addition, the probability of media coverage increases if foreign firms are involved in cartel proceedings. While the press equally covers cartels and abuses, the imposition of unfair conditions is the most mentioned antitrust offense. These results are important for the public dimension of antitrust law and antitrust enforcement. An unbiased media coverage of antitrust enforcement can in fact foster the crucial collaboration of third parties in reporting alleged antitrust infringements. In addition, policymakers can draw crucial information from completed antitrust investigations and consider the possible regulation, deregulation or re-regulation of industries and companies frequently involved in the antitrust cases.

Solving Bilevel Optimal Bidding Problems Using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

Current state-of-the-art solution techniques for solving bilevel optimization problems either assume strong problem regularity criteria or are computationally intractable. In this article, we address power system problems of bilevel structure, commonly arising after the deregulation of the power industry. Such problems are predominantly solved by converting the lower level problem into a set of equivalent constraints using the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker optimality conditions at an expense of binary variables. Furthermore, in case the lower level problem is nonconvex, the strong duality does not hold rendering the single-level reduction techniques inapplicable. To overcome this, we propose an effective numerical scheme based on bypassing the lower level completely using an approximation function that replicates the relevant lower level effect on the upper level. The approximation function is constructed by training a deep convolutional neural network. The numerical procedure is run iteratively to enhance the accuracy. As a case study, the proposed method is applied to a price-maker energy storage optimal bidding problem that considers an ac power flow-based market clearing in the lower level. The results indicate that greater actual profits are achieved as compared to the less accurate dc market representation.

Crash Landing: The Airline Industry’s Failing Efforts to Remedy Its Sexist and Discriminatory Practices Towards Flight Attendants

Since the deregulation of the airline industry, flight attendants have become the friendly faces and hallmark of airline brands across the globe. However, airlines went to unconstitutional heights to ensure that flight attendants looked, behaved, and acted in compliance with conservative and outdated notions about gender and sexuality. Piece by piece, the airline industry’s strict and misogynist policies that regulated female flight attendants’ appearance were declared a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act; however, the sexist policies and attitudes maintain a pervasive and insidious presence in the modern airline industry. Moreover, the airline industry’s dress and appearance policies aim to reinforce traditional and binary gender distinctions. Although Title VII has provided legal protection against workplace discrimination based on sex, courts and legislatures were divided on Title VII’s application to individuals who diverged from traditional and binary gender distinctions. However, the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County ended this split by interpreting Title VII to protect employees against discrimination based on sexuality and gender identity. When paired with society’s increasing acceptance of gender fluidity and individual autonomy, Bostock has the potential to render gendered dress codes obsolete and unconstitutional. The airline industry’s sexist history paired with its strict, traditional, and gendered dress and appearance policies makes it a prime defendant in a Title VII suit to test the applicability of Bostock to gendered employment policies.

BANKING SYSTEM FRAGILITY IN NIGERIA: HANGING ON THE PRECIPICE?

The health of a country’s banking system is a key determinant to the development of the country. A fragile banking system portends danger not only to the financial system but the entire economy. This study investigates the state of the Nigerian banking system in terms of stability or fragility from 1981 to 2020. We used the banking system fragility index (BSFI) proposed by Kibritçioğlu (2003) to analyze Nigerian banking industry aggregate data from three risk areas: credit, market and liquidity. We estimated that out of the 40 years examined, the banking system was fragile for 23 years given their BSFI less than 0 while it was not fragile for 17 years with BSFI = 0 or greater. We found that most of the years when the Nigerian banking system was fragile were periods of relaxed monetary policies, deregulation and credit expansion. Secondly, the years of banking system stability were when the county’s banking system was subjected to stiff regulation and consolidation. Given the number of years that the system was fragile, we observed that sustained economic growth and development requires that the banking system remain strong as long as possible, and that the Nigerian situation could not promote this important objective. We recommend that the financial regulatory authorities put in place more stringent policies as banks are more fragile during the deregulation of the banking industry.

Reinforcement learning in deregulated energy market: A comprehensive review

The increasing penetration of renewable generations, along with the deregulation and marketization of power industry, promotes the transformation of energy market operation paradigms. The optimal bidding strategy and dispatching methodologies under these new paradigms are prioritized concerns for both market participants and power system operators. In contrast with conventional solution methodologies, the Reinforcement Learning (RL), as an emerging machine learning technique that exhibits a more favorable computational performance, is playing an increasingly significant role in both academia and industry. This paper presents a comprehensive review of RL applications in deregulated energy market operation including bidding and dispatching strategy optimization, based on more than 150 carefully selected papers. For each application, apart from a paradigmatic summary of generalized methodology, in-depth discussions of applicability and obstacles while deploying RL techniques are also provided. Finally, some RL techniques that have great potentiality to be deployed in bidding and dispatching problems are recommended and discussed.

Constrained Fuzzy Power Flow Applied to Transmission Congestion

The deregulation of the electricity industry, the increasing penetration of renewable energy resources, and the presence of new stakeholders, such as Electric Vehicles (EV), make managing transmission system congestion critical. In this context, load flow methodologies that consider non-probabilistic uncertainty due to a lack of data (particularly concerning EV) seem to be a handy tool to analyze network congestion situations and to support electrical network planning. The congestion of the branches is related to the load and generation of the network buses. Still, the congestion of a specific branch may not be related to the load and generation on the neighbouring buses. In this line, Fuzzy Power Flow (FPF) is suitable for identifying congestion situations in the transmission system and the branches responsible for such cases when probabilistic models may not describe uncertainty. This paper uses an FPF model, a non-linearized Constrained Fuzzy Power Flow (CFPF), to characterize congestion situations in transmission network planning. The application of the CFPF to analyze congestion situations is a novelty. The results of that application may be used to define the reinforcement of the most appropriate branches to achieve specific suitability of the network in the face of a diverse set of uncertainties. Furthermore, the dual values provided by Lagrange multipliers resulting from the CFPF optimization problem are used to identify the most promising options to mitigate congestion situations.

Optimized Data-Driven Models for Short-Term Electricity Price Forecasting Based on Signal Decomposition and Clustering Techniques

In recent decades, the traditional monopolistic energy exchange market has been replaced by deregulated, competitive marketplaces in which electricity may be purchased and sold at market prices like any other commodity. As a result, the deregulation of the electricity industry has produced a demand for wholesale organized marketplaces. Price predictions, which are primarily meant to establish the market clearing price, have become a significant factor to an energy company’s decision making and strategic development. Recently, the fast development of deep learning algorithms, as well as the deployment of front-end metaheuristic optimization approaches, have resulted in the efficient development of enhanced prediction models that are used for electricity price forecasting. In this paper, the development of six highly accurate, robust and optimized data-driven forecasting models in conjunction with an optimized Variational Mode Decomposition method and the K-Means clustering algorithm for short-term electricity price forecasting is proposed. In this work, we also establish an Inverted and Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization approach that is implemented for the optimization of the Variational Mode Decomposition method. The prediction of the day-ahead electricity prices is based on historical weather and price data of the deregulated Greek electricity market. The resulting forecasting outcomes are thoroughly compared in order to address which of the two proposed divide-and-conquer preprocessing approaches results in more accuracy concerning the issue of short-term electricity price forecasting. Finally, the proposed technique that produces the smallest error in the electricity price forecasting is based on Variational Mode Decomposition, which is optimized through the proposed variation of Particle Swarm Optimization, with a mean absolute percentage error value of 6.15%.

Key Factors that Influence Consumer Preferences for Natural‐Hyped Products

AbstractNatural‐hyped products are receiving greater attention from and acceptance by consumers worldwide. Environmental factors that foster the demand for natural‐hyped products, specifically hemp‐based products include the deregulation of the cannabis industry and greater consumer desire for natural foods. Adding to this, the strategic use of stimulant type of cues (e.g., a cannabis leaf) included in product logos, ads, and packaging, seems to create hype associations when evaluating hemp‐based products. In this context, this study presents empirical evidence (three experiments and two qualitative studies) that illustrates consumer preference for hemp‐based products over ones that do not include hemp as an ingredient (hemp‐free). The research focuses on identifying the psychological determinant that orients consumers towards hemp‐based products. Findings suggest that the perceived naturalness is the psychological mechanism behind consumers positive evaluation of hemp‐based products. Moreover, this study presents evidence that this evaluation is enhanced by the consumer's need for stimulation. Implications of the findings for the role of perceived naturalness and the need for stimulation in marketing strategies are discussed.

Market-based hosting capacity maximization of renewable generation in power grids with energy storage integration

In an attempt to achieve net zero, the operation and planning of the energy system face techno-economic challenges brought by integrating large-scale distributed energy resources (DERs) with low carbon footprints. Previous work has analyzed the technical challenges including hosting capacity (HC) for DERs. In light of the deregulation of the power industry and the transition to power system with renewables at its center, this article takes the lead to maximizing renewable integration in power grids from a market viewpoint. It solves a significant problem brought forth by the fall in electricity prices, resulting from increasing renewable penetration that jeopardizes investment cost recovery and prevents sustainable grid integration of renewables. To this end, a novel bi-level optimization model is formulated, where the upper-level problem aims to maximize the HC of renewables ensuring the recovery of investment, and the lower-level problem describes the market clearing process considering network constraints. The optimal solution of devised bi-level problem can be found after reformulating it to a single-level mixed-integer linear problem (MILP) using the strong duality theorem and a special ordered set-type 1 (SOS1) founded linearization approach. Case studies confirm the significance of the devised model and quantitatively analyze the impact of different network capacities, renewable subsidies, and energy storage, respectively, on the market-based HC obeying its profitability constraint.

Understanding the Role of Top Management Practices in Organizational Hybridization

Hybrid organizations is a well-studied field, known for being challenged by tensions of competing and rivalling logics, causing cognitive confusion, mission drift and loss of performance (Boone, Özcan, & Li, 2021). We investigate how a top management team (TMT) navigate an organizational transformation from a not-for profit to a hybrid form, initiated by a deregulation of the energy industry in Europe. Surprisingly, we found that apparently conflicting logics may not always be the victim of competition and compromise, often suggested in literature, but can become “enveloped”, forming a hybrid of both logics. “Enveloping logics” is a concept of one logic framing another logic, embracing both equally. We conducted a qualitative case study, analyzing intimate interviews of TMT members and archival data over a period of 20 years. In that period the company developed from a regulated monopoly, dominated by a not-for profit-logic into a hybrid organization. TMT practices, adopted from outside the company, and from acquired and merged companies, was found to play a central role in creating hybrid logics. We developed a grounded theory process model explaining how the TMT enveloped logics over a period of 6 years, and what role adapting and deploying TMT practices played herein.

Commercial Property Exposure and Corporation Financing Choice

This study explores the possible relationship between a corporation’s capital structure and its commercial property exposure as well as property market characteristics. Using data from the heavily levered and rapidly growing U.S. telecommunications industry, we find a positive association between leverage and commercial property exposure via commercial property ownership since the 1996 telecommunications industry deregulation, after controlling for traditional capital structure determinants, and the association is particularly prominent during the 2007-2009 Great Recession. A possible justification is the collateral effect of real estate properties on leverage. The exposure through property leases also play (albeit smaller) roles in the financing choice. Our findings generally suggest a non-trivial influence of real estate exposure to the firms’ financing choices, especially when the capital market is tight hence the collateral effect is critical.

Policy Selection Behaviour of Individual Investors towards Insurance Policies and Marketing Strategies Followed by Insurance Companies

The Indian insurance industry underwent a drastic transformation with the entry of private players who captured a significant market share-thanks to the deregulation of the Indian insurance industry. But still the insurers had behaved, more as retail seller; the efforts of telemarketing, marketing executives, banks, brokers & agents, channel partners influenced by the financial behaviour of individual as the buyer is involved in price negotiations and other value added elements. Indian consumers have big influence of emotions and rationality on their buying decisions. Indian Economy is having a huge middle class societal status and salaried persons. Their money value for current needs and future desires sets the pendulum to move to another side which generates the reasons behind holding a policy. Also the marketing activities are focused on creating and retaining customers by making customers feel happy and providing them low cost satisfaction and value based service element. The investors are influenced by their perception and human relates the perception to action i.e buying behaviour towards buying decision. Hence, this study has made an attempt to examine the related aspects of policy selection behaviour of individual investors towards insurance policies and marketing strategies followed by insurance companies to increase sales in Nasik city.