Economic Value Of Investment Research Articles

The Aggregate economic benefits of the National Cultivar Trials for Maize in South Africa with specific reference to the Highveld region

ABSTRACTThe South African maize sector has been revolutionised from a system of production with low use of modern technologies to a leading maize producer in the African continent. That transformation is in part attributable to South Africa's investment in the national maize cultivar trials, which have facilitated the adoption and use of maize cultivars that are highly adapted to commercial farmer localities, causing considerable gains in yields. The economic value of the public investment in the trials remains unknown. This study uses experimental yields spanning 1977 - 2012 to attribute the influence of the national maize cultivar trials to maize yield improvement on farmer localities in the Highveld region of South Africa. Using attribution methods, the study estimates that 24.3 kg per hectare of extra maize yields accrued to commercial maize producers because of the national maize trials. The economic value of these investments was found to be R1.4billion (in 2012 currency values). The study estimates that South Africa received R37 of benefit for every rand invested by the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) in the trials.

KAJIAN INVESTASI SISTEM INFORMASI BERDASARKAN DOMAIN BISNIS PADA UNIVERSITAS X

Appropriate investment on information technology is needed t o obtain the information technology systems that are reliable. University ' X ' has decided to do technology investments by developing academic information systems to support business processes. It is necessary to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the systems and technology investments, and assess whether the investment has been supporting the organization's business processes . In addition, knowing the economic value of investments/ IT and ROI calculation is crucial . The purpose of the study is to analyze and assess the extent to which the success of information systems investments made ​​by the company by using a business domain analysis method on Information Economics (IE). The method used was the literature research, surveys, interviews, questionnaires, documentation studies and methods of analysis. At the end of the study, it has successfully made ​​the investment analysis of the University Academic Information Systems, a ROI calculation and IE Score as well as tools for storing project data and calculation results and ROI Score

Comparing two approaches to the rate of return to investment in education

The economic value of investment in education has typically been measured by its rate of return, frequently estimated by the internal rate of return or the earning function approach. Given the importance of the rate of return estimates for individuals and countries, especially developing countries, in making decision on educational investment, we need to know how these methods compare as empirical researchers have used only one method, mainly due to data constraints. This study presents and compares the rate of return estimates obtained from these two methods using household data‐sets that have been typically employed in such studies. The results of the study confirm the previously established stylized facts about the rate of return to education. In addition, the internal rate of return approach exhibits ‘diminishing returns’ to schooling, reflecting ever rising cost of higher increments of schooling, while the earning function approach yields the opposite pattern, reflecting the greater relative increase associated in earnings with additional schooling. Moreover, the rate of return is greater using the internal rate of return approach than the earning function approach. Finally, the internal rate of return approach reveals a more accurate estimate of the earning return to the actual amount invested in schooling, whereas the earning function approach is more thorough in measuring earning differences associated with additional schooling.

Compressed Air Energy Storage in an Electricity System With Significant Wind Power Generation

In this paper, a stochastic electricity market model is applied to estimate the effects of significant wind power generation on system operation and on economic value of investments in compressed air energy storage (CAES). The model's principle is cost minimization by determining the system costs mainly as a function of available generation and transmission capacities, primary energy prices, plant characteristics, and electricity demand. To obtain appropriate estimates, notably reduced efficiencies at part load, start-up costs, and reserve power requirements are taken into account. The latter are endogenously modeled by applying a probabilistic method. The intermittency of wind is covered by a stochastic recombining tree and the system is considered to adapt on increasing wind integration over time by endogenous modeling of investments in selected thermal power plants and CAES. Results for a German case study indicate that CAES can be economic in the case of large-scale wind power deployment

Demonstrating the economic value of investments in health at work: not just a measurement problem

Demonstrating the economic value of investments in health at work: not just a measurement problem

Research: Is the Value of College Going Really Declining?

Hollomon presented a pessimistic view of future economic value of college going. Since their article has received wide national attention, their data should be analyzed with particular care. In examining comprehensive cost and earnings data, one can come to conclusions quite different from those of Freeman and Hollomon. Freeman and Hollomon think that golden age of higher education came to an abrupt end at outset of 1970s. Claiming that job market for college graduates was exceptionally strong during 1950s and 1960s, they see 25-year boom withering into a major market bust. By all relevant measures, they say, the economic status of college graduates is deteriorating, with employment prospects for young declining exceptionally sharply. As a result of decline in relative incomes and starting salaries and in face of continued increases in tuition and fees, rate of return on college investment has fallen significantly.... Analysis of causes of seventies' turnaround suggests that market developments represent a major break with past and are not simply cyclical or temporary phenomena.... If proportion of young that elects higher education does not, for whatever reason, change in expected manner, depressed market is likely to last throughout 1980s. Other researchers have looked at this same issue. Calculating discounted difference in earnings between collegeand high school-educated workers, Stanley D. Nollen finds that supply of college-educated white males has increased rapidly because market benefit of a college education has increased faster than cost. Assuming that young men are responsive to relationships of benefits and costs, he thinks current narrowing earnings gap for persons 25 to 34 years old could mean downward pressure on future enrollments. Lewis B. Mayhew believes that economic value of investment in a college education decreased in early 1970s, is still decreasing, and that, for this and other reasons, higher education has become a declining industry. Stephen P. Dresch predicts economic incentives to go to college will remain low, causing undergraduate enrollments to decrease 30 percent below 1974 levels by year 2000. Elias Blake, Jr., and other members of board of trustees of Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching see fast declining rates of pay for college graduates as compared with high school graduates, sharply ising costs of college attendance that have been associated with accelerated inflation rates and accompanying increases in tuition and other college charges, and declining rates of return on investment in a college education. Claiming that, since 1930, colleges paid higher salaries to faculty members and met other higher costs but did not raise their productivity, they believe the price of higher education rose more rapidly than prices generally; that it is reasonable to expect that all such increases in costs cannot be passed through to sources of income in future and will need to be offset, in part, by productivity increases; that real sources are unlikely to rise by more than 1.5 percent per year, thus requiring almost a 1 percent gain in productivity per year. This will be hard to achieve over long run. The rate of return on college investment, which is main focus of these studies, is measure of productivity that relates costs of resources expended in instruction to values of benefits produced by instruction. In this measure, costs, which are concentrated in a brief span of years in early adulthood, and stream of benefits, which is spread over most of remainder of a lifetime, are combined in computation of internal rate of return. In this computation, benefits in form of additional earnings of college graduates over those of high school graduates are discounted to recognize that far-distant benefits are valued less highly than benefits just a few years in future.