Optimal Agreements Research Articles

Is the WTO terminally ill? Threats to the international trading system

The international trading system is under threat. Many observers have already expressed serious concerns about the impact of Covid, the war in Ukraine, tensions over Taiwan and other natural and man-made disasters and their effects on the international trading system. Some even doubt its viability and chances of survival. The purpose of this paper is to assess the weight of those arguments. It is argued that the turmoil in global markets is, of course, a factor endangering the system, but the system is threatened even more by its own weaknesses. These are various imperfections in the international trade agreements in the WTO which are dividing the international community into separate groups. It is also shown that economic theory does not help us much to show the directions for policy makers to reach optimal trade agreements. It is argued that the splitting of countries into different negotiating and trading blocs is the optimal step under present conditions.

Indonesia's deregulated generation expansion planning model based on mixed strategy game theory model for determining the optimal power purchase agreement

—Obtaining the optimal power purchase agreements (PPA) in deregulated generation expansion planning is crucial. A lower PPA provided by the utility results in the independent power producer (IPP) becoming disinterested in investment. On the other hand, a higher PPA increases the government's financial burden. Therefore, this study proposes a generation expansion planning model that considers the deregulated market and PPA determination. A game theory based on a mixed strategy method and bi-level model is used in this research. To obtain the PPA optimum value, a multi-scenario analysis is conducted by changing the PPAs from 25% to 100% of the generation cost. The proposed model is applied to the Bangka Belitung power system. The results of the multi-scenario analysis show that the optimum PPA is 30% of Bangka Belitung's generation cost. This PPA creates an optimum generation expansion planning with a levelized electricity cost of 6.009 cents USD/kWh. However, the utility cannot offer a PPA of less than 30% of the generation cost because the private sector is not interested in investing. Therefore, it forces the utility to rent diesel power plants and increases the LCOE to 8.629 cents USD/kWh.

Experimental evaluation and prediction model development on the heat and mass transfer characteristics of tumble drum in clothes dryers

• Heat and mass transfers of water in clothes are measured for a tumble dryer. • Heat loss in a tumble drum during drying process is investigated. • Temperature has a higher effect on heat and mass transfer than airflow rate. • Prediction models of heat, mass transfer, and heat loss are developed using ANN. An accurate heat and mass transfer model of a tumble drum has not been developed yet owing to complicated random motions of clothes in the tumble drum. In this study, heat and mass transfers of water from clothes to air, including the heat loss in the tumble drum of a clothes dryer, are measured with the temperature, humidity, airflow rate, and water content of clothes. The mass transfer rate increases as the air temperature, airflow rate, and water content of clothes increase; however, it decreases with an increase in the relative air humidity. The mass transfer rate enhancement is dominated by the increase in the temperature over the airflow rate; the increased temperature from 40 ℃ to 80 ℃ results in an increase in the mass transfer rate of 196%–238%, and the increased volumetric airflow rate from 2.5 CMM to 3.1 CMM leads to an increase in the mass transfer rate of 21%–23%. The heat loss in a tumble drum increases as the air temperature increases and continues to increase as the relative air humidity and water content of clothes decrease. Furthermore, although the heat loss is linearly proportional to the difference between the temperatures of ambient air and clothes, it has an insignificant relationship with the airflow rate. In addition, the prediction models of heat and mass transfers of water and heat loss in the tumble drum are developed using artificial neural network, exhibiting optimal agreements with the measured data. The developed prediction models can be used to optimize the tumble drum dryer, considering energy efficiency and short drying time.

Exploring Monte Carlo Negotiation Search with Nontrivial Agreements

The application of automated negotiations to general game playing is a research area with far-reaching implications. Non-zero sum games can be used to model a wide variety of real-world scenarios and automated negotiation provides a framework for more realistically modeling the behavior of agents in these scenarios. A particular recent development in this space is the Monte Carlo Negotiation Search (MCNS) algorithm, which can negotiate to find valuable cooperative strategies for a wide array of games (such as those of the Game Description Language). However, MCNS only proposes agreements corresponding to individual sequences of moves without any higher-level notions of conditional or stateful strategy. Our work attempts to lift this restriction. We present two contributions: extensions to the MCNS algorithm to support more complex agreements and an agreement language for GDL games suitable for use with our algorithm. We also present the results of a preliminary experiment in which we use our algorithm to search for an optimal agreement for the iterated prisoners dilemma. We demonstrate significant improvement of our algorithm over random agreement sampling, although further work is required to more consistently produce optimal agreements.

5G RAN Slicing: Dynamic Single Tenant Radio Resource Orchestration for eMBB Traffic within a Multi-Slice Scenario

Emerging 5G systems will need to seamlessly guarantee novel types of services in a multi-do-main ecosystem. New methodologies of network and infrastructure sharing facilitate the cooperation among the operators, exploiting the core and access sections of the system architecture. Network slicing (NS) is the operators' best technique for building and managing a network. Without NS, the 5G requirements in terms of flexibility, optimal resource utilization, and investment returns cannot materialize. Before slicing is commercially available, different sections of the 5G architecture should be modified to include NS. In this work, we present a novel dynamic radio access network slicing resource sharing method aimed to guarantee optimal service level agreements through the monitoring of each slice tenant's key performance indicators. The experiments are conducted following the 3GPP specifications, and the solution is validated using a testbed based on the main 5G functionalities.

Blocking the Light at the End of the Tunnel? Optimal Teleworking Agreements and Management's Revealed Preferences when Vaccine Is on the Horizon

During a pandemic, companies adopt teleworking agreements even if they put zero weight on its workforce welfare, as long as the quality of its future product may be affected by current health outcomes of its workers. News about a vaccine leads to an increase in the scope of teleworking agreements if and only if the management puts a strictly positive weight on its workforce welfare. Ceteris paribus, a rational management would never reduce the scope of teleworking agreements when vaccine is on the horizon. If new safety protocols appear successful in limiting or avoiding the health risks for tasks done on-site (e.g. lack of viral transmission with in-person teaching under a hybrid model), the reduction in the scope of teleworking agreements will be excessive if managers do not understand Lucas' Critique.

Clinicopathological Characteristics and Prognosis of Nasopharyngeal Lymphoepithelial Carcinoma: A Population-Based Retrospective Study

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to establish a predictive model for prognostic factors and overall survival (OS) in nasopharyngeal lymphoepithelial carcinoma (NLEC) patients.Material/MethodsThe data of 538 NLEC patients diagnosed between 1988 and 2015 were extracted from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. Patients who were diagnosed from 1988 to 1999 were included in the validation cohort, and those diagnosed from 2000 to 2015 in the primary cohort. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator and multivariate Cox regression analyses were performed. The discrimination and calibration capabilities of the predictive models were evaluated using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and calibration plot, respectively.ResultsRadiotherapy (P<0.0001), early-stage cancer based on the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging system (P<0.0001), younger age (P=0.0005) were associated with better OS rates. In the primary cohort, the areas under the ROC curves (AUC) of the nomogram for predicting 1-, 10-, and 15-year OS were 0.749, 0.754, and 0.81, respectively. Meanwhile, in the validation cohort, the AUC of the nomogram for predicting 1-, 10-, and 15-year OS were 0.692, 0.692, and 0.682, respectively. Furthermore, the calibration plot exhibited optimal agreements between the nomogram-predicted and actual 1-, 10-, and 15-year OS in both cohorts. The 1-, 10-, and 15-year OS rates were 93.6%, 62.7%, and 49.9%, respectively.ConclusionsAge, early-stage cancer based on the AJCC staging system, radiotherapy, and gender can be used to predict OS in nasopharyngeal lymphoepithelial carcinoma patients.

A BOA-based adaptive strategy with multi-party perspective for automated multilateral negotiations

Determining an effective strategy for intelligent agents in multilateral negotiations is a more complicated problem than in bilateral negotiations. In order to achieve an optimal and beneficial agreement the agent needs to consider the behavior and desired utility of more than one opponent, determine a concession tactic based on a smaller agreement space, and use a computationally efficient mechanism for generating optimal offers. However, a mere extension of bilateral negotiation strategies cannot be effective in multilateral negotiations because the nature of most bilateral negotiation strategies is based on interaction with only one opponent and tracking a single behavior during the negotiation process. In this paper, we propose an adaptive approach based on a multi-party perspective to determine multilateral negotiation strategy. The proposed approach applies the BOA framework (Bidding, Opponent model, and Acceptance) and dynamically models the opponents’ preference profiles. In order to estimate the obtainable utility from opponents and help find a good offer, the agent uses an ensemble model made by individual frequency-based opponent models and a different level of attention to each party’s behavior. The proposed approach also implements a bidding strategy which applies the opponents’ desirable utility to adapt the agent’s concession tactic and produce appropriate offers. The results of experimental evaluations on various negotiation scenarios against the state of the art multilateral negotiation strategies show that our proposed strategy can provide superior performance in both individual utility and social welfare and lead to more optimal and fairer agreements.

Optimal non-prosecution agreements and the reputational effects of convictions

Many claim that non-prosecution agreements (NPAs) reduce deterrence by mitigating the reputational sanctions that would otherwise be imposed on corporations through plea-bargains. They suggest, based on this claim, that NPAs ought to be used infrequently. This article presents a signalling model wherein reputational sanctions emerge as a result of noisy signals produced through a firm's prosecution. It is shown that, if, as claimed, NPAs provide third parties with less information regarding a firm's wrongdoings, then firms would be willing to pay an NPA premium to avoid convictions. Thus, the NPA premium can be chosen to induce only those firms which would otherwise be over-deterred to accept NPAs. Therefore, offering NPAs with high premia is superior to the option of not using NPAs. The article also characterizes optimal NPAs, and identifies relationships between deterrence; frequency of NPA use; firms’ characteristics; and NPA terms. It explains how these relationships can be exploited to form and test hypotheses on whether convictions obtained through plea-bargains cause greater reputational harm to firms than NPAs.

Bottom-up approaches to achieve Pareto optimal agreements in group decision making

In this article, we introduce a new paradigm to achieve Pareto optimality in group decision-making processes: bottom-up approaches to Pareto optimality. It is based on the idea that, while resolving a conflict in a group, individuals may trust some members more than others; thus, they may be willing to cooperate and share more information with those members. Therefore, one can divide the group into subgroups where more cooperative mechanisms can be formed to reach Pareto optimal outcomes. This is the first work that studies such use of a bottom-up approach to achieve Pareto optimality in conflict resolution in groups. First, we prove that an outcome that is Pareto optimal for subgroups is also Pareto optimal for the group as a whole. Then, we empirically analyze the appropriate conditions and achievable performance when applying bottom-up approaches under a wide variety of scenarios based on real-life datasets. The results show that bottom-up approaches are a viable mechanism to achieve Pareto optimality with applications to group decision-making, negotiation teams, and decision making in open environments.

Repeated Games with Observable Actions in Continuous Time: Costly Transfers in Repeated Cooperation

I propose a way to formulate and solve for sub-game perfect equilibria of continuous-time repeated games with both observable and unobservable actions. The main idea is to study directly self-enforcing agreements corresponding to the interaction, without setting up the full extensive-form game. To discipline observable deviations, I restrict that players are stuck with their deviations for a small amount of time. This restriction simultaneously makes the model tractable and ensures that agreements are well defined. To illustrate, I consider a setting with two players colluding with imperfectly observable productive actions and observable money transfers. Transfers are costly: only a fraction of the amount sent is delivered. I introduce self-enforcing public agreements, which mimic pure-strategy public perfect equilibria from discrete time. For a fixed interest rate, I characterize the set of payoffs attainable in such agreements. In optimal agreements, costly transfers are used rarely, only when the participation constraint of either player binds.

Giving the Treaty a Purpose: Comparing the Durability of Treaties and Executive Agreements

AbstractScholars have argued that Senate-approved treaties are becoming increasingly irrelevant in the United States, because their role can be fulfilled by their close but less politically costly cousin, the congressional-executive agreement. This study demonstrates that treaties are more durable than congressional-executive agreements, supporting the view that there are qualitative differences between the two instruments. Abandoning the treaty may therefore lead to unintended consequences by decreasing the tools that the executive has available to design optimal agreements.

Optimal Non-Prosecution Agreements and the Reputational Effects of Convictions

Many claim that non-prosecution agreements (NPAs) reduce deterrence by mitigating the reputational sanctions that would otherwise be imposed on corporations through plea-bargains. They suggest, based on this claim, that NPAs ought to be used infrequently. This article presents a signaling model wherein reputational sanctions emerge as a result of noisy signals produced through a firm's prosecution. It is shown that, if, as claimed, NPAs provide third parties with less information regarding a firm's wrongdoings, then firms would be willing to pay an NPA premium to avoid convictions. Thus, the NPA premium can be chosen to induce only those firms which would otherwise be over-deterred to accept NPAs. Therefore, offering NPAs with high premia is superior to the option of not using NPAs. The article also characterizes optimal NPAs, and identifies relationships between deterrence; frequency of NPA use; firms' characteristics; and NPA terms. It explains how these relationships can be exploited to form and test hypotheses on whether convictions obtained through plea-bargains cause greater reputational harm to firms than NPAs.

Economics and Politics of International Investment Agreements

This paper investigates the design and implications of international investment agreements. These are ubiquitous, potent and heavily criticized state-to-state treaties that protect foreign investment against host country policies. We show that optimal agreements cause national but not global underregulation (regulatory chill). The incentives to form agreements and their distributional consequences depend on countries' unilateral commitment possibilities and the direction of investment flows. The benefits from agreements between developed countries accrue to foreign investors at the expense of the rest of society, but this is not the case for agreements between developed and developing countries.

An ontology-based model for competence management

In the last years, the need for developing strategies, models and tools to manage competences clearly emerges in numerous scenarios. For instance, this emergence especially raises when it is required to realize effective recruiting platforms, decision support systems for human resource management, learning management systems and so on. This work proposes an ontology-based model for the representation of competences able to support a wide range of scenarios where it is fundamental to model, organize and represent professional competences, enable interoperability and co-operation among different and heterogeneous tools and, lastly, execute queries and inference operations over these competences. The proposed model starts from the outcomes of the specialized literature and the related R&D projects and produces a novel integrated model that represents both job offers and demands to support recruiting initiatives and to develop employability strategies aiming at a best matching as well as a careful skill gap analysis.The model has been evaluated by means of a three-level approach also in the context of the SIRET project whose goal is defining a recruiting and training integrated system able to represent the professional competences of users and to understand the supplies and the demands in order to find optimal agreements in the job market.

Pool size and the sustainability of optimal risk-sharing agreements

We study a risk-sharing agreement where members exert a loss-mitigating action which decreases the amount of reimbursements to be paid in the pool. The action is costly and members tend to free-ride on it. An optimal risk-sharing agreement maximizes the expected utility of a representative member with respect to both the coverage and the (collective) action such that efficiency is restored. We study the sustainability of the optimal agreement as equilibrium in a repeated game with indefinite number of repetitions. When the optimal agreement is not enforceable, the equilibrium with free-riding emerges. We identify an interesting trade-off: welfare generated by the optimal risk-sharing agreement increases with the size of the pool, but at the same time the pool size must not be too large for collective choices to be self-enforcing. This generates a discontinuous effect of pool size on welfare.

Bilateral negotiation model for intelligent decision-making under uncertainty

The relevance of bargaining in construction material procurement can easily be ascertained, yet the study of any bargaining process is extremely hard, involving a multiplicity of questions and complex issues. The objective of this paper is to provide new insights on some dimensions of the bargaining process - asymmetries and uncertainties in particular - by using a non-cooperative game theory approach. We develop a computational model which simulates the process of negotiation between supplier and contractor, who bargain over the material price. Through numerically simulating negotiation games between two players, we identify the main features of players' optimal strategies and equilibrium agreements. Our results confirm that uncertainty affects players' behaviour and modifies the likelihood of a self-enforcing agreement to emerge. The model proposed here can have several applications, in particular in the field of computer-aided decision and automation in construction procurement, where conflicts over how to optimise negotiation price.

Forbearance in Optimal Multilateral Trade Agreements

This paper presents a theory of optimal multilateral trade agreements with public political shocks. Optimal multilateral agreements exhibit forbearance'' – where one country withholds retaliation when its trading partner receives a shock. This provides a rationale for countries not acting on retaliatory rights granted under GATT. There is a limit to forbearance allowable in a self-enforcing agreement. This limit is increasing in the number of countries in the agreement, the discount factor, and the size of the export sector. In this sense, larger trade agreements with greater trade flows provide more insurance against political shocks.

Automated negotiation in open and distributed environments

Automated negotiation is one of the most common approaches used to make decisions and manage disputes between computational entities leading them to optimal agreements. Many existing works tackle single-issue negotiations and the negotiation environment is assumed to be static so that the agents can make decisions based solely on the proposals of the counterparts and their own fixed parameters. Most real-world scenarios, however, involve complex domains and dynamic environments. In such cases, it is no longer sufficient to consider negotiation as an isolated activity in a static environment. Therefore, a more general framework for automated negotiation is needed in which the negotiation agents can be very flexible and adaptive. In this paper, we describe a generic framework for automated negotiation, which captures descriptively the social dynamics of the negotiation process. The proposed framework enables the agents to behave responsively to the changes in the environment. Their strategies can adapt as the conditions outside of the negotiation change to ensure that their decisions remain rational. And the agents are proactive and responsive by searching for options, which are outside of the negotiation and which may improve their outcomes. The key ideas and the overall system architecture together with a specific negotiation instance in a basic bilateral setting are described, along with two illustrative examples. The first example is in the context of e-commerce, and the second example is an application scenario of service level agreement negotiation in service computing. We also describe a prototypical implementation of the proposed negotiation framework.

Tariff Binding and Overhang: Theory and Evidence

We study optimal tariff binding agreements among asymmetric countries that are subject to idiosyncratic political-economy shocks. We find that the optimal tariff binding of a sector is decreasing in the importing countries international market power in that sector. Moreover, under an optimal agreement, a tariff binding overhang is on average greater in sectors with lower international market power. Using the WTO tariff bindings and the applied tariffs of the WTO member countries, we find strong empirical support for our predictions.