Original Investment Research Articles

Pricing Medicine Fairly

Recently, dramatic price increases by several pharmaceutical companies have provoked public outrage. These scandals raise questions both about how pharmaceutical firms should be regulated and about how pharmaceutical executives ethically ought to make pricing decisions when drug prices are largely unregulated. Though there is an extensive literature on the regulatory question, the ethical question has been largely unexplored. This article defends a Kantian approach to the ethics of pharmaceutical pricing in an unregulated market. To the extent possible, pharmaceutical companies must price drugs so that those who genuinely need them can get them without financial ruin. This requirement is an ethical side constraint, like the moral prohibitions on deception and theft, that takes precedence over a business’s interest in maximizing profit. That said, the requirement’s application is sensitive to the need to recoup the costs of research and to produce a return that financially justifies the original investment. It may not be either feasible or desirable for government to attempt to enforce the ethical requirements concerning just pharmaceutical pricing. Either price regulation or subsidy could fulfill government’s obligation to protect patients from being objectionably vulnerable to pricing decisions by private companies.

Local integration and co‐evolution of internationalizing Chinese firms

AbstractThis study investigates the integration of internationalizing Chinese firms into local host markets. We explore the market‐driven investment of a new wave of Chinese private and local state‐owned firms in Australia since 2012, which has replaced the initial large‐scale investment in resources by central state‐owned enterprises. Using an in‐depth analysis of nine Chinese firms operating in various sectors of the Australian market, we argue that market integration, adaptation, and bilateral institution‐building through co‐evolution and empowerment of local subsidiaries of Chinese multinational enterprises results in entrepreneurial autonomy and characterizes a new generation of Chinese investors. We propose that Chinese multinational subsidiaries have transferred domestic practices to the Australian market and have reconfigured domestic and host market resources to gain a competitive advantage in their original investment industry and new industries. Our study advances middle‐range theory building and provides a practical understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese investors, their potential to disrupt local markets, and their responsiveness to market‐oriented institutional guidance. The results of this study suggest that the bilateral institution‐building and resource reconfiguration capabilities of Chinese enterprises can be transferred to other developed and developing markets, including Belt and Road Initiative countries.

SPE Strong: Strengthening Our Core: There Is No Silver Bullet: Strengthening the Fundamentals

President's column “Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.” —Jim Rohn, American businessman and author This month’s column is dedicated to technology evaluation, an area where I have spent the majority of my career. For at least 2 decades, I have been approached almost weekly by either one of my engineers or an inventor who has found the “next best thing that will revolutionize our industry.” While I have been a champion for innovation and technology development, I have also applied critical thinking in forming my opinion of such claims. The first questions I always ask myself are: “Do I need this new technology?” and “Do I understand the root cause of the problem well enough to determine if applying existing technology and accepted practices cannot solve it?” To adequately answer these questions, a good understanding of the fundamentals, such as fluid or mechanical dynamics, is often needed. Is this new tool or method genuinely innovative, or has it been born out of engineering ignorance? “Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.” —Benjamin Franklin For context, let me provide an example. The downhole rod-driven reciprocating pump has existed since the late 1800s (Beckwith 2014). For a century, the design practices for deter-mining the optimal tolerance between the downhole plunger and barrel were theoretical equations and often used rules of thumb. Too large of a tolerance would lead to excess fluid slip-page and decreasing efficiency of the pump. Too tight of a tolerance could lead to rod buckling and the inability to handle particulates such as sand. As an industry, we typically erred on the side of caution toward tighter tolerances, and many “gadgets” were invented to prolong the life of the downhole rods and pumps and to counter issues caused by this design practice. It wasn’t until the late 1990s when a group of operators in the Permian Basin began to question the validity of the existing equations and design philosophies. These Permian operators collectively funded research at Texas Tech University to understand the dynamics of the fluid slippage between a plunger and barrel under a variety of conditions. Through intensive research and experimentation of the fundamentals, they were able to develop a new equation, later named the Patterson Equation, which proved that larger tolerances did not lead to excess slippage (Nickens et al. 2005). The gained understanding of these previously accepted fundamentals had significant implications throughout the industry. Operators began to increase their plunger and barrel tolerances in their designs, and they no longer needed gadgets. As a result, the run life of the downhole equipment increased considerably. The value gained by those operating companies collaborating with the university far exceeded their original investment. However, the industry was the greatest benefactor of the publication of the research.

Leading with data: Using an impact-driven research consortium model for the advancement of social emotional learning in schools.

Weissberg, Durlak, Domitrovich, and Gullotta (2015) note that social and emotional learning (SEL) is increasingly recognized as a critical component of academic and life success. In many schools around the nation, SEL is becoming (or has become) part of a comprehensive strategy to strengthen students' academic performance, improve school and classroom climate, and lessen conduct problems. A recent benefit-cost analysis by Belfield et al. (2015) of six prominent SEL programs showed a positive return on the original investments in these programs at a ratio of about 11 to 1. SEL supports the development of skills in emotion regulation, social awareness, conflict resolution, and responsible decision making, all of which are essential to students' success within and outside the classroom. These so called noncognitive skills are associated not only with proximal gains in students' academic performance and reductions in conduct problems but also with their later choices related to education and employment, as discussed by the economist, James Heckman and his team (Heckman, Stixrud, & Urzua, 2006). Furthermore, according to a report by Nagaoka, Heath, Farrington, and Cureton Turner (2015) for the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research, evidence shows that not attending to fundamental SEL skills and competencies within and outside the context of formal schooling can actually undermine children's long-term development and keep them from succeeding in adult roles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Profitability of Pineapple Production (Ananas comosus) among Smallholders in Malaysia

Pineapple is a tropical fruit with high nutritive value and fine flavour. It has been an encouraging potential of commercial crop for income and export earnings in Malaysia. Despite its popularity, there are little empirical data on the costs and profitability of its production in Malaysia. Therefore, this study attempts to determine profitability of pineapple production in Johor which focuses on calculation of the production costs incurred, the income earned, as well as analyse the feasibility of growing pineapples among smallholders. A simple random sampling technique was used to obtain information from 191 respondents using random sampling. Data from interviews were then analysed using descriptive statistics and budgetary technique. Results indicated that majority of the farmers were males, middle aged, engaged full time in pineapple production, possessed small scale farm and had a background in pineapple farming for at least twenty years. Most respondents cultivated Josapine variety and grew pineapple on a peat soil. The result showed that the pineapple production business is profitable and returning more to the farmer than the original investment in terms of purchased inputs as indicated by benefit cost ratio of 1.72. Additionally, the result of regression analysis revealed pineapple production was significantly affected by working experience, planting area, pineapple variety, pineapple price and cost of inputs.

Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes as a potential veto array for neutrino astronomy

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has revealed the existence of sources of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. However, identification of the sources is challenging because astrophysical neutrinos are difficult to separate from the background of atmospheric neutrinos produced in cosmic-ray-induced particle cascades in the atmosphere. The efficient detection of air showers in coincidence with detected neutrinos can greatly reduce those backgrounds and increase the sensitivity of neutrino telescopes. Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) are sensitive to gamma-ray-induced (and cosmic-ray-induced) air showers in the 50 GeV to 50 TeV range, and can therefore be used as background-identifiers for neutrino observatories. This paper describes the feasibility of an array of small scale, wide field-of-view, cost-effective IACTs as an air shower veto for neutrino astronomy. A surface array of 250 to 750 telescopes would significantly improve the performance of a cubic kilometer-scale detector like IceCube, at a cost of a few percent of the original investment. The number of telescopes in the array can be optimized based on astronomical and geometrical considerations.

Parameterized Trade on the Futures Market on the WIG20

Abstract Research background: Market participants have been trying to forecast future price movements and create tools to facilitate making the right investment decisions since the beginning of the operation of stock exchanges. As a result, there are an increasing number of methods, tools, strategies and models to make the decision process which is becoming extremely complicated. Purpose: to maximize the simplification of trade rules and to check whether it is possible to parameterize transactions based on the length of price movements in order that the system built in this way would generate profits. Research methodology: empirical research was conducted on data from the period between 20/01/1998 and 29/06/2018 covering listing futures contracts for the WIG20. First, the length of the price movements was determined according to the closing rate, then the frequency of individual lengths of the price movements was determined so transaction parameters were fixed. Next, the parameters were optimized and the rates of return from the tested options were examined. Result: It is possible to parameterize transactions based on the length of price movements and to create a simple investment strategy which generates profits. In the audited period, the optimal length of traffic was 25 points with a simultaneous use of a profit/loss ratio of 1 : 1, 1 : 2 or 1 : 3. Novelty: an original investment strategy based on the parameterization of transactions that is based on length of price movement and profit/loss ratio.

Don’t let the Greed catch you! Pleonexia rule applied to Pakistan stock exchange

This paper presents a financial heuristic named as Pleonexia rule which is applied to Pakistan Stock Exchange. Pleonexia is a Greek word which means ‘Greed for wealth or material possession or Avaricious’. Applying Pleonexia rule to stock exchange, if investors experience upward movements in the market and they want to get higher returns then they must keep investing in the same stock portfolios with the same pace. There is no need to get impatient and overly avaricious and, in turn, alter the original investment strategy. This rule is developed by using performance measure, that is, Sharpe ratio. The rule is developed in two steps. In first step, probabilities are checked by forecasting. In second step, these probabilities are used for the development and testing of Pleonexia rule. The data for the empirical analysis is taken from Pakistan stock exchange on monthly basis from 2000–2018. The results show that there is no difference between estimated and actual values for all classes of stock portfolios as shown in the first step of methodology. Furthermore, this rule is applicable for all three classes of stock portfolios which are growth, risk and value. The findings show that investors have on average 86% chances of getting gains up to the benchmark but in future they may be able to beat the market, thereby also achieving the level of healthy appetite. These chances are quite optimistic for developing countries and investor need to vigilant and remember ‘Don’t let the Greed catch you’.

The Ends of Human Rights in US Literary Studies

Abstract How has contemporary US literature responded to the rapid rise and subsequent decline of human rights in US political discourse? In this essay-review, I examine two recent works—James Dawes’s The Novel of Human Rights (2018) and Crystal Parikh’s Writing Human Rights (2017)—that each bring a critical human rights approach to the study of contemporary US literatures. The essay begins by describing the emergence of the subfield of literature and human rights and its original investment in methodologies of ideology critique. I then show how Dawes and Parikh each adopt a dialectical method to investigate the contradictory relationship between a subset of contemporary American novels and a US-centric, liberal conception of human rights, while also mapping the emergence of new generic forms. But can new kinds of stories transform human rights in practice? To address this question, the essay next examines the role of literature in recent historiographic debates about the origins of human rights in order to argue for a literary-historical turn in the subfield of literature and human rights. Calling for new work that grounds the subfield’s ongoing critique of human rights representations in specific historical practices of the human rights, I conclude by briefly considering Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved (1987) alongside her involvement with the human rights movement. Can a search for literary precursors help us imagine a different future for human rights?

Estimating Capital Requirements to Scale Health Microinsurance Serving Rural Poor Populations

Objective The objective is to estimate the amount of money health microinsurance plans (a.k.a. Community-based health insurance - CBHI) require to launch, scale and reach sustainable operations in rural India. Methods We develop the methodology to calculate the capital required for a CBHI plan to reach sustainability. It includes algorithms to estimate operating costs, capital requirements, loan requirements, interest earned, loan repayment installments and scaling projections. We apply these methods to examine the sustainability of a prototype plan. We check the plausibility of assumptions posited for the model with data of 2 CBHI plans. Results A prototype CBHI plan, covering 40k persons requires US$ 62,477 to offset deficits in the initial years. Repayment of principal and interest requires 15 years. Plans could bear up to 14% p.a. Assuming 10.96% interest in local currency (INR) ≈ 5% in US$, the NPV is US$ 18,455 or 30% of the original investment. When expressed per person, this amount is US$1.56, and per policy-year (over 20 years) it is a mere US$0.10. Even the poorest populations can pay such overhead (while simultaneously paying the claims and operations costs). The per-capita operating costs drop as enrollment and renewal rates and average insured household size increase. Even with very low per capita annual premiums (US$ 3.51 to US$ 4.71), cumulative claims ratios stabilize around 70% (benchmark: 73% and 69%, in Bihar and Nepal, respectively). The CBHI plans can generate considerable additional resources as premiums for healthcare, estimated at US$52 (over 15 years) and US$85 (over 20 years) for every US$1 borrowed at inception. Conclusions The financial gains to investors flow from interest payments. Impact investors and CBHI plans have a margin to negotiate the interest rate from zero to 14 percent. The financial gains to the insured consist of the assets accumulated over and beyond payments of benefits. The amounts and the income smoothing effects are considerable. The social effects include extending health insurance to uninsured rural populations. The governance gains flow from large-scale standardization of rule-based participatory management of these mutual-aid plans. This investment opportunity is scalable from a small to substantial ticket size because the amount per CBHI plan is modest. The size of the investment determines the scale of populations covered. Governments and policymakers may contribute by creating a supportive regulatory environment. Governments could also consider collateral arrangements. Such investments cum supportive regulations may enable the development of a new market for reinsurance of outlier risks written by CBHI plans.

MP Finance Group CC (In Liquidation) v C: SARS: Adding to the financial hardship of victims of illegal transactions

This article analyses the interpretation of the phrase “received by, accrued to or in favour of” in the gross income definition of the Income Tax Act, as applied to illegal receipts. During the last few decades, South Africans have been victims of a number of Ponzi-type schemes. In MP Finance,1 the Supreme Court of Appeal considered whether illegal receipts received by the Krion Ponzi-type scheme should be included in gross income. After considering the relationship between the taxpayer and the fiscus, the court concluded that, as from a specified juncture, the taxpayer received the amount for its own benefit and it should therefore be included in gross income. The court recognised that the contractual relationship between the investor and the scheme (taxpayer) could in fact be void, resulting in the investor having a right to recover the investment from the taxpayer. The court did not consider whether the levying of income tax on amounts received by the operator of the scheme could infringe on the investor’s right to property espoused under the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. It is submitted that the levying of tax does infringe on this right as it reduces the amount that could be recovered from the scheme because the original investment in the scheme is void.

Research on Quantitative Investment Strategies Based on Deep Learning

This paper takes 50 ETF options in the options market with high transaction complexity as the research goal. The Random Forest (RF) model, the Long Short-Term Memory network (LSTM) model, and the Support Vector Regression (SVR) model are used to predict 50 ETF price. Firstly, the original quantitative investment strategy is taken as the research object, and the 15 min trading frequency, which is more in line with the actual trading situation, is used, and then the Delta hedging concept of the options is introduced to control the risk of the quantitative investment strategy, to achieve the 15 min hedging strategy. Secondly, the final transaction price, buy price, highest price, lowest price, volume, historical volatility, and the implied volatility of the time segment marked with 50 ETF are the seven key factors affecting the price of 50 ETF. Then, two different types of LSTM-SVR models, LSTM-SVR I and LSTM-SVR II, are used to predict the final transaction price of the 50 ETF in the next time segment. In LSTM-SVR I model, the output of LSTM and seven key factors are combined as the input of SVR model. In LSTM-SVR II model, the hidden state vectors of LSTM and seven key factors are combined as the inputs of the SVR model. The results of the two LSTM-SVR models are compared with each other, and the better one is applied to the trading strategy. Finally, the benefit of the deep learning-based quantitative investment strategy, the resilience, and the maximum drawdown are used as indicators to judge the pros and cons of the research results. The accuracy and deviations of the LSTM-SVR prediction models are compared with those of the LSTM model and those of the RF model. The experimental results show that the quantitative investment strategy based on deep learning has higher returns than the traditional quantitative investment strategy, the yield curve is more stable, and the anti-fall performance is better.

A hybrid model for China's power grid investment demand forecasting based on variational mode decomposition, regularized extreme learning machine and support vector machine

With the continuous maturity of China's power grid as well as the advancement of electricity market reform in China, accurate and efficient investment decision has become an inevitable requirement of power grid enterprises. However, China's Power grid investment demand has complicated nonlinear and non-stationary characteristics due to it's complex causes of formation, thus make it hard to be forecasted. Aiming at this problem, this paper puts forward a novel hybrid VMD-RELMLOO-PSOSVM forecasting model based on variational mode decomposition (VMD), leave-one-out cross validation error based optimal regularized extreme learning machine (RELM-LOO) and support vector machines optimized by particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO-SVM). Firstly, the VMD method is employed to decompose the original power grid investment data sequence into several modes which have specific sparsity properties while producing main signal. Then, according to the different characteristics of each subsequence, the RELM-LOO and PSO-SVM model will be used to forecast different modes, respectively; Next, the prediction results of all modes are aggregated to obtain the final prediction results of China's power grid investment demand. Finally, this paper predicts China's power grid investment demand from 2018 to 2020 under 5 different scenarios based on the proposed VMD-RELMLOO-PSOSVM hybrid forecasting model.

Analysis of judicial cooperation in practical terms between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of Uzbekistan

««Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Право» — международный научно-теоретический рецензируемый журнал, публикующий материалы в следующих рубриках: Публичное и частное право: прикладные исследования Криминология Криминалистика Судебная экспертиза Исследования права с позиций социальных и гуманитарных (неюридических) наук Правовая жизнь: научно-практические заключения, комментарии и обзоры Сравнительное право Зарубежное право

Dynamic hybrid products with guarantees—An optimal portfolio framework

Dynamic hybrid products are pension products that consist of a dynamic combination of classical with profits participating life insurance contracts (or a bank account) and fund savings plans. To put such products in an optimal utility framework, we derive an optimal combination of a money market account, a CPPI-style fund and a free fund in continuous trading via transforming the original investment problem into a conventional portfolio problem in the presence of a guarantee condition. By this, we obtain (semi-) explicit forms of the dynamic weights for the different ingredients of a dynamic hybrid product.

OpenUP Measuring Research Impact: Concepts, Methods, Limitations and Solutions

Watch the VIDEO.The immediate Return on Investment (ROI) for basic scientific research is scientific impact – improvements in knowledge of our physical, biological and social world. The Return on Investment (ROI) for applied research and the long-term Return on Investment for basic research is societal impact (i.e. impact on health, environment, the economy, etc.). However, many of these impacts are hard to measure and may only be apparent decades after the original investment. This creates demand from funders and policy makers for metrics that predict impacts before they can be measured. Here we define a preliminary conceptual framework describing the chain of events leading from the outputs of basic research (publications, data, software, cell lines, equipment, methodologies, theories etc.) to the outputs of applied research (products, treatments, technology components etc.) to societal, financial, health and environmental impact. We go on to discuss how these impacts are currently measured in the short term (days and weeks), the medium term (years) and the long term (decades), and to identify the main providers of impact metrics. We highlight the different ways in which research metrics are used by different categories of user (researchers, institutions, national and European policymakers). Finally, we discuss the limitations of current metrics and possible solutions.

Turnover in top management and de-escalation of commitment

ABSTRACTWe explore how de-escalation of commitment is linked to top management turnover and economic changes at the firm. Escalation of commitment occurs when managers continue investment in a project after receiving negative information. A major determinant of escalation is the personal responsibility effect in that managers are more likely to escalate commitment to a failing project if they were responsible for the original investments. Prior studies suggest that a change in top management facilitates de-escalation of commitment as incoming managers who do not have such commitment are able to stop investments that are discovered to be failing. Our empirical analysis based on a sample of over 3,300 firms for the period from 1992 to 2016 demonstrates the link between specific top management turnover types and economic changes at the firm consistent with the de-escalation of commitment.

A Hybrid Forecasting Model Based on EMD-GASVM-RBFNN for Power Grid Investment Demand

Power grid as an important infrastructure which ensures the healthy development of economy and society and accurate and reasonable prediction of the power grid investment demand has always been the focus problem of the power planning department and the power grid enterprises. In view of the complex nonlinear and nonstationary characteristics of the power grid investment demand sequence, a novel hybrid EMD-GASVM-RBFNN forecasting model based on empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method, support vector machines optimized by genetic algorithm (GA-SVM) model, and radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) model is proposed. Firstly, the EMD method is used to decompose the original power grid investment data sequence into a series of IMF components and a residual component which have stronger regularity compared with the original data. Then, according to the different characteristics of each subsequence, the GA-SVM and RBFNN model will be used to forecast different subsequences, respectively. Next, the prediction results of different subsequences are aggregated to obtain the final prediction results of the power grid investment. Finally, this paper dynamically simulates China’s power grid investment from 2018 to 2020 based on the EMD-GASVM-RBFNN hybrid forecasting model and Monte Carlo method.

ANALISIS PENGARUH PENDAPATAN ASLI DAERAH, DANA PERIMBANGAN, INVESTASI DAN PENGELUARAN PEMERINTAH TERHADAP PERTUMBUHAN KONOMI KOTA PAREPARE

This study analyzes Regional Original Income , Funds of Balance, Investment and Government Expenditure Funds are independent variables in this study. This study aims to determine the effect of Regional Original Revenue, Balancing Funds, Government Investment and Spending on the Economic Growth of Parepare City. The economic growth data used is the constant value of Gross Regional Domestic Product. Secondary data on the variables of Economic Growth and independent variable data were taken from the Central Statistics Agency of the City of Parepare for the period 2007-2016. This research uses quantitative descriptive analysis method with multiple regression analysis approach. The results showed that partially the Regional Original Revenue, Balancing Fund variables had a positive but insignificant effect. Whereas Government Investment and Expenditures are partially negative but not significant to Economic Growth. Furthermore, simultaneously Regional Original Revenue, Fund balance, Investment and Government Expenditures have no significant effect on Economic Growth.

Profitability and Technical Efficiency of Pineapple Production in Ogun State, Nigeria

ABSTRACTNigeria pineapple production remains low when compared to other producing nations. The production output of the crop has been attributed to inefficient use of available inputs. This study focused on profitability and technical efficiency of pineapple production. Two Agricultural Development Project zones with three blocks each were randomly selected from the study area. The blocks consist of six cell-units each from which 101 pineapple farmers were selected. Data from interviews were analysed using descriptive statistics, cost and return and stochastic frontier production function. The result showed that the pineapple production business is profitable and returning more to the farmer than the original investment in terms of purchased inputs. The study showed that farms were operating inefficiently with efficiency score of 0.603. The study recommends policy that makes production inputs available to pineapple farmers in proportion they can afford.