Private Production Research Articles

Study of polymorphism of GCPII gene in neural tube defect

Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) affect an estimated 1 billion people in 149 countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) prioritised 17 NTDs for control and elimination by 2020 and defined a Road Map to help countries reach these goals. Improved diagnostics for NTDs are essential for guiding treatment strategies at different thresholds of control, interruption of transmission, elimination and post-elimination surveillance. While substantial progress has been made in the last decade with chemotherapy, the same cannot be said of diagnostics, largely due to the perceived lack of a commercially viable market for NTD diagnostics.New sample in-answer out nucleic acid amplification technologies that can be performed at the point-of-care offer improved performance over current technologies and the potential to test for multiple pathogens using a single specimen. Finding commonalities for different NTDs in terms of geographic overlap, sentinel populations and treatment strategy will allow NTD programs to leverage these innovations to build cost-effective multiplex surveillance platforms. Connectivity solutions linking data from diagnostic laboratories and POC test readers/devices provide opportunities for automated surveillance systems to make health systems more efficient, improving patient outcomes and assessing impact of interventions in real time. New models of public–private product development partnerships are critical in leveraging diagnostic innovation in other priority area for better diagnosis, control and elimination of NTDs.

Sistema Integrado de Gestión de Calidad Ambiental Sustentable para la Zona Ecuatorian Andina

Creating a system that integrates quality management and environmental management is paramount today, based on epistemology, standards and systems with similar features that allow integration but what draws the attention of this methodology is that it is not only for private companies, public marketing, services or products; but rather it is to natural areas that are most affected areas; until now wear is constantly growing; This over time has affected and continues to affect sustainability, and therefore spoiled the quality of life of the population. The purpose of this article is to socialize the system integrates into one management systems according to the needs of natural areas, with the sole purpose of improving their management, to maintain and improve the sustainability of the selected area where the system is applied integrated to improve the quality of life of the population of this natural area. The indicators that integrates this system will allow to have a common comparative analysis, same as will contribute to taking preventive actions and / or corrective actions, as well as adopt policies of continuous improvement.

Articulations of capital: global production networks and regional transformations

This book constitutes a step away from generalized abstractions about globalization, and theoretical elaboration of the dynamics of world systems, and toward concrete analysis of the relationship between territorial processes of work, production and strategies for capturing value, and the larger, global processes of capital accumulation and governance of global production networks and global value chains. It is a welcome addition to the literature on global capitalism, and with its analytical complexity does considerably more than most works to live up to its promises. The authors are unafraid of theory, and with their encyclopedic knowledge of the interaction between financial networks, buyers, manufacturers and sub-contractors, they follow the diverse phases of development in Eastern Europe since the Fall of the Berlin Wall. At its core this is a study of the articulations (to use the word used in the title), dialectic, dialogue, tension, however one prefers to conceive of this interaction, between the global economy operationalized as finance, global retail and manufacturing buyers, private production and value chain governance, and territorial economies. The global economy thus can be seen in various forms: as the relationship between two or more geographic regions interacting under capitalist conditions—the authors utilize the concept of a spatial fix to discuss how Western European business maintained profits under conditions of global competition by sub-contracting manufacturing of garments, for example, to Eastern European firms; as the relationship between large-scale international retailers and buyers and local manufacturers; as global class relations mediated by national government and law, as well as by regional capitalists and firms; as the relationship of national governments and their development strategies with global finance and competition; and as dynamic and systemic competitive pressures resulting in changed practices and strategies by firms in different regions of the world under varying conditions, to name a few. This book manages through a sophisticated and self-confident use of theory to shed light on outcomes in Eastern Europe under rapidly changing opportunity structures in the global economy over the past 25 years.

Ecosystem accounting for measuring total income in private and public agroforestry farms

We develop an ecosystem accounting system to estimate individual products' biophysical and total income indicators. The ecosystem products are grouped into private and public activities and measured consistently with the principle of exchange value of the standard national accounts. Private products comprise timber, cork, firewood, conservation forestry, grazing, livestock, hunting, crops and private amenity, while the public ones comprise mushrooms, carbon, water, public recreation, landscape and threatened biodiversity services. Our accounting approach revises and extends the standard agricultural and forestry sector income accounts by incorporating intermediate products, natural growth, private amenity, carbon sequestration and capital gain. Furthermore, our approach extends the standard government sector income accounts by including the economic value of the consumption of public final products delivered by ecosystems on the basis of simulating prices for non-market products. We apply the agroforestry accounting system to a group of 39 agroforestry farm case studies in Andalusia, Spain. We provide results for two agroforestry farm groups: publicly owned coniferous forest and privately owned native hardwood forest (dehesa). Total income attained, on average, €140 per hectare in coniferous forests and €352 per hectare in dehesas. Cork natural growth and private amenity are the main products explaining private income in dehesa farms. Forestry activity products, particularly timber natural growth and the intermediate products of conservation forestry, are the main sources of private income in the coniferous forests. Public incomes from non-market products are the main contributors of total income in dehesas and forests.

Agglomeration, migration cost and intergovernmental transfers

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to investigate the central government redistribution policies across local governments that affect regional agglomeration. Though full agglomeration is efficient, in many cases factor mobility is imperfect and the full agglomeration is not realized. This article analysed whether or not the central government should adjust the distribution of populations through local governments. The result is as follows: If individuals are relatively mobile, the central government can improve the aggregate income. In this case, when the private production and public sector are small, the central government should transfer from the productive regions local government to low-productive regions.

Private and public timber production: How markets and political institutions matter

The aim behind this paper was to find a logical explanation for the simultaneous existence of public and private timber enterprises based on an individual, subjective benefit-cost weighting made in the context of different institutional arrangements. In the section on modeling, the effects of the separation of forest ownership and forest management, and of private and public ownership sharing are studied. The main difference between public and private timber enterprises relates to the exit clause. Whereas public timber production is characterized by a strong exit clause, in the case of private timber enterprises the individual stockholder can exit almost without constraint. The strong exit clause in public enterprises increases the liability as technique for hedging the risks of timber production. This becomes more pronounced the greater the degree to which the public fiscal decision is separated into a production and a liability decision. The reason for this is that where there is a higher degree of public decision making an unconstrained majority rule applies, which also leads to a transfer of liability to a minority. Another factor is that the limited time perspective involved in public choices does not outperform the advantage of lower interest rates associated with public timber production. The strong exit clause in public timber enterprises also provides an opportunity for the forest manager to increase the forest rotation length. The paper concludes with some remarks on how the results obtained from the simple public choice model employed in the study are applicable to a representative democracy.

Implicit CO2 prices of fossil fuel use in Switzerland

This study aims to assess the efficiency of the fossil fuel taxation scheme currently in effect in Switzerland. To this end, the concept of implicit CO2 prices is introduced, based on which prices for different fossil fuel uses are derived. Implicit CO2 prices are defined as the difference between actual prices paid by consumers and efficient domestic fuel prices. Efficient domestic fuel prices, in turn, consist of private production costs, a uniform value added tax and only local external costs, not including external costs due to CO2 emissions and global climate change.The resulting prices differ substantially, which suggests that there is considerable cost-saving potential in reducing CO2 emissions in Switzerland. For passenger cars and air traffic, the implicit prices are negative. For these uses, higher fuel charges would therefore be beneficial from a purely domestic perspective, i.e., without considering the negative repercussions of global warming.

When Does Price Impound Information Unrelated to Earnings?

Traditional measures of information content, using absolute returns and volume, document a surge in information content lasting several days after earnings announcements (EAs) and below average information content before EAs. These patterns contrast with theoretical predictions that price will immediately impound all publicly available information (Fama 1970) and that disclosure substitutes for private information production (Diamond 1985). We develop a measure of the information content of returns based on the earnings-return relation (ENR), and show that consistent with theoretical predictions ENR is elevated before, during and two days after EAs, but below average for an extended period beginning three days after EAs. ENR is significantly lower than a measure of information content based on absolute returns (ABR) between three and nine days after the EA suggesting a period of excess volatility after EAs. We validate the notion that ENR has incremental information about fundamental performance to ABR by demonstrating that during periods with high (low) ENR relative to ABR, there is increased (decreased) momentum, consistent with behavioral theories that momentum in returns arises because of under-reaction to information. We show ABR unrelated to ENR has a positive association with information acquisition and volume, consistent with a preference for transacting after EAs driving the volatility unrelated to earnings news in the post-announcement period.

Optimal Taxation with Rent-Seeking

We develop a framework for optimal taxation when agents can earn their income both in traditional activities, where private and social products coincide, and in rent-seeking activities, where private returns exceed social returns either because they involve the capture of pre-existing rents or because they reduce the returns to traditional work. We characterize Pareto optimal income taxes that do not condition on how much of an individual's income is earned in each of the two activities. These optimal taxes feature an externality-corrective term, the magnitude of which depends both on the Pigouvian correction that would obtain if rent-seeking incomes could be perfectly targeted and on the relative impact of rent-seeking externalities on the private returns to traditional and to rent-seeking activities. If rent-seeking externalities primarily affect other rent-seekers, for example, the optimal correction lies strictly below the Pigouvian correction. A calibrated model indicates that the gap between the Pigouvian and optimal correction can be quantitatively important. Our results thus point to a hefty informational requirement for correcting rent-seeking externalities through the income tax code.

Public and Private Production in a Mixed Delivery System: Regulation, Competition and Costs

AbstractAcademics and policymakers are increasingly shifting the debate concerning the best form of public service provision beyond the traditional dilemma between pure public and pure private delivery modes, because, among other reasons, there is a growing body of evidence that casts doubt on the existence of systematic cost savings from privatization, while any competition seems to be eroded over time. In this paper, we compare the relative merits of public and private delivery within a mixed delivery system. We study the role played by ownership, transaction costs, and competition on local public service delivery within the same jurisdiction. Using a stochastic cost frontier, we analyze the public‐private urban bus system in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area. We find that private firms have higher delivery costs than those incurred by the public firm, especially when transaction costs are taken into account. Furthermore, tenders tend to decrease delivery costs.

Influence of volcanic tephra on photovoltaic (PV)-modules: an experimental study with application to the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption, Iceland

Large volcanic eruptions may lead to significant tephra dispersion, crossing borders and affecting distant and industrial societies in various ways. While the effects of volcanic ash clouds on the aviation industry have been recognized, damaging effects on the photovoltaic energy sector are poorly investigated. Here we describe the influence of volcanic tephra deposition on photovoltaic (PV) modules that we experimentally analyzed and evaluated. A systematic set of experiments was conducted under controlled conditions using an artificial light source and measuring the electrical power generated from the PV-modules with the aim to determine the dependency of the amount of tephra covering a module and its subsequent loss in power production (measured in voltage and current) as well as the influence of the tephra grain size. We find that a mass of fine tephra has a stronger influence on the PV-modules power generation than the same mass of coarser particles. An application to the fine-grained 2010 Eyjafjallajokull eruption in Iceland and the resulting ash-cloud reveals that the power produced by PV-modules in continental Europe might have been affected significantly. Deposits were thick enough to cause complete failures of PV-modules up to a distance of about 300 km downwind. Although this distance is largely over the ocean in this particular case, our results imply that similar and larger eruptions of other volcanoes elsewhere might harm commercial or private energy production at distances of hundreds to thousands of kilometers from the volcano. Given that volcanic eruptions are frequent and the fact that the PV-industry is growing rapidly, negative impacts are expected in the future, requiring close tephra dispersion monitoring and PV-maintenance strategies.

A study on factors that increase customer value when conducting television shopping

This study examined the factors that influence customer value in a TV shopping context. The fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) was then applied to obtain the weights of these factors, and their importance was decided based on this. The results reveal that the top five important factors are as follows: payment security, private data security, commodity discount, short delivery time, and product usage security. Among these, payment security, private data security and product usage security are within the category of cost of security/safety. The results suggest that TV shopping operators should pay attention to their reputations in order to maintain a good corporate image and reduce doubts about security/safety. Meanwhile, logistics efficiency should be raised in order to shorten delivery times, and offering more discounts will act as an incentive to attract more shoppers and enhance customer value.

China's future healthcare system: what role for private production and financing?

In China, the private sector may make healthcare markets more competitive, thereby improving affordability, increasing the supply and quality of healthcare services and improving the accessibility to healthcare. It can also improve financial coverage via private health insurance, as a substitute or complement to government plans. However, strict regulation, insurance designation bias against private hospitals, insufficient risk-management capacity and crowding out by social health insurance have hampered private sector involvement in health services production and insurance. We argue that the best option at China's current state of development may be a compromise model in which competing private providers are given an important role, but in which the government intervenes in such a way as to attain both a high degree of equity of access to healthcare, and to avoid the most significant forms of 'market failure' in an unregulated private system.

Real Estate Pioneers on the Metropolitan Frontier. The works of Jean-Florian Collin and François Amelinckx in Antwerp

In the Belgian context, the production of Public Mass housing remained limited in scope. Apart from a few well published examples Cite Modele & Kiel (Braem), Luchtbal (Van Kuyck), Cite de Droixhe (Groupe EGAU), Belgian housing policies focused on the promotion of private homeownership. Mass housing in Belgium took the form of the massive production of private houses, constituting a sprawled urban landscape that has been described as the ‘banlieue radieuse’. Less studied is the short lived but quantitatively significant private production of large scale high-rise apartments. This paper studies the close relationship between the production of these very different forms of ‘mass housing’: low- and high rise, inner-city and suburban. While the public policy context is rather well known, the private developers that produced this landscape have hardly been studied. This paper studies major players (Amelinckx n.v., Etrimo n.v., Extensa n.v.) and the architectural and development models through which they managed to create and capture a vast market of commodified housing. Through the detailed reconstruction of large scale commercial development schemes in Antwerp and Brussels, the paper describes the optimism of these mavericks of the Belgian property boom and recollects the radiant suburban promise they delivered. Although these property tycoons seem to have had little difficulty in luring in the middle classes and in persuading local political boards, today it becomes clear that the premises on the basis of which they sold the suburban dream were imbued with a thin instantaneous optimism that turned out to be too precarious to keep up with the subsequent impact of urbanization. While their activities are mostly remembered for the trauma of their bankruptcy, affecting many small contractors and private investors, this paper will highlight the collective failure to embed these large scale endeavors within enduring and intelligent (public) urban development strategies.

Private Label Motivators and Product Category Association: An Empirical Study

Abstract
 Private labels are important contributors in a retail strategy, especially when the industry starts maturing and competition starts intensifying. While modern trade penetration in India is still low, the proportionate private label growth is much higher owing to a new generation of shoppers that is open to trying out new products and brands.It is thus important to understand the private label motivators in India and also to understand the role of product category in the private label decision. This particular study aims at these two objectives in the Indian context. The findings of the study indicate that product category does have an intervening role in the customer’s private label purchase decision. The implications need to be assessed and incorporated in the private label strategy of the retailers.

유통업체 신뢰성이 유통업체 브랜드(PB)에 대한 태도 및 PB상품의 구매의도에 미치는 영향

유통업체 신뢰성이 유통업체 브랜드(PB)에 대한 태도 및 PB상품의 구매의도에 미치는 영향

Measuring total social income of a stone pine afforestation in Huelva (Spain)

We apply an experimental ecosystem accounting approach aimed at estimating the contribution of ecosystem services to total social income accrued from a Stone pine (Pinus pinea L.) forest as the result of afforestation in Huelva Province, Spain. The study encompasses private market products such as timber, pine cones, and forest conservation intermediate services; and non-market final services that include private amenities and public services such as landscape, free-access recreation and carbon sequestration services. We show how the total income of each single product is distributed amongst the factorial rewards to labor, and environmental and manufactured assets. Private products account for 46% of the average total income that the Stone pine forest would yield over its rotation, while public services comprise the remaining 54%. Our results also suggest that the production of public non-market services would offset the government compensation payments to support Stone pine afforestation and management. Finally, the results show that, on average, 7% of the estimated total income would be captured by the current System of National Accounts for forestry if applied to our case study (including only the net value added from timber and pine cone production and from plantation investment) and that 14% of this income would be dislocated into the government institutional accounts.

The Value of Product Attributes, Brands and Private Labels: An Analysis of Frozen Seafood in Germany

AbstractIt is well known that the price of a food in general and fish in particular is a function of a number of attributes such as species, product form, processing form and size. However, limited attention has been given to the influence of private labels, production method, eco‐labels and promotions. We use a unique dataset which identifies these attributes in the German seafood market. We estimate a hedonic price function, and our results highlight the importance of brand and labels for seafood prices in Germany. Our results also suggest that private label products are discounted by 20%, while branded products achieve substantial price premiums, as do fish products from aquaculture.

The importance of creative capital for economic growth in the presence of learning by doing

AbstractWe analyse the economic growth related effects of learning by doing in a region that is creative in the sense of Richard Florida. Firms in this region use physical and creative capital to produce output. We model learning by doing and our analysis of the working of this creative region leads to four results. First, we specify the private marginal products of physical and creative capital and the corresponding factor rewards and then explain why the physical to creative capital ratio must be identical for all firms. Second, we compute the equilibrium growth rate of consumption and then point out that this rate must equal the equilibrium growth rate of output. Third, we show how long run growth in this region is affected by changes in technology, a preference parameter, and the stock of creative capital. Finally, we compare the decentralized equilibrium growth rate in this region with the growth rate arising from social planning.

Too Certain to Invest? Public Safety Nets and Insurance Markets in Ethiopia

Researchers’ efforts to introduce index insurance in developing countries have met with little demand despite its great potential to help farmers mitigate economic risk. I argue that researchers have overlooked institutional context’s critical role in the formation of private markets when designing insurance contracts. Using micro-level evidence from Ethiopia, I show that recipients of a preexisting effective, large-scale public safety net fail to take-up a new highly subsidized private insurance offer. Government safety net programs can decrease demand for private index insurance, forming an additional barrier to index insurance take-up. A direct implication of this research is that policymakers should design private and public insurance products that account for, or even complement, each other.