Strike Costs Research Articles

South Korean Cost Sensitivity and Support for Nuclear Weapons

How do the costs of proliferation shape the public support for building nuclear weapons? Public opinion matters, especially in a democracy, because the masses can affect the nuclear policy choices that political elites make. Yet the existing literature on nuclear proliferation has not incorporated the public’s cost sensitivity in the analysis. We therefore do not fully understand the sources of public attitudes toward nuclearization. By fielding a novel survey experiment in South Korea, I found that the economic and human costs of economic sanctions and preventive strikes dampen South Koreans’ preferences for nuclear armament. Relative to the no-cost condition, economic and human costs reduce the support levels by 25.1% points and 19.4% points, respectively and in the case of combined costs the support decreases by 29.6% points. However, South Koreans still have relatively high levels of support for a nuclear arsenal even after the exposure to the costs of nuclearization. This implies that the rally effect resulting from hostile international responses may mitigate the negative cost effects to some degree. This study can contribute to the growing literature by providing new theoretical foundations and empirical results.

Typhoon strikes, political costs and earnings management

AbstractThis study examines how firms in typhoon‐prone areas respond to the political costs of typhoon strikes. We found that such firms tend to engage in downward earnings management after a typhoon strike. Various robustness tests support our findings: cross‐sectional variation tests indicate that this tendency is strong in cities with high governmental intervention and incentives for political leaders and in firms with high political connections and visibility. Further analysis reveals that typhoon strikes enhance earnings management by intensifying fiscal pressure. Finally, this study provides a precise evaluation of the adverse effects of typhoons and complements the existing literature on the political cost hypothesis.

Estimating the Cost of Wildlife Strikes in Australian Aviation Using Random Forest Modeling

Wildlife strikes in aviation represent a serious economic concern; however, in some jurisdictions, the costs associated with this phenomenon are not collected or shared. This hampers the industry’s ability to quantify the risk and assess the potential benefit from investment in effective wildlife hazard management activities. This research project has applied machine learning to the problem by training a random forest algorithm on wildlife strike cost data collected in the United States and predicting the costs associated with wildlife strikes in Australia. This method estimated a mean annual figure of AUD 7.9 million in repair costs and AUD 4.8 million in other costs from 2008 to 2017. It also provided year-on-year estimates showing variability through the reporting period that was not correlated with strike report numbers. This research provides a baseline figure for the Australian aviation industry to assess and review current and future wildlife hazard management practices. It also provides a technique for other countries, airlines, or airports to estimate the cost of wildlife strikes within their jurisdictions or operational environments.

AN ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACTS OF THE FIRST PALESTINIAN UPRISING (INTIFADA) ON THE ISRAELI ECONOMY

The Palestinian uprisings, Intifada, is one of the important milestones in the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. The first one began in 1987 and ended (at least at the official level) in 1993 with the Oslo Accords. The six years of protests affected both Israeli and Palestinian parts. In addition to the international area's criticism for Israel's brutal response, Israel's economy was also affected severely. Even though many Palestinians still criticize the Palestinian Authority for undermining the result of this series of protests, some argue that Oslo Accords are a significant gain for the Palestinians. Without concluding whether the negotiations went well, or Oslo Accords is a gain or a loss, this study argues that the economic aspect of protests was something that led the Israeli part to negotiate and agree with Palestine. This study examines some of the direct and indirect factors, such as the cost of general strikes, a boycott of goods, refusing to pay tax, and the rise in military expenditure.

Estimating wildlife strike costs at US airports: A machine learning approach

Current lower bound estimates of the economic burden of wildlife strikes make use of mean cost assignment to impute missing values in the National Wildlife Strike Database (NWSD). The accuracy of these estimates, however, are undermined by the skewed nature of reported cost data and fail to account for differences in observed strike characteristics—e.g., type of aircraft, size of aircraft, type of damage, size of animal struck, etc. This paper makes use of modern machine learning techniques to provide a more accurate measure of the strike-related costs that accrue to the US civil aviation industry. We estimate that wildlife strikes costed the US civil aviation industry a minimum average of $54.3 million in total losses annually over the 1990–2018 period. If one assumes that wildlife strikes were underreported by as much as a factor of 3 over the same period, our estimates still fall below previous lower bound estimates.

Firms\u2019 approach to mitigating risks in the platinum group metals\xa0sector

With platinum prices declining due to a seismic demand shift and firms grappling with the high cost of labor and prolonged production-stopping labor strikes, the financial sustainability of platinum group metal (PGM) firms has come under duress since 2012. This article seeks to understand how mining firms have reshaped their strategies to ensure financial sustainability while also meeting external expectations of increasing shared-value outcomes by assessing how firms are deploying buffers and bridges. Firms use buffers when they seek to protect core business activities from supply-side and demand-side volatilities by shifting their overall business strategy and bridges to conform with external expectations of improving shared-value outcomes. The article constructs a case study using five sets of data to assess (i) what supply and demand shocks firms are facing; (ii) how they are reshaping their strategies and undertaking activities to protect the firm from these shocks; (iii) what challenges firms face with reaching shared-value outcomes; and (iv) how firms are undertaking activities to improve shared-value outcomes. This article finds that although buffering activities have been successful at increasing the financial sustainability of mining activities, bridging activities have been less successful given that royalties are vulnerable to maladministration, the impact of corporate social investments often short-lived, and insular and local procurement is limited to low-value-added activities, particularly in the context of mechanization. This article seeks to contribute to the body of literature on how extractive firms are responding to supply and demand shocks and argues that a paradigm shift may be necessary in which traditional bridging activities become part of protecting core business activities to ameliorate the risk of losing a firm’s social license to operate.

NAAM‐MOEA/D‐Based Multitarget Firepower Resource Allocation Optimization in Edge Computing

In the edge environment, the multiobjective evolutionary algorithm based on decomposition (MOEA/D) has been widely used in the research of multitarget firepower resource allocation. However, as the MOEA/D algorithm uses a fixed neighborhood update mechanism, it is impossible to rationally allocate computing resources based on the difficulty of each subproblem optimization, which results in some problems such as reduced population evolution efficiency and poor evolution quality during the calculation process. In order to solve these problems, a decision mechanism for subproblems and population evolution stages is designed, and on this basis, a MOEA/D algorithm based on the neighborhood adaptive adjustment mechanism is proposed to adapt to the edge environment. The optimization model of multiobjective firepower resource allocation based on the maximization of damage effect and the minimization of strike cost is constructed and solved. Using the ZDT series of test functions for comparative experiments, the simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can balance the distribution and convergence of population evolution and obtain satisfactory optimization results.

A Power Model of the Labour Market

This article discusses a bilateral monopoly model of wage determination in which the employers determine the level of production and employment. The threat of a strike is the principal instrument of the employees, while employers, being the owners of the monopoly surplus, can simply ignore wage claims. In the orthodox-economic model the wage elasticity of labour demand as well as the horizon and the discount rate used when calculating strike costs and strike benefits, are essential. In a heterodox-economic model employers can frame their reality in an Austrian or in a neoclassical way. Employees can frame their reality in a radical-economic or in a post-Keynesian way. The frame chosen affects the factors discussed in the orthodox model. Moreover, irrationality (from behavioural economics) and immorality (from social economics/economic sociology) play a significant role in the outcome of the negotiations. To make participants more rational and morally aware, a Communication Platform should be set up, in order to organize Habermas-like power-free confrontations. In this way society could slowly move from a shareholder society to a stakeholder society.

Wildlife strike cost revelation in the US domestic airline industry

Since the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last revisited its wildlife strike disclosure policy in 2009, the American domestic airline industry has undergone a significant increase in concentration. We analyze how the aforementioned shift in market structure has impacted the voluntary repair cost disclosure of US airlines following a damaging wildlife strike event. We also investigate the related relationship between profitability and disclosure using an instrumental variables strategy. Lastly, we examine the interaction between competition and profits. Our results show the probability of large American airlines disclosing direct repair costs after a wildlife strike event are linked to market competition and profitability. These findings could directly inform policies managing the economic burden of wildlife strikes, most importantly, the current voluntary disclosure policy.

Aircraft Repair and Withdrawal Costs Generated by Bird Collision with the Windshield

According to available data released by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in the period from 1990 to 2007, more than 94,743 collisions with birds occurred on the territory of US, UK and Canada. In some parts of the world bird population is significantly growing. Also, the number of aircraft operations has increased in recent decades, and more importantly, their increase is expected in the future as well. In these conditions, the number of aircraft collisions with birds is expected to grow. Bird strikes are affecting safety and also generate additional costs in air traffic. This paper will show what type of bird strike costs exist with focus on repair and withdrawal of bird strike costs. Repair and withdrawal costs due to bird strike are specific because they could vary from insignificant amount up to millions of dollars and because of its unpredictability.

Strike Deadlines: Of What Use Are They?

This article is intended to be an advocacy paper against setting of strike deadlines before embarking on strikes. In public sector for example, unions have realized that the only language government understands is strike, and when union gives deadlines, government barely takes action to call union to the negotiation table. Rather it embarks on campaign of calumny, which is a way of beating about the bush. This paper illustrates that despite strike deadlines, strikes still occur. This shows that some strikes are unavoidable. This paper gives reasons making some strikes unavoidable despite the huge cost of strikes and the warning given through the deadlines.

How Asymmetrically Increasing Joint Strike Costs Need Not Lead to Fewer Strikes

The joint costs model states that increasing union and firm strike costs lead to fewer strikes. This paper shows that strike incidence need not decrease when joint strike costs increase. The innovation is to raise union and firm joint strike costs in an asymmetric way. The results indicate that increasing either party’s strike costs can have ambiguous effects on strike incidence. This ambiguity explains why higher strike costs need not always lead to fewer strikes, and thus accounts for the mixed success observed in studies that empirically test the joint costs model with strike incidence data.

How Asymmetrically Increasing Joint Strike Costs Need Not Lead to Fewer Strikes

The model states that the incentive to strike is inversely related to the total costs associated with workers' and firms' strike activities. Not only has this model been tested with mixed results, but also the joint costs model is problematic in explaining several stylized facts in the strike literature because higher strike costs do not always yield a lower incidence of strike activity. This paper illustrates how the joint cost model can yield these counterintuitive results. It shows that strike incidence need not decrease when joint strike costs increase. The innovation is to raise union and firm joint strike costs in an asymmetric way. Increasing a particular side's strike costs necessarily decreases its incentive to strike. However, in response, the other side's incentive can increase, since under a number of circumstances it holds out with a higher probability in order to collect the relatively larger expected rents coming about because the other side's implicit threat point decreases. To illustrate this, we model contract negotiations as a simple one-period game. (No need for more complex repeated games such as attrition since our point is only to show as simply as possible why the joint-costs model yields ambiguous results.) We use standard Hicksian concession curves to derive a payoff matrix. The payoff matrix results in contract negotiations following along the lines of a of chicken. The solution to the game yields no one stable pure Nash-equilibrium strategy, but instead a mixed strategy so that choices become probabilistic depending upon union and firm concession curve parameters. The results indicate that increasing either party's strike costs can have ambiguous effects on strike incidence. This ambiguity may explain why higher strike costs need not always lead to fewer strikes, and thus may account for the mixed success observed in studies that empirically test the joint costs model with strike incidence data. Although couched in terms of strikes, the results are equally applicable to other negotiation situations.

Unionised strikes’ dynamics and economic performance: An exploratory study

Legally, the freedom of association and the formation of trade and worker unions are part of the fundamental human rights bestowed on the citizens in the Constitution of South Africa, as clearly spelt out in Section 23 and 77(1) of the Labour Relations Act (1995) for employees who are not engaged in essential services. Under the Labour Relations Act (1995), trade unions are granted the right to strike in order to seek better conditions of service. However, there is an increasing concern that the rate of industrial actions or unionised strikes are getting out of hand, especially in recent times. Theoretically and empirically, the direct costs of incessant unionised strikes are well known. In this paper, we explored the economic implications of the ever-growing rate of unionised strikes in post-apartheid South Africa. In particular, we assessed its impact on the most important economic variable, namely, real gross domestic product (GDP). We brought to light the sector that is affected most by unionised strikes in the country, the root causes and the implications for policy. Overall our assessment shows that within the space of five years (i.e. from 2009 to 2013), unionised strikes have led to approximately 10,264,775 days lost, and consequently a fall in GDP by 3.2% in 2014 compared to 3.8% in 2013. The sectors heavily affected by unionised strikes are mainly the mining and the manufacturing sectors. Low wages, unhealthy working conditions, and deficiencies in the bargaining system often emerged as the root causes of unionised strikes. The policymaker should pursue effective initiatives seriously to moderate the rate of unionised strikes in South Africa. Institutionalised means of dispute resolution should be embraced and enhanced. These should include but not be limited to ballot requirements, proper regulation of the use of replacement workers, and compulsory arbitration. Policies that spell out employer-employee mandates should be binding such that no party exploits labour contracts to the detriment of the other.

Causes, impacts and costs of strikes on buried utility assets

Preventing accidental damage to buried utilities is a key area that the civil engineering and construction industry is attempting to make progress on. In addition to the health and safety consequences of operatives striking buried cables or pipes, there are numerous other impacts that can occur as a result of the damage. Many organisations collect data on utility strikes and incidents, but these are not shared across the industry. The research reported in this paper is based on unprecedented access to statistics from nine organisations, which provided a total of 3348 incidents to determine any patterns. The key results were that damage to telecommunications or electric cables was the most common; the frequency of incidents peaked between 09:00 and 12:00 on working days; hand tools were the most common excavation tool involved in utility strikes, closely followed by mechanical excavators; and rules not followed contributed to half of the incidents for one organisation. Furthermore, a definitive list of the impacts and costs associated with utility strikes is presented. Repair costs, calculated in the form of an average damage repair cost per utility, have been quantified as electricity £970, gas £485, telecommunications £400, fibre-optic £2800 and water £300–980.

Causes, impacts and costs of strikes on buried utility assets

Causes, impacts and costs of strikes on buried utility assets

Modeling the cost of bird strikes to US civil aircraft

The objective of our analysis is to develop a model of damage costs that arise from collisions between aircraft and birds, based on data drawn from the Federal Aviation Administration National Wildlife Strike Database (NWSD). We develop a two-part model, composed of two separate statistical models, that accounts for the effects of aircraft mass category, engine type, component of the aircraft struck, and the size and number of birds struck. Our results indicate the size of bird, number of birds, and engine ingestions are the largest determinants of strike-related costs. More generally, our result is a model that provides a better understanding of the determinants of damage costs and that can be used to interpolate the substantial amount of missing data on damage costs that currently exists within the NWSD. A more complete accounting of damage costs will allow a better understanding of how damage costs vary geographically and temporally and, thus, enable more efficient allocation of management resources across airports and seasons.

Effects of Strike Cost on Economic Development in Nigeria

Strike, the most overt expression of industrial conflict is a common phenomenon in Nigeria. No doubt, this action affects the cost of production and of course productivity as in most cases strike cost (wages and salaries as well as other unavoidable payments) are paid during the strike period. This paper theoretically examines strike cost and economic development in Nigeria. Taking strike cost as a factor of production the paper develops a model that can be used as a framework for analyzing the effect of strike cost on economic development. At the end, the paper is of the opinion that though industrial conf1ict is inevitable, strike can be avoided with good industrial relations.

The cost of strikes in the Spanish mining sector: modelling an undesirable input with a distance function

In some contexts, firms have to deal with certain elements or factors that affect the production outcome but which are non-market in nature and therefore do not have a price. In this paper we propose a new use of a production economics tool, the input distance function, to empirically measure the effects of these factors. Although we suggest a general use of this methodology, it has been developed in the context of measuring the effects of labor disputes in a particular declining industry, that of Spanish coal mining. We have estimated an equation system comprising an input distance function and cost share equations to calculate the cost generated by strikes.

Employer Assessment of Strike Costs

This paper examines the importance employers attach to a variety of potential costs and savings which might be incurred in the course of a work stoppage.