Welfare Subject Research Articles

Transmission network cost allocation with nodal pricing approach based on Ramsey pricing concept

This study presents a new method to allocate electricity transmission costs from nodal pricing viewpoint based on Ramsey pricing concept. Nodal pricing method is the most popular method of transmission pricing, which is based on the difference between marginal cost prices at nodes in transmission systems. The main drawback of this method is that it is not able to produce enough revenue to recover the total transmission network costs. To solve this problem, the marginal prices can be adjusted in such a way that nodal pricing can recover the total transmission costs. From economists' point of view, if the marginal cost prices (first-best prices) do not satisfy other economic criteria, the second-best prices can be achieved by maximising the social welfare subject to budget constraint. The latter pricing approach is called Ramsey pricing which is varied in proportion to the inverse of demand elasticity. A new transmission cost allocation method based on the nodal pricing approach is proposed, in which the marginal prices are controlled by Ramsey pricing concept based on the inverse proportionality of price elasticity. The proposed method is implemented on IEEE 24 bus test system and the obtained results are reported. To show its validity and superiority, the necessary comparison is made with one of the relevant references.

Monotonicity of social welfare optima

This paper considers the problem of maximizing social welfare subject to participation constraints. It is shown that for an income allocation method that maximizes a social welfare function there is a monotonic relationship between the incomes allocated to individual agents in a given coalition (with at least three members) and its participation constraint if and only if the aggregate income to that coalition is always maximized. An impossibility result demonstrates that there is no welfare maximizing allocation method in which agents' individual incomes monotonically increase in society's income. Thus, for any such allocation method, there are situations where some agents have incentives to prevent society in becoming richer.

A Difference that Makes a Difference: Welfare and the Equality of Consideration

In Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics, L.W. Sumner defends two significant constraints on one’s theory of welfare: formality and generality. An adequate theory of welfare, claims Sumner, must give a constitutive account of the “good-for” relation. This constitutive account must be sufficiently general that any entity whose status as a welfare subject is uncontroversial falls within its scope. This paper will argue that Sumner’s proposed constraints are particularly significant to utilitarian arguments for the equal moral considerability of non-human animals. In the absence of these constraints, the inconsistency that is alleged to follow from denying moral considerability to non-human animals, while affirming it for humans, fails to obtain. I will focus on Peter Singer’s argument for the equal moral considerability of non-human animals, in order to support the conclusion that questions about the formality and generality of welfare are significant areas of further research for philosophers of animal welfare. Introduction: Welfare and Animal Ethics Welfare is about how well an individual is faring, relative to the circumstances of their life. Well-being and prudential value are both synonymous with welfare, such that talk about an individual’s wellbeing, or the prudential value of some aspect of their lives, is taken to be about their welfare. There are many different accounts of what welfare is, but all largely agree that welfare concerns how individuals are faring, and that welfare matters for ethics. Thus, questions about animal welfare are properly questions about how non-human animals are faring, and what sorts of things would make their lives better for them. In Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics, L.W. Sumner proposes two requirements for an adequate theory of welfare. One of these is the requirement of generality. This requirement states that an adequate theory of welfare should accommodate the wide variety of types of welfare subjects to which our welfare vocabulary is applied (Sumner

Institutional Response of Contract Farming: Its Implications on the Peasantry in Less Developed Countries

Contract farming is basically a wide field that may not be exhaustively covered within the limitations of the word count and the time provided. As a result, this paper considers the neoclassical perspective of how poor farmers make production decisions that maximize their welfare subject to the resource constraints that face them. It then explores how the institutions emerge to mitigate the shortcomings of the neoclassical theory that grossly ignores the role of institutions in its analysis. The term contract as applied includes both written and oral agreements between commercial buyers and farmers. This paper does not take into account the operations of marketing parastatals and legal monopolies that do not operate on commercial basis. This is deliberately done to maintain the main thrust of neoclassical economics of free market operations and maintain the profit maximization under conditions of perfect competition as the main objective of the economic agents involved in the contract. Owing to similarities of the structure of contract farming in the different geographical locations globally, the paper addresses the analysis from a generic point of view.

Deregulation redux: does mandating access to bottleneck facilities necessarily improve welfare?

We demonstrate that deregulation in the form of vertical separation of network components into natural monopoly and potentially competitive markets does not truly represent a lessening of regulatory burdens. That is, vertical separation is not synonymous with deregulation; “more competitors” is not equivalent to “more competition”. We assume a public interest regulator that is constrained to set a unit price that maximizes expected welfare subject to a break-even constraint. We show that under both symmetric and asymmetric information cases the information demands on the regulator of the vertically integrated system are no greater than those in the case of vertical separation.

시간제 등록 학생의 사회복지현장 실습성과에 영향을 미치는 요인

본 연구에서는 시간제 등록 학생들의 실습현장에서 경험하고 학습하는 여러 구성 요인 중 어떠한 요인들이 실습성과에 영향을 미치는지를 탐구하여, 사회복지교과목 중 중요한 위치를 차지하고 있는 실습의 방향을 제시하고자 한다. 연구결과 첫째, 실습기관의 종류에 따른 실습지도자 평가와 실습기관 평가 및 실습성과의 차이를 분석한 결과 유의미한 차이를 보이지 않았다. 둘째, 실습성과에 영향을 미치는 요인을 분석한 회귀분석 결과, 실습지도자 평가와 실습기관 평가요인의 영향력을 확인할 수 있었다. 개선방안으로 사회복지법인 이외의 실습지도자에게 지속적인 교육훈련의 기회가 주어져야 할 것이다. 실습기관에서는 실습생을 적절히 지도할 수 있는 체계적인 교육프로그램의 준비가 필요하다. 사회복지현장 실습을 수행하고 있는 기관간의 유기적인 협력체계로 지역내 공동실습을 계획하는 것도 바람직한 대안이다. This study aims to research the influencing factors of field education outcome. This study is to help the social welfare subject find out the field education orientation. Following is the result brought out from the research. First, it was found that the evaluation of field manager, field agency and field education outcome working in social welfare agencies had no meaningful statistical difference. Second, the results of regression analysis showed that the evaluation of field manager and field agency had influenced on field education outcome. Along with major of the study, implications for expanding opportunities of continuing educations for managers in non-profit organization are discussed.

COMMODITY TAX STRUCTURE AND INFORMAL ACTIVITY

Commodity tax structure affects the firm's choice between formality and informality. An increase in the specific tax rate, relative to an equivalent increase in ad valorem taxation, makes informality attractive to more firms. Formality becomes attractive at lower levels of profits under ad valorem taxation. For both the maximization of welfare subject to a revenue constraint and the unconstrained maximization of revenue, the optimal rate of specific taxation is zero.

THE DETERMINANTS OF THE QUANTITY‐QUALITY BALANCE IN MONOPOLY*

This paper describes how a monopolist manipulates the balance of quantity and quality in order to increase revenue when its customers treat quantity and quality as substitutes. This ‘skewing’ of quality depends on the characteristics of customer's demand for quality. Customers differ in demand for quality, because they differ in either (i) their preferences and/or (ii) their time cost per unit. The monopolist is constrained to supply the same quality of good to all customers. The price and quality per unit are described under the assumption the monopolist (i) profit maximises; (ii) maximises social welfare subject to a profit constraint. The determinants of the skewing of quantity and quality are found under third‐degree price discrimination and uniform pricing.

Human agency and social suffering

In this paper the authors are primarily exploring the notion of social suffering within a psychosocial paradigm. A brief outline of Bourdieu's concept of social suffering, and a similarly concise explication of the psychosocial subject as contemporarily theorized are given. The central section of the paper looks at some understandings of social suffering that are experienced internally as well as within structural inequalities and power relations. The concept of hurt is considered, offering the internalized injuries of class as an example. Loss is then examined in relation to the severing of, for example, communities and the losses of social recognition and internal esteem. The complex concept of double suffering, in which hurt accrues more hurt and is re-experienced, is then discussed. The welfare subject of contemporary policy and practice is, finally, briefly revisited.

Optimal monetary policy rules with labor market frictions

This paper studies optimal monetary policy rules in a framework with sticky prices, matching frictions and real wage rigidities. Optimal policy is given by a constrained Ramsey plan in which the monetary authority maximizes the agents’ welfare subject to the competitive economy relations and the assumed monetary policy rule. I find that the optimal rule should respond to unemployment alongside with inflation. This is so since models with matching frictions (unlike standard new Keynesian models) feature a congestion externality that makes unemployment inefficiently high. A strong response to inflation remains optimal while a response to output is always welfare detrimental.

Optimal Monetary Policy Rules with Labor Market Frictions

This paper studies optimal monetary policy rules in a framework with sticky prices, matching frictions and real wage rigidities. Optimal monetary policy is given by a constrained Ramsey plan in which the monetary authority maximizes the agents' welfare subject to the competitive economy relations and the assumed monetary policy rule. I find that optimal policy should deviate from the strict inflation targeting since the policy maker faces a typical unemployment/inflation trade-off. In this context and unlike a standard New Keynesian model stabilizing inflation is not sufficient to stabilize the marginal cost (hence the output gap) since the latter also depends on the evolution of unemployment. The matching frictions add a congestion externality since the number of unemployed in the market and their bargaining power reduce the probability of forming matches. Hence optimal monetary policy features unemployment targeting along with inflation targeting.

Optimization techniques for Available Transfer Capability (ATC) and market calculations

The recent movement towards an open, competitive market environment introduced new optimization problems such as market clearing mechanism, bidding decision and Available Transfer Capability (ATC) calculation. These optimization problems are characterized by the complexity of power systems and the uncertainties in the electricity market. Accurate evaluation of the transfer capability of a transmission system is required to maximize the utilization of the existing transmission systems in a competitive market environment. The transfer capability of the transmission networks can be limited by various system constraints such as thermal, voltage and stability limits. The ability to incorporate such limits into the optimization problem is a challenge in the ATC calculation from an engineering point of view. In the competitive market environment, a power supplier needs to find an optimal strategy that maximizes its own profits under various uncertainties such as electricity prices and load. On the other hand, an efficient market clearing mechanism is needed to increase the social welfare, i.e. the sum of the consumers’ and producers’ surplus. The need to maximize the social welfare subject to system operational constraints is also a major challenge from a societal point of view. This paper presents new optimization techniques motivated by the competitive electricity market environment. Numerical simulation results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed optimization techniques.

Optimal Pricing in Urban Bus Companies in India

Optimal Pricing in Urban Bus Companies in India

Welfare, Social Exclusion and Reflexivity: The Case of Child and Woman Protection

Questions concerning what it means to be a human agent and the capacities of those who receive welfare services to reflect upon and shape their lives, and the kinds of social conditions which create opportunities for such ‘reflexivity’, have begun to move to the centre of social policy and social work analysis. Using empirical evidence drawn from a study of child and woman protection, this paper argues that, contrary to claims that the concept of self-reflexivity as developed in the work of Beck and Giddens is of little relevance to marginalised citizens, in late-modernity the socially excluded are using social work and welfare services in creative ways to critically engage in life-planning, to find safety and healing. However, the data suggest that much greater specificity is needed in relation to the areas in which it is possible to act to change and develop the self and the social world in late-modernity. The paper argues for a complex theory of agency and reflexivity in welfare discourse which takes account of the intersection of structural disadvantage, intervention practices and personal biography and how people adjust to adversity and cope with toxic experiences and relationships in their lives. This helps to account for the limits to the capacities of agents to reflect and know why they act as they do and their capacities to act destructively, as well as providing for an appreciation of the creative, reflexive welfare subject.

Social welfare loss due to second-best pricing: an application to the Portuguese telecommunications

The telecommunications industry is usually characterized by low marginal costs and significant fixed costs which are the conditions for the inefficiency of marginal cost pricing. In such cases theory postulates that optimal pricing is obtained by maximizing welfare subject to a restriction of viability of the firm: the second-best pricing scheme. The possible welfare losses due to second-best pricing varies according to the values of marginal costs, prices and demand elasticities. This paper analyses to what extent the second-best pricing has been achieved in the Portuguese telecommunications firm CTT, over the period 1950#150;1984 as well as the magnitude of the price-cost margins and welfare losses created. We obtained empirical evidence of the presence of economies of scale, a welfare loss estimate of 1% of the telecommunications receipts and a result that price was 40% greater than marginal cost. We concluded that price regulation and public ownership of the firm did not seriously affect social welfare over the sample period (it should be noted that it is the non-digital and fixedwire infrastructure period). Therefore, it is important to study the impact of new digital and non-wire technologies and new services provided in the old regulatory scenery.

Agency, Rationality and Social Policy

The recent concern to develop a radical but critical account of agency in social policy is to be welcomed. However this article questions whether the work of A. Giddens can provide an adequate foundation for such a project. Giddens's account of the welfare subject contains several weaknesses. It is voluntaristic and yet paradoxically it cannot offer an adequate understanding of radical change. It is also rationalistic and assumes the existences of a unitary and knowledgeable subject. As a consequence there is a danger that social policy develops a lop-sided model of agency which is insufficiently sensitive to the passionate, tragic and contradictory dimensions of human experience. A robust account of the active welfare subject must be prepared to confront the real experiences of powerlessness and psychic injury which result from injustice and oppression and acknowledge human capacities for destructiveness towards self and others. Only by exploring these different subject positions – victim, ‘own worst enemy’ and creative, reflexive agent – can we develop an understanding of the welfare subject which is optimistic without being naive.

Good-enough Principles for Welfare

The aim of this article is to widen the grounds of the debate on the relationship between values, social change and welfare reform. In the public debate on welfare reform and the Third Way the significance of the welfare politics and campaigns of civil society in challenging the old welfare order has received little acknowledgement. The article argues that these politics and campaigns have, along with both the New Right and New Labour, attempted to construct a new vision of an ‘active welfare subject’. In the process they have also expanded the moral repertoire for understanding people's engagement with welfare beyond the self-interest/altruism dichotomy. The article uses this new repertoire to propose seven key principles for a reordering of the social relations of welfare.

Resource and Waste Taxation in the Theory of the Firm with Recycling Activities

The management of solid waste has become an urgent problem in nations with a great population density. Accordingly, waste reduction through source reduction and recycling has become increasingly important. Our purpose is to show how prevention, recycling and disposal of waste could be part of a theory of the firm. We first derive efficient production functions from production processes with waste as a by-product. Waste obtained as new scrap can partially be recycled by using additional inputs in order to cut back the purchase of virgin material. Waste not completely recyclable will leave the firm as disposal which also entails cost to the firm. We use the dual cost function approach to develop a theory of the firm under solid residual management. Since the producer does not bear the full cost of disposal, there will be a bias toward virgin materials and away from recycling. The goal of the government is to stimulate the firms to recycle with respect to the preservation of exhaustible resources. An incentive to recycle is a tax on resources or on waste. In order to determine the tax levels the government maximizes welfare subject to the dynamic constraint for decumulation of land fill for waste deposits. This gives the user cost and its time profile for taxing waste disposal or virgin material. In a comparative statics analysis we compare the effect of taxes on waste vs. virgin material on effort to produce in a resource saving manner, on the quantity of recycled material, on output, and on the reduction of waste. Since the impact of environmental regulation on employment is important, our model detects seven effects on labor demand as part of resource conservation policy. We finally carry out a comparative statics analysis of waste intensive firms operating in different market structures. Of interest is the impact of a resource or waste taxation on market volume, on the number of firms, on resource saving effort, and on profit.

A MODEL OF REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT WITH AN APPLICATION TO TAIWAN

This paper develops and applies a model to investigate questions pertinent to Taiwan's six year development plan. The model is designed to explore the implications of transportation versus industrial infrastructure investments on Taiwan's regional development objectives. Accessibility to population centers and related activities is seen as a critical factor in determining a location Is economic development potential. The model postulates an adjustment process that is geared to increasing economic welfare subject to adjustment costs. An empirical illustration using data from Taiwan suggest that Taipei's primacy is likely to increase over the coming decades. Across the board transportation improvements are shown to favor the island's central regions at the expense of Taipei and Kaohsiung.

The Nature of the Township-Village Enterprise

The township-village enterprise (TVE) in China is owned by local citizens and controlled by the township-village government (TVG). The TVE′s residual benefits are shared among citizens and TVG officials. This ownership structure can be viewed as the solution to the central government′s problem of improving citizens′ welfare subject to the constraints that the current political system be preserved and that local agents be provided with incentives. The control right is given to the TVG because ordinary citizens cannot provide security and access to resources that are critical for the success of the TVE. Nominal ownership is given to the citizens to guarantee that most benefits will be retained locally. To prevent the TVG from abusing its power, explicit distributional rules are made by the center. J. Comp. Econom., December 1994, 19(3), pp. 434-452. Department of Finance and Industrial Relations Center, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455.