Bargaining with intertemporal maximin payoffs

We present a new class of dynamic bargaining problems, called "bargaining problems with intertemporal maximin payoffs," that may reflect sustainability problems having to encompass conflicting issues in the long-run. Each bargainer (or stake-holder) has a representative indicator, namely a function of the state and decisions, and aims at maximizing its minimal value over time. Bargaining on sustainability issues consists in defining the vector of stake-holder's payoffs. We are interested in defining the set of feasible outcomes of such problems. This set is interpreted as a support for a social choice of sustainability objectives. We introduce a MONDAI condition – Monotonicity of Dynamics And Indicators – consistent with many economic problems and, in particular, "environmental economic" sustainability issues. We characterize the set of feasible outcomes for problems satisfying these monotonicity properties, and the bargaining solutions under the axioms of Pareto efficiency and Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives. We also provide a "satisficing" common decision rule to achieve any given solution. We then examine the time-consistency of the solution under the axioms of Veto Power and Individual Rationality.bargaining theory, dynamics, maximin, monotonicity, feasibility set, sustainability

Environmental management problems, future generations and social decisions

The decisions of many individuals and social groups, taking according to well-defined objectives, are causing serious social and environmental problems, in spite of following the dictates of economic rationality. There are many examples of serious problems for which there are not yet appropriate solutions, such as management of scarce natural resources including aquifer water or the distribution of space among incompatible uses. In order to solve these problems, the paper first characterizes the resources and goods involved from an economic perspective. Then, for each case, the paper notes that there is a serious divergence between individual and collective interests and, where possible, it designs the procedure for solving the conflict of interests. With this procedure, the real opportunities for the application of economic theory are shown, and especially the theory on collective goods and externalities. The limitations of conventional economic analysis are shown and the opportunity to correct the shortfalls is examined. Many environmental problems, such as climate change, have an impact on different generations that do not participate in present decisions. The paper shows that for these cases, the solutions suggested by economic theory are not valid. Furthermore, conventional methods of economic valuation (which usually help decision-makers) are unable to account for the existence of different generations and tend to obviate long-term impacts. The paper analyzes how economic valuation methods could account for the costs and benefits enjoyed by present and future generations. The paper studies an appropriate consideration of preferences for future consumption and the incorporation of sustainability as a requirement in social decisions, which implies not only more efficiency but also a fairer distribution between generations than the one implied by conventional economic analysis.

Stock Management in Hospital Pharmacy using Chance-Constrained Model Predictive Control

One of the most important problems in the pharmacy department of a hospital is stock management. The clinical need for drugs must be satisfied with limited work labor while minimizing the use of economic resources. The complexity of the problem resides in the random nature of the drug demand and the multiple constraints that must be taken into account in every decision. In this article, chance-constrained model predictive control is proposed to deal with this problem. The flexibility of model predictive control allows taking into account explicitly the different objectives and constraints involved in the problem while the use of chance constraints provides a trade-off between conservativeness and efficiency. The solution proposed is assessed to study its implementation in two Spanish hospitals.Junta de Andalucía P12-TIC-240

WAYS OF IMPLICATING MORE ACTIVELY FOR THE CONSUMERS’ ASSOCIATIONS IN PROMOTING AND DEFENDING CONSUMERS’ RIGHTS

It is well known that in the European Union the good functioning of the market is conditioned by the development of an active consumers’ policy which can be facilitated by the consumers’ associations that should have a permanent dialogue with the public authorities and the firms in order to identify the main problems in connection with whom there is a wide consensus. Also, the communitary strategy concerning the consumers’ policy between 2002-2006 has established among its medium term objectives the one of implicating more actively for the consumers’ organizations in promoting the policy of protecting consumers’ rights and interests. Taking this into consideration, among the major objectives of the consumers’ protection policy and strategy in the Romanian society (accomplishing an effective protection of life, health and security, protecting the economic interests, information and education, facilitating the access in the justice and forming the specialists in the consumers’ protection field) there is also the objective concerning the supporting of the foundation and development of the consumers’ associations and consulting them in the process of decision taking. A real approach of the problems concerning the consumers’ associations is not possible without the involvement of the consumers’ protection, in a more active way, in promoting and protecting the consumers’ rights. Only in this way they can contribute substantially to the improvement of the Romanian economic climate and to the faster integration in the European Single Market.Consumers’ associations; Consumer protection; Active consumer policy.

Managerial Accounting - A Necessity For Business Success

Managerial accounting is a very useful tool in decision making given that managers need various information about the evolution of the economic within organizations they lead, from detailed knowledge of costs and to modeling the behavior of decision makers. Managerial accounting has therefore become an integral part of the management process by providing critical information for managers who must plan, supervise and decide in a changing business environment, highly competitive, characterized by imperfect information, disparate objectives and control problems within the organization

Using the Model of Rationalization and Approaching Group Decision within the SMEs in Romania

Economic-mathematic modeling is used by the manager as an alternative to the experiment used in the exact sciences. The experiment is not possible or it is non-rational when it comes to economic issues, systems that cannot be subject to experiencing. In industry for example, a company cannot afford the implementation of all investment alternatives in order to choose the best one. The model used within the research methodology involves identifying interdependencies between certain elements of the decision-making process within the SMEs in Romania (it may be about set objectives, decision criteria, prioritizing the decision problems). It will be presented the formalization of this decision model for decision problem identification. The group aims at identifying the basic problem, which can cause most of the other problems and determine others. In conclusion after calculating matrices, the resulting situation is not simple, but the first issue that must be addressed is P4: poorly qualified staff. The next issue to address is P3: used production equipment. Once P3 and P4 are solved, it conditions P5: poorer quality products, we can therefore address P5 and P2: decreased market share; as a result of solving these problems it will be also solved P1: decrease of turnover

Anytime Algorithms for Multi-Objective Hub Location Problems

In many logistic, telecommunications and computer networks, direct routing of commodities between any origin and destination is not viable due to economic and technological constraints. Hub locations problems (HLPs) are considered in that cases, where the design of these networks are optimized based on some objective(s) related on the cost or service. A huge number of papers have been published since the seminal work of O’Kelly. Early works were focused on analogue facility location problems, considering some assumptions to simplify network design. Recent works have studied more complex models that relax some of these assumptions and incorporate additional real-life features. In most HLPs considered in the literature, the input parameters are assumed to be known and deterministic. However, in practice, this assumption is unrealistic since there is a high uncertainty on relevant parameters, such as costs, demands or even distances. As a result, a decision maker usually prefer several solutions with a low uncertainty in their objectives functions. In this work, anytime algorithms are proposed to solve the multi-objective hub location problems with uncertainty. The proposed algorithms can be stopped at any time, yielding a set of efficient solutions (belonging to the Pareto front) that are well spread in the objective space.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Information and communications technology offices: A solution for economic and social development of villages (A case study on rural district of Khosrow Shirin, Abadeh, Iran)

Information technology is considered as one of the major criteria for economic and industrial development and progress, and it is one of the most important bases for rural development. Information technology is setting the stage for social and economic development by appropriate decision-making to achieve national objectives and to meet needs of rural communities. In the present study, through a rural development approach, an attempt was made to get a general conclusion about the roles of technology and information in economic growth and development of villages and effects of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) offices on rural development and its problems in village Khosrow Shirin were addressed in various aspects

An Efficient Simulated Annealing Algorithm for Economic Load Dispatch Problems

This paper presents an efficient simulated annealing (SA) algorithm with a single decision variable to solve the economic load dispatch (ELD) problems. The philosophy involves the introduction of a new decision variable through a prudent mathematical transformation of the relation between the decision variable and the optimal generations. The objectives of ELD problems in electric power generation is to programmed the devoted generating unit outputs so as to meet the mandatory load demand at lowest amount operating cost while satisfying all units and system equality and inequality constraints. Global optimization approaches is inspired by annealing process of thermodynamics. The proposed SA algorithm presented here is applied to two case studies, which analyze power systems having three, and six generating units. The results determined by the proposed approach are compared to those found by conventional quadratic programming (QP) and genetic algorithm (GA)