11,319 research outputs found
Nonparametric Analysis of Household Labor Supply: Goodness-of-Fit and Power of the Unitary and the Collective Model
We compare the empirical performance of unitary and collective labor supply models, using representative data from the Dutch DNB Household Survey.We conduct a nonparametric analysis that avoids the distortive impact of an erroneously speci.ed functional form for the prefer-ences and/or the intrahousehold bargaining process.Our analysis focuses on the goodness-of-.t of the two behavioral models.To guarantee a fair comparison, we complement this goodness-of-.t analysis with a power analysis.Our results strongly favor the collective approach to modeling the behavior of multi-person householdslabor supply;collective model;unitary model;nonparametric analysis;revealed preferences
Nonparametric analysis of household labour supply: Goodness-of-fit and power of the unitary and the collective model.
Goodness of fit; Power; Model;
Air Taxi Skyport Location Problem for Airport Access
Witnessing the rapid progress and accelerated commercialization made in
recent years for the introduction of air taxi services in near future across
metropolitan cities, our research focuses on one of the most important
consideration for such services, i.e., infrastructure planning (also known as
skyports). We consider design of skyport locations for air taxis accessing
airports, where we present the skyport location problem as a modified
single-allocation p-hub median location problem integrating choice-constrained
user mode choice behavior into the decision process. Our approach focuses on
two alternative objectives i.e., maximizing air taxi ridership and maximizing
air taxi revenue. The proposed models in the study incorporate trade-offs
between trip length and trip cost based on mode choice behavior of travelers to
determine optimal choices of skyports in an urban city. We examine the
sensitivity of skyport locations based on two objectives, three air taxi
pricing strategies, and varying transfer times at skyports. A case study of New
York City is conducted considering a network of 149 taxi zones and 3 airports
with over 20 million for-hire-vehicles trip data to the airports to discuss
insights around the choice of skyport locations in the city, and demand
allocation to different skyports under various parameter settings. Results
suggest that a minimum of 9 skyports located between Manhattan, Queens and
Brooklyn can adequately accommodate the airport access travel needs and are
sufficiently stable against transfer time increases. Findings from this study
can help air taxi providers strategize infrastructure design options and
investment decisions based on skyport location choices.Comment: 25 page
Aid Project Proliferation and Absorptive Capacity
Much public discussion about foreign aid has focused on whether and how to increase its quantity. But recently aid quality has come to the fore, by which is meant the effectiveness of the aid delivery process. This paper focuses on one process problem, the proliferation of aid projects and the associated administrative burden for recipients. It models aid delivery as a set of production activities (projects) with two inputs, the donor’s aid and a recipient-side resource, and two outputs, namely, development and “throughput,” which proxies for the private benefits for both donor and recipient of implementing projects, from kickbacks to career rewards for disbursing. The donor’s allocation of aid across projects is taken as exogenous while the recipient’s allocation of its resource is modeled and subject to a budget constraint. Unless the recipient cares purely about development, increasing aid can reduce development in some circumstances. Sunk costs, representing the administrative burden for the recipient of donor meetings and reports, are introduced. Using data on the distribution of projects by size and country, simulations of aid increases are run in order to examine how the project distribution evolves, how the recipient’s resource allocation responds, and how this affects development if the recipient is not a pure development optimizer. With Cobb-Douglas production, a threshold is revealed beyond which marginal aid effectiveness drops sharply. It occurs when development maximization calls for the recipient to withdraw from some donor-backed projects—but the recipient does not, for the sake of throughput. Donors can push back this threshold by moving to larger projects if there are scale economies in aid projects.Foreign aid, donor coordination, project proliferation, absorptive capacity
Ambulance Emergency Response Optimization in Developing Countries
The lack of emergency medical transportation is viewed as the main barrier to
the access of emergency medical care in low and middle-income countries
(LMICs). In this paper, we present a robust optimization approach to optimize
both the location and routing of emergency response vehicles, accounting for
uncertainty in travel times and spatial demand characteristic of LMICs. We
traveled to Dhaka, Bangladesh, the sixth largest and third most densely
populated city in the world, to conduct field research resulting in the
collection of two unique datasets that inform our approach. This data is
leveraged to develop machine learning methodologies to estimate demand for
emergency medical services in a LMIC setting and to predict the travel time
between any two locations in the road network for different times of day and
days of the week. We combine our robust optimization and machine learning
frameworks with real data to provide an in-depth investigation into three
policy-related questions. First, we demonstrate that outpost locations
optimized for weekday rush hour lead to good performance for all times of day
and days of the week. Second, we find that significant improvements in
emergency response times can be achieved by re-locating a small number of
outposts and that the performance of the current system could be replicated
using only 30% of the resources. Lastly, we show that a fleet of small
motorcycle-based ambulances has the potential to significantly outperform
traditional ambulance vans. In particular, they are able to capture three times
more demand while reducing the median response time by 42% due to increased
routing flexibility offered by nimble vehicles on a larger road network. Our
results provide practical insights for emergency response optimization that can
be leveraged by hospital-based and private ambulance providers in Dhaka and
other urban centers in LMICs
Who Is (More) Rational?
Revealed preference theory o¤ers a criterion for decision-making quality: if decisions are high quality then there exists a utility function that the choices maximize. We conduct a large-scale ?eld experiment that enables us to test subjects?choices for consistency with utility maximization and to combine the experimental data with a wide range of individual socioeco-nomic information for the subjects. There is considerable heterogeneity in subjects?consistency scores: high-income and high-education subjects display greater levels of consistency than low- income and low-education subjects, men are more consistent than women, and young subjects are more consistent than older subjects. We also ?nd that consistency with utility maximization is strongly related to wealth: a standard deviation increase in the consistency score is associated with 15-19 percent more wealth. This result conditions on socioeconomic variables including current income, education, and family structure, and is little changed when we add controls for past income, risk tolerance and the results of a standard personality test used by psychologists.
Optimal allocation of defibrillator drones in mountainous regions
Responding to emergencies in Alpine terrain is quite challenging as air
ambulances and mountain rescue services are often confronted with logistics
challenges and adverse weather conditions that extend the response times
required to provide life-saving support. Among other medical emergencies,
sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is the most time-sensitive event that requires the
quick provision of medical treatment including cardiopulmonary resuscitation
and electric shocks by automated external defibrillators (AED). An emerging
technology called unmanned aerial vehicles (or drones) is regarded to support
mountain rescuers in overcoming the time criticality of these emergencies by
reducing the time span between SCA and early defibrillation. A drone that is
equipped with a portable AED can fly from a base station to the patient's site
where a bystander receives it and starts treatment. This paper considers such a
response system and proposes an integer linear program to determine the optimal
allocation of drone base stations in a given geographical region. In detail,
the developed model follows the objectives to minimize the number of used
drones and to minimize the average travel times of defibrillator drones
responding to SCA patients. In an example of application, under consideration
of historical helicopter response times, the authors test the developed model
and demonstrate the capability of drones to speed up the delivery of AEDs to
SCA patients. Results indicate that time spans between SCA and early
defibrillation can be reduced by the optimal allocation of drone base stations
in a given geographical region, thus increasing the survival rate of SCA
patients
Nonparametric Analysis of Household Labor Supply:Goodness-of-Fit and Power of the Unitary and the Collective Model
We compare the empirical performance of unitary and collective labor supply models, using representative data from the Dutch DNB Household Survey.We conduct a nonparametric analysis that avoids the distortive impact of an erroneously speci.ed functional form for the prefer-ences and/or the intrahousehold bargaining process.Our analysis focuses on the goodness-of-.t of the two behavioral models.To guarantee a fair comparison, we complement this goodness-of-.t analysis with a power analysis.Our results strongly favor the collective approach to modeling the behavior of multi-person households
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