A New Approach for Evaluating the Order Fulfillment Process Options of B2C Horizontal Portals Using DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis)

By using the traditional statistical or operations research methods for deciding the product-delivery logistics, the portal companies are not using their competitive advantages on being more e-enabled, informed and computationally able than their traditional counterparts. In this paper, we show some typical characteristics of the portals like their handling of a huge range of goods in terms of transactional values or volumes. Subsequently, we have identified three types of generic product-delivery logistics of the portals with various intermediate entities or trading partners. Then, a completely different approach using an extreme point method rather than the traditional central-tendency-based statistical methods has been suggested

Can we Rely upon Fiscal Policy Estimates in Countries with Unreported Production of 15 Per Cent (or more) of GDP?

This paper analyzes the effects of fiscal policy in Italy by employing a database containing two statistical novelties: quarterly fiscal variables on accrual basis and a time series estimate of tax evasion for the period 1981:1-2006:4. Following Revenue Agency suggestions, we use in a VECM the time series of the concealed VAT base as a proxy for the size of “unreported production”, and define a regular GDP measure constructed as GDP net of government expenditure and evaded VAT base. The results reveal that we cannot rely upon the estimates of fiscal policy multipliers in countries with a sizeable unreported production unless the dynamics of the hidden and regular components of the GDP are disentangled. Changes in public spending and the tax rate generate a reallocation from underground to the regular economy which contributes to obscure the spending and tax effect on total GDP. In this setup the spending multiplier shows large long-run effects, considerably stronger than those registered in a model with no attention paid to unreported production. The drop in regular output, after an increase in the effective tax rate, tends to be considerable after one year, producing long-lasting effects and a significant increase in unreported production and tax evasion.fiscal policy, VECM, fiscal multipliers, unreported GDP, tax ratio, effective tax rate

Sports, Inc. Volume 3, Issue 1

The ILR Cornell Sports Business Society magazine is a semester publication titled Sports, Inc. This publication serves as a space for our membership to publish and feature in-depth research and well-thought out ideas to advance the world of sport. The magazine can be found in the Office of Student Services and is distributed to alumni who come visit us on campus. Issues are reproduced here with permission of the ILR Cornell Sports Business Society.https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/sportsinc/1003/thumbnail.jp

A free trade area between the Repbulic of Moldova and the European Union: feasibility, perspectives and potential impact.

This publication has been launched within the project “European Union – Republic of Moldova Trade Relations: Current Situation and Perspectives for Enhancement”. The project is sponsored by the Moldova-Soros Foundation. The major goal of this project is to help Moldovan government formulate and adopt balanced and sound positions for the future negotiations with the European Commission, so that an “enhanced trade regime” contributing to the economic modernization of the country and economic integration with EU is achieved.free trade agreement; feasibility study; Moldova; European Union;

Economic Instruments and Induced Innovation: The Case of End-of-Life Vehicles European Policies

The paper addresses the dynamic-incentive effect of environmental policy instruments when innovation is uncertain and occurs in very complex industrial subsystems. The case of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) is considered focusing predominantly on the effects of the European Directive adopted in 2000 which stipulated economic instruments as free take-back, and on the voluntary agreements in place in many EU countries. The ELV case study is an example of a framework where policy-making faces an intrinsic dynamic and systemic environment. Coherent sequences of single innovations taking place in both upstream (car making) and downstream (car recycling/recovery) of the ELV system can give rise to different “innovation paths”, in accordance with cost-benefit considerations, technological options and capabilities associated to the different industrial actors involved. The impact of economic instruments on innovation paths, in particular free take-back, is considered. Deficiencies or difficulties concerning the transmission of incentives between different industries can prevent the creation of new recycling/recovery/reuse markets, giving rise to other less preferable and unexpected outcomes. The implication for policy is a need for an integrated policy approach, as enforceable VAs, in order to create a shared interindustry interest for innovation and to reduce the possible adverse effects which economic instruments exert on innovation through cost benefit impacts on key industrial and waste-related agents involved in the ELV management system. These advantages should be taken into account vis à vis the emergence of Integrated Product Policy (IPP) as a leading concept of EU environmental policy and the associated shift from "extended producer responsibility" to "extended product responsibility".ELV, Induced innovation, Dynamic efficiency, Economic instruments, Recycling

Multiagent resource allocation in service networks

The term service network (SN) denotes a network of software services in which complex software applications are provided to customers by aggregating multiple elementary services. These networks are based on the service-oriented computing (SOC) paradigm, which defines the fundamental technical concepts for software services over electronic networks, e.g., Web services and, most recently, Cloud services. For the provision of software services to customers, software service providers (SPs) have to allocate their scarce computational resources (i.e., hardware and software) of a certain quality to customer requests. The SOC paradigm facilitates interoperability over organizational boundaries by representing business relationships on the software system level. Composite software services aggregate multiple software services into software applications. This aggregation is denoted as service composition. The loose coupling of services leads to SNs as dynamic entities with changing interdependencies between services. For composite software services, these dependencies exist across SN tiers; they result from the procurement of services, which are themselves utilized to produce additional services, and constitute a major problem for resource allocation in SNs. If these dependencies are not considered, the fulfillment of agreements may become unaccomplishable (overcommitment). Hence, the consideration of service dependencies is crucial for the allocation of service providers resources to fulfill customer requests in SNs. However, existing resource allocation methods, which could consider these dependencies -- such as combinatorial auctions with a central auctioneer for the whole SN -- are not applicable, since there are no central coordinating entities in SNs. The application of an allocation mechanism that does not consider these dependencies might negatively affect the actual service delivery; results are penalty payments as well as a damage to the reputation of the providers. This research is conducted in accordance to the design science paradigm in information system research. It is a problem-solving paradigm, which targets the construction and evaluation of IT artifacts. The objectives of this research are to develop and evaluate an allocation protocol, which can consider multi-tier service dependencies without the existence of central coordinating entities. Therefore, an interaction protocol engineering (IPE) perspective is applied to solve the problem of multi-tier dependencies in resource allocation. This approach provides a procedure model for designing interaction protocols for multiagent systems, and is closely related to the well-established area of communication protocol engineering. Automated resource allocation in SNs is analyzed in this research by representing the actors as autonomous software agents in the software system. The actors delegate their objectives to their software agents, which conduct the negotiations for service provision on their behalf. Thus, these agents communicate concerning the resource allocation; in this process, the sequence of communication interactions is crucial to the problem addressed. Interaction protocols define a structured exchange of defined messages between agents; they facilitate agent conversations. When multiple agents have to reach agreements by negotiation and bargaining, such as in case with allocating scarce resources, game theory provides means to formalize and analyze the most rational choice of actions for the interacting agents. Based on a formal framework for resource allocation in SNs, this research first performs a game-theoretic problem analysis; it is concerned with the existence, as well as the complexity of computing optimal allocations. In addition, Nash equilibria are analyzed for optimal allocations. Second, a distributed, auction-based allocation protocol, which prevents overcommitments and guarantees socially optimal allocations for single customer requests under certain assumptions, is proposed. Therefore, a game-theoretic model and an operationizable specification of the protocol are presented. Third, it is formally verified that the protocol enables multi-tier resource allocation and avoids overcommitments by proofs for the game-theoretic model and by model checking for the interaction protocol specification; using the model checker Spin, safety properties like the absence of deadlock are as well formally verified as the protocol enabling multi-tier resource allocation. Fourth, the efficacy and the benefits of the proposed protocol are demonstrated by multiagent simulation for concurrent customers. The experimental evaluation provides evidence of the protocols efficiency compared to the socially optimal allocation as a centralized benchmark in different settings, e.g., network topologies and different bidding policies.Der Begriff Service Network (SN) bezeichnet ein Netzwerk von Software-Services, in dem komplexe Software-Applikationen durch Aggregation mehrerer elementarer Services für Kunden bereitgestellt werden. Diese Netzwerke basieren auf dem Paradigma des Service-oriented Computing, welches die grundlegenden technischen Konzepte für Software-Services über elektronische Netzwerke bereitstellt, d.h. Web Services und zuletzt Cloud-Computing. Für die Bereitstellung von Software-Services für Kunden müssen Software-Anbieter ihre knappen Ressourcen (d.h. Hardware und Software) einer bestimmten Qualität zu Kundenanfragen allozieren, also entsprechende Ressourcen reservieren, um Software-Services in der vereinbarten Dienstgüte bereitzustellen. Zusammengesetzte Software-Services aggregieren mehrere Software-Services zu Software-Applikations-Services. Diese Aggregation wird als Service-Komposition bezeichnet. Die lose Kopplung von Services macht SNs zu dynamischen Entitäten mit sich verändernden Interdependenzen zwischen den Services. Für zusammengesetzte Software-Services existieren solche Abhängigkeiten über mehrere SN-Stufen; sie ergeben sich durch die Beschaffung von Services, welche für die Produktion von weiteren Services verwendet werden, und stellen ein Hauptproblem bei der Ressourcenallokation in SN dar. Werden diese Abhängigkeiten nicht berücksichtigt, kann die Erfüllung von Vereinbarungen undurchführbar werden (overcommitment). Daher ist die Berücksichtigung von Service-Abhängigkeiten bei der Allokation von Ressourcen der Service-Anbieter für die Erfüllung der Kundenanfragen in SNs entscheidend. Existierende Methoden der Ressourcenallokation, welche diese Abhängigkeiten berücksichtigen könnten -- wie kombinatorische Auktionen mit einem zentralen Auktionator für das gesamte SN -- sind jedoch nicht anwendbar, da in SNs keine zentralen Koordinationsentitäten existieren. Der Einsatz eines Allokationsmechanismus, welcher diese Abhängigkeiten nicht berücksichtigt, kann die konkrete Service-Erbringung negativ beeinflussen und somit in Strafzahlungen und einer Beeinträchtigung der Reputation der Service-Anbieter resultieren. Die vorliegende Forschungsarbeit wird in Übereinstimmung mit dem Design Science-Paradigma durchgeführt. Dabei handelt es sich um ein Problemlösungs-Paradigma, welches die Konstruktion und Evaluation von IT-Artefakten zum Ziel hat. Ziel dieser Forschungsarbeit ist die Entwicklung und Evaluation eines Allokationsprotokolls, welches mehrstufige Service-Abhängigkeiten ohne die Existenz zentraler, koordinierender Entitäten berücksichtigen kann. Zu diesem Zweck wird eine Interaction-Protocol-Engineering (IPE)-Perspektive eingenommen, um das Problem mehrstufiger Abhängigkeiten bei der Ressourcenallokation zu lösen. Dieser Ansatz stellt ein Vorgehensmodell für den Entwurf von Interaktionsprotokollen für Multiagentensysteme zur Verfügung. Diese Forschungsarbeit analysiert die automatisierte Ressourcenallokation in SNs durch die Repräsentation der Akteure als autonome Softwareagenten im Softwaresystem. Die Akteure delegieren ihre Ziele an ihre Softwareagenten, welche in deren Auftrag die Verhandlung für die Service-Erbringung durchführen. Somit kommunizieren diese Softwareagenten bezüglich der Ressourcenallokationen; dabei ist die Abfolge der Interaktionen für das adressierte Problem elementar. Interaktionsprotokolle definieren einen strukturierten Austausch bestimmter Nachrichten zwischen Agenten. Wenn mehrere Agenten Vereinbarungen durch Verhandlungen treffen müssen, wie im Falle der Allokation knapper Ressourcen, stellt die Spieltheorie Methoden bereit, um rationale Entscheidungen der Aktionen für interagierende Agenten zu analysieren. Basierend auf einem formalen Modell für Ressourcenallokation in SN führt diese Forschungsarbeit eine spieltheoretische Problemanalyse durch. Hierbei werden insbesondere mehrstufige Abhängigkeiten von Vereinbarungen berücksichtigt. Die Problemanalyse befaßt sich mit der Existenz sowie der Komplexität der Berechnung optimaler Allokationen. Es wird ein verteiltes, Auktions-basiertes Allokationsprotokoll, welches overcommitments vermeidet, vorgeschlagen. Basierend auf dem spieltheoretischen Modell wird gezeigt, daß das vorgeschlagene Protokoll overcommitments vermeidet und sozial optimale Allokationen für einzelne Kundenanfragen unter bestimmten Annahmen garantiert. Darüber hinaus wird der Modellprüfer Spin verwendet, um bestimmte formale Eigenschaften der Beschreibung des Protokolls zu beweisen. Abschließend werden die Anwendbarkeit und der Nutzen des vorgeschlagenen Protokolls mittels Multiagentensimulation demonstriert. In den Simulationsexperimenten wird die Effizienz des Protokolls mit der optimalen Allokation als zentralisiertes Benchmark in unterschiedlichen Einstellungen (z.B. Netzwerktopologien oder Anzahl von Kunden- und Anbieter-Agenten) für verschiedene Bietrichtlinien für Anbieter verglichen

Understanding local content policy in Guyana’s Oil & Gas sector a critical overview

Local Content ensures that extractive industries in host countries benefit their citizens. Companies engage in local content development to gain the support from the host government and social license to operate from local communities that enables adherence to the planned timeline for project approvals; improve quality of supplies; reduce costs associated with delays in delivery; and reduce non-technical risk to the project. This paper construes the Pertinence of Local Content in Oil and Gas Sector, and earnestly analyzes Challenges in its Development, Implementation, and Monitoring. The paper illustrates that effective design, development, implementation and monitoring of local content policy can lead to theamelioration of the structural effects of Oil sector through: Increased value added; Increased employment generation; technology transfers, innovation, and social investments in capacity building and development of skills; Poverty Reduction; Enhanced entrepreneurial development; Improvements in local investment in the sector; and Increased contribution to GDP. The paper concludes that by creating ‘shared value’ Guyana can achieve its overall National Inclusive Economic Development and Green State Development Strategy Goals