5,754 research outputs found
Taming ‘Black Swans’: A Schmittian Perspective on State-led Crisis Management
Using a design-thinking approach to state-led crisis management, this thesis seeks to resolve the contemporary problem of Black Swans; that is, crises that are unprecedented, unexpected, unpredictable, and uncertain.Due to their nature and composition, Black Swans cause a significant increase in state fragility (Introduction). Despite this, Black Swans remain understudied within existing literature on crisis management (Chapter One). This thesis argues that Black Swans cause a significant increase in state fragility because the strategies governments and leaders currently use to recognise and contain them are sub-optimal (Chapter Two). A resolution is found by drawing resources from the legal-political theory that Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) developed between 1918 and 1933 (Chapter Three). In particular, Schmitt’s concepts of “the exception” and “sovereign dictatorship” are used to devise new strategies that enable governments and leaders to recognise and contain Black Swans optimally (Chapter Four & Chapter Five).This thesis articulates and defends a new way for constitutional states to manage Black Swans. It achieves this end by engaging in an innovative and revealing dialogue between crisis management studies and Schmittian studies (Conclusion). Unlike previous analyses, this thesis establishes that: (i) detailed strategies can be prescribed to manage Black Swans; and (ii) Carl Schmitt’s legal-political theory can be used to resolve problems at the forefront of contemporary crisis management
Information actors beyond modernity and coloniality in times of climate change:A comparative design ethnography on the making of monitors for sustainable futures in Curaçao and Amsterdam, between 2019-2022
In his dissertation, Mr. Goilo developed a cutting-edge theoretical framework for an Anthropology of Information. This study compares information in the context of modernity in Amsterdam and coloniality in Curaçao through the making process of monitors and develops five ways to understand how information can act towards sustainable futures. The research also discusses how the two contexts, that is modernity and coloniality, have been in informational symbiosis for centuries which is producing negative informational side effects within the age of the Anthropocene. By exploring the modernity-coloniality symbiosis of information, the author explains how scholars, policymakers, and data-analysts can act through historical and structural roots of contemporary global inequities related to the production and distribution of information. Ultimately, the five theses propose conditions towards the collective production of knowledge towards a more sustainable planet
Non-Market Food Practices Do Things Markets Cannot: Why Vermonters Produce and Distribute Food That\u27s Not For Sale
Researchers tend to portray food self-provisioning in high-income societies as a coping mechanism for the poor or a hobby for the well-off. They describe food charity as a regrettable band-aid. Vegetable gardens and neighborly sharing are considered remnants of precapitalist tradition. These are non-market food practices: producing food that is not for sale and distributing food in ways other than selling it. Recent scholarship challenges those standard understandings by showing (i) that non-market food practices remain prevalent in high-income countries, (ii) that people in diverse social groups engage in these practices, and (iii) that they articulate diverse reasons for doing so. In this dissertation, I investigate the persistent pervasiveness of non-market food practices in Vermont. To go beyond explanations that rely on individual motivation, I examine the roles these practices play in society.
First, I investigate the prevalence of non-market food practices. Several surveys with large, representative samples reveal that more than half of Vermont households grow, hunt, fish, or gather some of their own food. Respondents estimate that they acquire 14% of the food they consume through non-market means, on average. For reference, commercial local food makes up about the same portion of total consumption.
Then, drawing on the words of 94 non-market food practitioners I interviewed, I demonstrate that these practices serve functions that markets cannot. Interviewees attested that non-market distribution is special because it feeds the hungry, strengthens relationships, builds resilience, puts edible-but-unsellable food to use, and aligns with a desired future in which food is not for sale. Hunters, fishers, foragers, scavengers, and homesteaders said that these activities contribute to their long-run food security as a skills-based safety net. Self-provisioning allows them to eat from the landscape despite disruptions to their ability to access market food such as job loss, supply chain problems, or a global pandemic. Additional evidence from vegetable growers suggests that non-market settings liberate production from financial discipline, making space for work that is meaningful, playful, educational, and therapeutic. Non-market food practices mend holes in the social fabric torn by the commodification of everyday life.
Finally, I synthesize scholarly critiques of markets as institutions for organizing the production and distribution of food. Markets send food toward money rather than hunger. Producing for market compels farmers to prioritize financial viability over other values such as stewardship. Historically, people rarely if ever sell each other food until external authorities coerce them to do so through taxation, indebtedness, cutting off access to the means of subsistence, or extinguishing non-market institutions. Today, more humans than ever suffer from chronic undernourishment even as the scale of commercial agriculture pushes environmental pressures past critical thresholds of planetary sustainability. This research substantiates that alternatives to markets exist and have the potential to address their shortcomings
Quantifying Equity Risk Premia: Financial Economic Theory and High-Dimensional Statistical Methods
The overarching question of this dissertation is how to quantify the unobservable risk premium of a stock when its return distribution varies over time.
The first chapter, titled “Theory-based versus machine learning-implied stock risk premia”, starts with a comparison of two competing strands of the literature. The approach advocated by Martin and Wagner (2019) relies on financial economic theory to derive a closed-form approximation of conditional risk premia using information embedded in the prices of European options. The other approach, exemplified by the study of Gu et al. (2020), draws on the flexibility of machine learning methods and vast amounts of historical data to determine the unknown functional form. The goal of this study is to determine which of the two approaches produces more accurate measurements of stock risk premia. In addition, we present a novel hybrid approach that employs machine learning to overcome the approximation errors induced by the theory-based approach. We find that our hybrid approach is competitive especially at longer investment horizons.
The second chapter, titled “The uncertainty principle in asset pricing”, introduces a representation of the conditional capital asset pricing model (CAPM) in which the betas and the equity premium are jointly characterized by the information embedded in option prices. A unique feature of our model is that its implied components represent valid measurements of their physical counterparts without the need for any further risk adjustment. Moreover, because the model’s time-varying parameters are directly observable, the model can be tested without any of the complications that typically arise from statistical estimation. One of the main empirical findings is that the well-known flat relationship between average predicted and realized excess returns of beta-sorted portfolios can be explained by the uncertainty governing market excess returns.
In the third chapter, titled “Multi-task learning in cross-sectional regressions”, we challenge the way in which cross-sectional regressions are used to test factor models with time-varying loadings. More specifically, we extend the procedure by Fama and MacBeth (1973) by systematically selecting stock characteristics using a combination of l1- and l2-regularization, known as the multi-task Lasso, and addressing the bias that is induced by selection via repeated sample splitting. In the empirical part of this chapter, we apply our testing procedure to the option-implied CAPM from chapter two, and find that, while variants of the momentum effect lead to a rejection of the model, the implied beta is by far the most important predictor of cross-sectional return variation
Climate Change and Critical Agrarian Studies
Climate change is perhaps the greatest threat to humanity today and plays out as a cruel engine of myriad forms of injustice, violence and destruction. The effects of climate change from human-made emissions of greenhouse gases are devastating and accelerating; yet are uncertain and uneven both in terms of geography and socio-economic impacts. Emerging from the dynamics of capitalism since the industrial revolution — as well as industrialisation under state-led socialism — the consequences of climate change are especially profound for the countryside and its inhabitants. The book interrogates the narratives and strategies that frame climate change and examines the institutionalised responses in agrarian settings, highlighting what exclusions and inclusions result. It explores how different people — in relation to class and other co-constituted axes of social difference such as gender, race, ethnicity, age and occupation — are affected by climate change, as well as the climate adaptation and mitigation responses being implemented in rural areas. The book in turn explores how climate change – and the responses to it - affect processes of social differentiation, trajectories of accumulation and in turn agrarian politics. Finally, the book examines what strategies are required to confront climate change, and the underlying political-economic dynamics that cause it, reflecting on what this means for agrarian struggles across the world. The 26 chapters in this volume explore how the relationship between capitalism and climate change plays out in the rural world and, in particular, the way agrarian struggles connect with the huge challenge of climate change. Through a huge variety of case studies alongside more conceptual chapters, the book makes the often-missing connection between climate change and critical agrarian studies. The book argues that making the connection between climate and agrarian justice is crucial
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Cancer Care in Pandemic Times: Building Inclusive Local Health Security in Africa and India
This is a book about improving cancer care in Africa and India that is a child of its pandemic times. It has been collaboratively researched and written by colleagues in Kenya, Tanzania, India and the UK, working within a cross-country, multidisciplinary research project, Innovation for Cancer Care in Africa (ICCA). Since this was a health-focused research project, ICCA researchers during the pandemic not only continued to work on the cancer research project but were also called upon by their governments to respond to immediate pandemic needs. In combining these two concerns, for improving cancer care and responding to pandemic needs, our original project aims have been challenged, deepened and reworked. ICCA’s initial collaborative research focus included—against the grain of most global health literature—the potential role of enhanced local production of essential healthcare supplies for improving cancer care in African countries. The pandemic experience has strikingly validated these earlier findings on the importance of industrial development for health care. The pandemic crystallised for researchers and policymakers an often overlooked phenomenon: global health security is built on the foundations of strong local health security. We argue in this book that new analytical thinking from social scientists and others is required on how to build local health security. We use the “lens” of original research on cancer care in East Africa and India to build up an understanding of the scope for the development of stronger synergies between local health industries and health care, in order to strengthen local health security and develop tools for policy making. The rethinking and reimagining presented here is required for different African countries, for India and the wider world, and this research on cancer care has taught us that this imperative goes much wider than infectious diseases
Essays on Corporate Disclosure of Value Creation
Information on a firm’s business model helps investors understand an entity’s resource requirements, priorities for action, and prospects (FASB, 2001, pp. 14-15; IASB, 2010, p. 12). Disclosures of strategy and business model (SBM) are therefore considered a central element of effective annual report commentary (Guillaume, 2018; IIRC, 2011). By applying natural language processing techniques, I explore what SBM disclosures look like when management are pressed to say something, analyse determinants of cross-sectional variation in SBM reporting properties, and assess whether and how managers respond to regulatory interventions seeking to promote SBM annual report commentary. This dissertation contains three main chapters. Chapter 2 presents a systematic review of the academic literature on non-financial reporting and the emerging literature on SBM reporting. Here, I also introduce my institutional setting. Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 form the empirical sections of this thesis. In Chapter 3, I construct the first large sample corpus of SBM annual report commentary and provide the first systematic analysis of the properties of such disclosures. My topic modelling analysis rejects the hypothesis that such disclosure is merely padding; instead finding themes align with popular strategy frameworks and management tailor the mix of SBM topics to reflect their unique approach to value creation. However, SBM commentary is less specific, less precise about time horizon (short- and long-term), and less balanced (more positive) in tone relative to general management commentary. My findings suggest symbolic compliance and legitimisation characterize the typical annual report discussion of SBM. Further analysis identifies proprietary cost considerations and obfuscation incentives as key determinants of symbolic reporting. In Chapter 4, I seek evidence on how managers respond to regulatory mandates by adapting the properties of disclosure and investigate whether the form of the mandate matters. Using a differences-in-differences research design, my results suggest a modest incremental response by treatment firms to the introduction of a comply or explain provision to provide disclosure on strategy and business model. In contrast, I find a substantial response to enacting the same requirements in law. My analysis provides clear and consistent evidence that treatment firms incrementally increase the volume of SBM disclosure, improve coverage across a broad range of topics as well as providing commentary with greater focus on the long term. My results point to substantial changes in SBM reporting properties following regulatory mandates, but the form of the mandate does matter. Overall, this dissertation contributes to the accounting literature by examining how firms discuss a central topic to economic decision making in annual reports and how firms respond to different forms of disclosure mandate. Furthermore, the results of my analysis are likely to be of value for regulators and policymakers currently reviewing or considering mandating disclosure requirements. By examining how companies adapt their reporting to different types of regulations, this study provides an empirical basis for recalibrating SBM disclosure mandates, thereby enhancing the information set of capital market participants and promoting stakeholder engagement in a landscape increasingly shaped by non-financial information
Digitalization and Development
This book examines the diffusion of digitalization and Industry 4.0 technologies in Malaysia by focusing on the ecosystem critical for its expansion. The chapters examine the digital proliferation in major sectors of agriculture, manufacturing, e-commerce and services, as well as the intermediary organizations essential for the orderly performance of socioeconomic agents.
The book incisively reviews policy instruments critical for the effective and orderly development of the embedding organizations, and the regulatory framework needed to quicken the appropriation of socioeconomic synergies from digitalization and Industry 4.0 technologies. It highlights the importance of collaboration between government, academic and industry partners, as well as makes key recommendations on how to encourage adoption of IR4.0 technologies in the short- and long-term.
This book bridges the concepts and applications of digitalization and Industry 4.0 and will be a must-read for policy makers seeking to quicken the adoption of its technologies
Spectrum auctions: designing markets to benefit the public, industry and the economy
Access to the radio spectrum is vital for modern digital communication. It is an essential component for smartphone capabilities, the Cloud, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, and multiple other new technologies. Governments use spectrum auctions to decide which companies should use what parts of the radio spectrum. Successful auctions can fuel rapid innovation in products and services, unlock substantial economic benefits, build comparative advantage across all regions, and create billions of dollars of government revenues. Poor auction strategies can leave bandwidth unsold and delay innovation, sell national assets to firms too cheaply, or create uncompetitive markets with high mobile prices and patchy coverage that stifles economic growth. Corporate bidders regularly complain that auctions raise their costs, while government critics argue that insufficient revenues are raised. The cross-national record shows many examples of both highly successful auctions and miserable failures. Drawing on experience from the UK and other countries, senior regulator Geoffrey Myers explains how to optimise the regulatory design of auctions, from initial planning to final implementation. Spectrum Auctions offers unrivalled expertise for regulators and economists engaged in practical auction design or company executives planning bidding strategies. For applied economists, teachers, and advanced students this book provides unrivalled insights in market design and public management. Providing clear analytical frameworks, case studies of auctions, and stage-by-stage advice, it is essential reading for anyone interested in designing public-interested and successful spectrum auctions
Effects of municipal smoke-free ordinances on secondhand smoke exposure in the Republic of Korea
ObjectiveTo reduce premature deaths due to secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure among non-smokers, the Republic of Korea (ROK) adopted changes to the National Health Promotion Act, which allowed local governments to enact municipal ordinances to strengthen their authority to designate smoke-free areas and levy penalty fines. In this study, we examined national trends in SHS exposure after the introduction of these municipal ordinances at the city level in 2010.MethodsWe used interrupted time series analysis to assess whether the trends of SHS exposure in the workplace and at home, and the primary cigarette smoking rate changed following the policy adjustment in the national legislation in ROK. Population-standardized data for selected variables were retrieved from a nationally representative survey dataset and used to study the policy action’s effectiveness.ResultsFollowing the change in the legislation, SHS exposure in the workplace reversed course from an increasing (18% per year) trend prior to the introduction of these smoke-free ordinances to a decreasing (−10% per year) trend after adoption and enforcement of these laws (β2 = 0.18, p-value = 0.07; β3 = −0.10, p-value = 0.02). SHS exposure at home (β2 = 0.10, p-value = 0.09; β3 = −0.03, p-value = 0.14) and the primary cigarette smoking rate (β2 = 0.03, p-value = 0.10; β3 = 0.008, p-value = 0.15) showed no significant changes in the sampled period. Although analyses stratified by sex showed that the allowance of municipal ordinances resulted in reduced SHS exposure in the workplace for both males and females, they did not affect the primary cigarette smoking rate as much, especially among females.ConclusionStrengthening the role of local governments by giving them the authority to enact and enforce penalties on SHS exposure violation helped ROK to reduce SHS exposure in the workplace. However, smoking behaviors and related activities seemed to shift to less restrictive areas such as on the streets and in apartment hallways, negating some of the effects due to these ordinances. Future studies should investigate how smoke-free policies beyond public places can further reduce the SHS exposure in ROK
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