Government Intervention as an Optimal Response to Government (not Market!) Failure

This paper provides a theory of government intervention, such as government ownership, regulation, mandatory public schooling, subsidies, and industrial policy, as an optimal policy response due to the inability to commit not to expropriate private investment or bail agents out. If the government cannot commit not to expropriate the capital of private firms expost, private firms may not invest ex ante. The government may hence need to undertake investment itself. Thus, government ownership may be optimal, and, indeed, may be optimal even if government owned firms are less efficient. Public enterprise as a remedy for lack of private investment due to the threat of expropriation by the government should be particularly important in capital intensive sectors such as manufacturing, extraction of natural resources, and services which require large infrastructure investments, which is consistent with the data. Similarly, if the government bails out households which do not invest in schooling or save for retirement ex post, the government has to enforce universal schooling and force agents to save through social security systems ex ante. Government intervention may thus primarily be a response to government failure rather than market failurePublic enterprise, time inconsistency, optimal policy

Managerial Hedging and Portfolio Monitoring

Incentive compensation induces correlation between the portfolio of managers and the cash flow of the firms they manage. This correlation exposes managers to risk and hence gives them an incentive to hedge against the poor performance of their firms. We study the agency problem between shareholders and a manager when the manager can hedge his incentive compensation using financial markets and shareholders cannot perfectly monitor the manager’s portfolio in order to keep him from hedging the risk in his compensation. In particular, shareholders can monitor the manager’s portfolio stochastically, and since monitoring is costly governance is imperfect. If managerial hedging is detected, shareholders can seize the payoffs of the manager’s trades. We show that at the optimal contract: (i) the manager’s portfolio is monitored only when the firm performs poorly, (ii) the more costly monitoring is, the more sensitive is the manager’s compensation to firm performance, and (iii)conditional on the firm’s performance, the manager’s compensation is lower when his portfolio is monitored, even if no hedging is revealed by monitoring.executive compensation, incentives, monitoring, corporate governance.

New species of Dolichopoda Bolívar, 1880 (Orthoptera, Rhaphidophoridae) from the Aegean Islands of Andros, Paros and Kinaros (Greece)

In this paper two new species of Dolichopoda Bolívar, 1880 from the Cyclades islands of Andros and Paros and one from the Dodecanissos island of Kinaros, are described, increasing the total number of Greek species to 32. The new species from Paros (D. kikladica Di Russo & Rampini, n. sp.) and Kinaros (D. margiolis Di Russo & Rampini, n. sp.) show strong similarities with D. naxia Boudou-Saltet, 1972 from Naxos forming an homogenous group limited to the central Aegean islands. On the other hand the species D. christos-nifoni Di Russo & Rampini, n. sp. from Andros shows a combination of morphological characters that partly resemble characters found in Evvian Dolichopoda, and partly in species from the Cyclades. Relationships among these three new taxa and the other adjacent Dolichopoda species are discussed on the basis of the paleogeological and paleoclimatic events that shaped the present geography of the Aegean area

Infektiöser Durchfall

Durchfall ist ein häufiges und komplexes Problem mit vielfältigen infektiösen und nicht-infektiösen Ursachen. Eine sorgfältige klinische und epidemiologische Evaluation des Durchfalls ist entscheidend für die weitere Abklärung und Therapie. Der akute Durchfall wird überwiegend durch virale und bakterielle Infektionen verursacht und ist meist selbstlimitierend. Bei persistierendem oder chronischem Durchfall muss eine parasitäre oder nicht infektiöse Ursache in Betracht gezogen werden. Stuhluntersuchungen müssen gezielt erfolgen. Die wichtigste Therapie ist die Flüssigkeitssubstitution. Eine empirische Antibiotikatherapie ist bei schweren Verläufen, persistierendem oder chronischem Durchfall sowie bei spezieller Epidemiologie und Risikofaktoren indiziert. In diesem Aufsatz werden die grundlegenden Überlegungen für einen rationalen Zugang zum infektiösen Durchfall diskutiert

Gaining knowledge from big data: energy performance certificate as a source of information to decarbonize the built environment

The decarbonization strategies for the built environment that policy-makers face today from the EU mandate risk being made with incomplete or insufficient information. The consequence of this could be ineffective choices, thus slowing down the ongoing ecological transition, or their high cost, whether borne by the state or citizens. The progressive and unstoppable digitization of the built environment offers information collection and previously unthinkable management opportunities. The construction sector, traditionally lagging behind other industrial sectors, is beginning to produce large quantities of data that can be exploited thanks to the most modern techniques derived from the information technology sector. Among the most promising data sources are energy performance certificates for buildings, which provide a snapshot of the characteristics of buildings, their fabric and plant components, and design forecasts of their energy performances. Analyzing the energy performance certificates through Artificial Intelligence techniques proves the effectiveness of using big data in the construction sector. In particular, in this study, unsupervised machine learning techniques led to an in-depth knowledge of a stock of buildings approaching two hundred thousand units distributed over an almost twenty-four thousand square kilometers area in northern Italy

Artificial intelligence in construction asset management: a review of present status, challenges and future opportunities

The built environment is responsible for roughly 40% of global greenhouse emissions, making the sector a crucial factor for climate change and sustainability. Meanwhile, other sectors (like manufacturing) adopted Artificial Intelligence (AI) to solve complex, non-linear problems to reduce waste, inefficiency, and pollution. Therefore, many research efforts in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction community have recently tried introducing AI into building asset management (AM) processes. Since AM encompasses a broad set of disciplines, an overview of several AI applications, current research gaps, and trends is needed. In this context, this study conducted the first state-of-the-art research on AI for building asset management. A total of 578 papers were analyzed with bibliometric tools to identify prominent institutions, topics, and journals. The quantitative analysis helped determine the most researched areas of AM and which AI techniques are applied. The areas were furtherly investigated by reading in-depth the 83 most relevant studies selected by screening the articles’ abstracts identified in the bibliometric analysis. The results reveal many applications for Energy Management, Condition assessment, Risk management, and Project management areas. Finally, the literature review identified three main trends that can be a reference point for future studies made by practitioners or researchers: Digital Twin, Generative Adversarial Networks (with synthetic images) for data augmentation, and Deep Reinforcement Learning

Data driven economic scenarios for retrofitting residential buildings in a northern Italian region

European directives and strategies, such as the 'European Green Deal' and the 'Ren- ovation Wave', point out the importance of the building sector in achieving the climate goals set by the European Union for 2050. However, a higher renovation rate for the existing buildings is required to achieve these goals. Many barriers prevent the renovation rate from growing. Regarding financial barriers, the long payback times of renovation interventions and the high risk perceived by the potential investors make the renovation rate remain low. Based on data from energy performance certificates, this research proposes a data-driven method to create economic retrofit scenarios for residential buildings using Artificial Intelligence techniques and Monte Carlo simulations. Namely, energy savings have been predicted using an Artificial Neural Network on clusters of residential buildings and the Life Cycle Costs forecasted by Monte Carlo simulations taking into account the uncertainty in many of the inputs. Results obtained by applying the method to a region in northern Italy illustrate two scenarios for the energy retrofit of the built environment, one assuming a payback time of fifteen years and the other of twenty- five years. In both cases, the maximum allowable investment, which varies according to the specific characteristics of the buildings, is much lower than the retrofit costs recorded in the same area in recent years

Exclusive Contracts and the Institution of Bankruptcy

This paper studies the institution of bankruptcy when exclusive contracts cannot be enforced ex ante, e.g., a bank cannot monitor whether the borrower enters into contracts with other creditors. The institution of bankruptcy enables the bank to enforce its claim to any funds that the borrower has above a fixed “bankruptcy protection” level. Bankruptcy improves on non-exclusive contractual relationships but is not a perfect substitute for exclusivity ex ante. We characterize the effect of bankruptcy provisions on the equilibrium contracts which borrowers use to raise financing

ON SOUTHERN ANATOLIAN DOLICHOPODA BOLIVAR, 1880 WITH TAXONOMIC NOTES ON THE GENUS HELLERINA GALVAGNI, 2006 (ORTHOPTERA, RHAPHIDOPHORIDAE)

In this paper a new synonymy Hellerina Galvagni, 2006 = Dolichopoda Bolivar, 1880 and a new combination Hellerina lycia Galvagni, 2006 = Dolichopoda lycia (Galvagni, 2006). A redescription of male morphology and female description are reported. The affinity with the other Anatolian Dolichopoda and with some species of the sub genus Petrochilosina Boudou-Saltet, 1980, characterized by a bifurcated epiphallus, are discussed

Clostridium difficile assoziierter Durchfall: "An emerging infection"

Zusammenfassung: Die Clostridium difficile assoziierte Diarrhö (CDAD) wird häufig als lästige und relativ banale Nebenwirkung einer Antibiotikatherapie angesehen. Während schon in den 1980er und 90er Jahren Morbidität, Mortalität und entsprechend auch die Kosten von CDAD beträchtlich waren, sind diese aufgrund des Aufkommens eines hochvirulenten Stamms von Clostridium difficile (C.difficile) Anfang2000 deutlich angestiegen. Die pathogenetischen Schlüsselereignisse sind Veränderungen der Darmflora nach Antibiotikagabe, Kolonisation mit einem toxinbildenden C.difficile und dessen intraluminale Vermehrung. Die Therapie besteht bei milden Formen im Absetzen der angeschuldigten Medikamente, bei mäßig bis schwer ausgeprägten Erkrankungen erfolgt die Gabe von Metronidazol oder Vancomycin per os. Als ultima ratio bei toxischem Megakolon muss die subtotale Hemikolektomie erwogen werden. Der verantwortungsvolle Einsatz von Antibiotika ("antibiotic stewardship") in Kombination mit spitalhygienischen Maßnahmen sind essenziell, um Ausbrüchen vorzubeugen und sie einzudämme