Evaluating the Effects of Decoupled Payments under Output and Price Uncertainty

This paper examines the effects of decoupling policies on Greek cotton production under the hypothesis that producers face uncertainty about output price and quantity. Using our estimation results we simulate the effects on cotton production under four alternative policy scenarios: the ‘Old’ CAP regime (i.e. the policy practiced until 2005), the Mid-Term Review regime, a fully decoupled policy regime and a free trade-no policy scenario. Our results indicate the decoupled payment will have two contradictious effects on risk aversion. Producers become less risk averse through the wealth effect but more risk averse because of the increased output variance. The overall result of these two effects depends on the degree of risk aversion by farmers. We found that when the degree of risk aversion is high the wealth effect is positive. However, in the case of low risk aversion and a wealth effect equal to zero the decoupled payments become production neutral.Common Agricultural Policy, decoupling, uncertainty, Agricultural and Food Policy, D21, Q18,

Are CAP Decoupling Policies Really Production Neutral?

This paper examines the effects of decoupling policies on Greek cotton production. We estimate a system of cotton supply and input derived demand functions under the hypothesis that producers face uncertainty about prices. Using our estimation results we simulate the effects on cotton production under four alternative policy scenarios: the ‘Old’ CAP regime (i.e. the policy practiced until 2005), the Mid Term Review regime, a fully decoupled policy regime and a free trade-no policy scenario. Our results indicate that cotton production gradually decreases as more decoupled policies are adopted. Moreover, the fully decoupled payment is found to be non-production neutral since it indirectly affects producers’ decisions through the wealth effect.CAP, decoupling, uncertainty, Agricultural and Food Policy,

Public trust's duality in the CSP - reputation - financial performance relationship across countries

Within the literature investigating relationships among Corporate Social Performance (CSP), Corporate Reputation (CR), and Corporate Financial Performance (CFP) (Orlitzky, Schmidt, & Rynes, 2003; Waddock & Graves, 1997), we identify two lines of inquiry. First, scholars have investigated the effect that CSP has on CR, “the overall estimation in which a particular company is held by its various constituents” (Fombrun, 1996: 36). Most maintain that CSP enhances CR (Fombrun & Shanley, 1990; Wang & Berens, 2014), with some exceptions (Walker & Dyck, 2014). Second, scholars concur that CR enhances CFP (Newburry, 2010; Roberts & Dowling, 2002). We argue that public trust in business (Harris, Moriarty, & Wicks, 2014) plays an important moderating role in the CSP-CR-CFP relationship, as some have implicitly suggested (Barnett, 2007; Du, Bhattacharya, & Sen, 2010). Public trust in business, or more accurately public trust in the institution (North, 1990) of business, is “the level and type of vulnerability the public is willing to assume with regard to business relations” (Bolton et al., 2009: 6). Public trust in business has been declining since the 1960s (Nye, Zelikow, & King, 1997) remaining at low levels since the 1990s (Wicks et al., 2014). Although both managers (Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics, 2004) and academics (Wicks et al., 2014) agree that low levels of public trust can harm, inadequate research has investigated its effect on firms (Harris et al., 2014; Bolton et al., 2009). We aim to partially rectify this deficiency. Here, we draw on signaling theory to investigate the role that public trust in business (Bolton et al., 2009) has in moderating the relationship among CSP, CR and CFP. We argue that levels of public trust towards business influence the CSP-CR-CFP relationship and develop hypotheses regarding this influence. Given that national context may systematically influence the CSP-CFP relationship (Gardberg & Fombrun, 2006) and that public trust in business may vary cross-nationally (e.g. Chan, Lam, & Liu, 2011), we test our hypotheses on an unbalanced panel of 462 firms from 2006-12 from 9 countries (a total of 2534 observations)

Testimonies for the Protection of Flocks, but also the Abusive Actions among Cattle Breeders and the Relevant Reports to the Nomocanons (Canons in Law)

In this study we will refer very briefly to what has to do with attitudes in general, of the world of cattle breeders between the 17th and 18th centuries, as they appear through the records in the Vrontologia the Seismologia books, the Lunar Roads (Selinodromia), regarding the exploitation, the better protection and development of the herds, through the characteristics of the popular meteorology as well as the corresponding customary law as mentioned and attributed to the Nomocanons, and especially regarding its abusive deviations during their management. Through these texts it is possible to follow both the linguistic continuity in terms of the formation of the text itself, but especially the corresponding ruptures in rural societies as they appear through the years

The Effects of Ram-pressure Stripping and Supernova Winds on the Tidal Stirring of Disky Dwarfs: Enhanced Transformation into Dwarf Spheroidals

A conclusive model for the formation of dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies still remains elusive. Owing to their proximity to the massive spirals Milky Way (MW) and M31, various environmental processes have been invoked to explain their origin. In this context, the tidal stirring model postulates that interactions with MW-sized hosts can transform rotationally supported dwarfs, resembling present-day dwarf irregular (dIrr) galaxies, into systems with the kinematic and structural properties of dSphs. Using N-body+SPH simulations, we investigate the dependence of this transformation mechanism on the gas fraction, fgas, in the disk of the progenitor dwarf. Our numerical experiments incorporate for the first time the combined effects of radiative cooling, ram-pressure stripping, star formation, supernova (SN) winds, and a cosmic UV background. For a given orbit inside the primary galaxy, rotationally supported dwarfs with gas fractions akin to those of observed dIrrs (fgas >= 0.5), demonstrate a substantially enhanced likelihood and efficiency of transformation into dSphs relative to their collisionless (fgas = 0) counterparts. We argue that the combination of ram-pressure stripping and SN winds causes the gas-rich dwarfs to respond more impulsively to tides, augmenting their transformation. When fgas >= 0.5, disky dwarfs on previously unfavorable low-eccentricity or large-pericenter orbits are still able to transform. On the widest orbits, the transformation is incomplete; the dwarfs retain significant rotational support, a relatively flat shape, and some gas, naturally resembling transition-type systems. We conclude that tidal stirring constitutes a prevalent evolutionary mechanism for shaping the structure of dwarf galaxies within the currently favored CDM cosmological paradigm.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters, 8 pages, 2 figures, LaTeX (uses emulateapj.cls

Automated Real-time Anomaly Detection in Human Trajectories using Sequence to Sequence Networks

Detection of anomalous trajectories is an important problem with potential applications to various domains, such as video surveillance, risk assessment, vessel monitoring and high-energy physics. Modeling the distribution of trajectories with statistical approaches has been a challenging task due to the fact that such time series are usually non stationary and highly dimensional. However, modern machine learning techniques provide robust approaches for data-driven modeling and critical information extraction. In this paper, we propose a Sequence to Sequence architecture for real-time detection of anomalies in human trajectories, in the context of risk-based security. Our detection scheme is tested on a synthetic dataset of diverse and realistic trajectories generated by the ISL iCrowd simulator. The experimental results indicate that our scheme accurately detects motion patterns that deviate from normal behaviors and is promising for future real-world applications.Comment: AVSS 201