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Real Cost (real + cost)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting37%
Humanities and Social Sciences25%

Selected Abstracts

Agricultural Productivity Growth and Poverty Alleviation

DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 4 2001
Xavier Irz
How important is agricultural growth to poverty reduction? This article first sets out the theoretical reasons for expecting agricultural growth to reduce poverty. Several plausible and strong arguments apply - including the creation of jobs on the land, linkages from farming to the rest of the rural economy, and a decline in the real cost of food for the whole economy - but the degree of impact is in all cases qualified by particular circumstances. Hence, the article deploys a cross-country estimation of the links between agricultural yield per unit area and measures of poverty. This produces strong confirmation of the hypothesised linkages. It is unlikely that there are many other development interventions capable of reducing the numbers in poverty so effectively. [source]

Risk management for a global supply chain planning under uncertainty: Models and algorithms

AICHE JOURNAL, Issue 4 2009
Fengqi You
Abstract In this article, we consider the risk management for mid-term planning of a global multi-product chemical supply chain under demand and freight rate uncertainty. A two-stage stochastic linear programming approach is proposed within a multi-period planning model that takes into account the production and inventory levels, transportation modes, times of shipments, and customer service levels. To investigate the potential improvement by using stochastic programming, we describe a simulation framework that relies on a rolling horizon approach. The studies suggest that at least 5% savings in the total real cost can be achieved compared with the deterministic case. In addition, an algorithm based on the multi-cut L-shaped method is proposed to effectively solve the resulting large scale industrial size problems. We also introduce risk management models by incorporating risk measures into the stochastic programming model, and multi-objective optimization schemes are implemented to establish the tradeoffs between cost and risk. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed stochastic models and decomposition algorithms, a case study of a realistic global chemical supply chain problem is presented. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2009 [source]

Communicating the value of atmospheric services

METEOROLOGICAL APPLICATIONS, Issue 2 2010
John Thornes
Abstract The atmosphere is one of the most valuable resources on the planet and yet because it is largely invisible it tends to be taken for granted and is increasingly being exploited and commodified. This paper presents 12 Atmospheric Services that are vital to human well-being and the existence of the biosphere. The Total Economic Value of the atmosphere is estimated to be at least between 100 and 1000 times the Gross World Product (GWP was approximately £43 Trillion in 2008). It is only by appreciating the value of the atmosphere to society that we can understand how we need to communicate sustainable management of the atmosphere and treat it as a global commons. It is also important to realize which Atmospheric Services are currently under threat. Only by appreciating the full range of services provided by the atmosphere can the real cost of geo-engineering the climate be calculated. Before geo-engineering of the climate can ever be considered seriously a Law of the Atmosphere will be required. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society [source]

Measuring Municipal Borrowing Costs: How Missing Cost Information Biases Interest Rate Calculations

PUBLIC BUDGETING AND FINANCE, Issue 1 2002
Bill Simonsen
State and local governments issue billions of dollars' worth of municipal bonds every year. At the same time, no single comprehensive measure has been available for debt managers to apply that fully captures their borrowing costs. In this article we compare a comprehensive measure called the internal financing rate with true interest cost (TIC), applying both to bond sales in Oregon in 1999. We find that the two measures produce statistically and practically different results and conclude that TIC typically understates the real cost of borrowing experienced by issuers. TIC is therefore a flawed measure for reporting results to administrators, elected officials, and the public. It is also an inappropriate measure for evaluating the performance of public debt managers. [source]

Order imbalance and the dynamics of index and futures prices

THE JOURNAL OF FUTURES MARKETS, Issue 12 2007
Joseph K.W. Fung
This study uses transaction records of index futures and index stocks, with bid/ask price quotes, to examine the impact of stock market order imbalance on the dynamic behavior of index futures and cash index prices. Spurious correlation in the index is purged by using an estimate of the "true" index with highly synchronous and active quotes of individual stocks. A smooth transition autoregressive error correction model is used to describe the nonlinear dynamics of the index and futures prices. Order imbalance in the cash stock market is found to affect significantly the error correction dynamics of index and futures prices. Order imbalance impedes error correction particularly when the market impact of order imbalance works against the error correction force of the cash index, explaining why real potential arbitrage opportunities may persist over time. Incorporating order imbalance in the framework significantly improves its explanatory power. The findings indicate that a stock market microstructure that allows a quick resolution of order imbalance promotes dynamic arbitrage efficiency between futures and underlying stocks. The results also suggest that the unloading of cash stocks by portfolio managers in a falling market situation aggravates the price decline and increases the real cost of hedging with futures. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 27:1129,1157, 2007 [source]

Identifying Rivals and Rivalries in World Politics

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2001
William R. Thompson
Instead of assuming that all actors are equally likely to clash, and that they do so independently of previous clashes, rivalry analysis can focus on the small number of feuding dyads that cause much of the trouble in the international system. But the value added of this approach will hinge in part on how rivalries are identified. Rivalry dyads are usually identified by satisfying thresholds in the frequency of militarized disputes occurring within some prespecified interval of time. But this approach implies a number of analytical problems including the possibility that rivalry analyses are simply being restricted to a device for distinguishing between states that engage in frequent and infrequent conflict. An alternative approach defines rivalry as a perceptual categorizing process in which actors identify which states are sufficiently threatening competitors to qualify as enemies. A systematic approach to identifying these strategic rivalries is elaborated. The outcome, 174 rivalries in existence between 1816 and 1999 are named and compared to the rivalry identification lists produced by three dispute density approaches. The point of the comparison is not necessarily to assert the superiority of one approach over others as it is to highlight the very real costs and benefits associated with different operational assumptions. The question must also be raised whether all approaches are equally focused on what we customarily mean by rivalries. Moreover, in the absence of a consensus on basic concepts and measures, rivalry findings will be anything but additive even if the subfield continues to be monopolized by largely divergent dispute density approaches. [source]

Network optimization for the design of underground mines

NETWORKS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 1 2007
M. Brazil
Abstract Efficient methods to model and optimize the design of open-cut mines have been known for many years. The design of the infrastructure of underground mines has a similar potential for optimization and strategic planning. In this article we discuss the use of network optimization to tackle this problem. The idea is to design a connected system of declines, ramps, drives, and possibly shafts, to minimize capital development and haulage costs over the lifetime of a mine. This can be modeled as a variation on the Steiner problem, with suitable metric and constraints. These constraints include: an upper bound on the absolute gradient of arcs in the embedded network (typically 1/7), turning circle restrictions for navigability, and obstacle avoidance. Here we give an overview of the literature, focussing on our published work. We investigate the way in which this design problem can be modeled as a network optimization problem that accurately reflects the real costs involved while remaining mathematically tractable. Our approach is to first establish a fundamental model, which principally captures the development costs of the mine, and to study its geometric properties. We then outline more complicated generalized models, which add extra costs and constraints to the fundamental model but are still solvable. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, Vol. 49(1), 40,50 2007 [source]

The Effect of SOX Section 404: Costs, Earnings Quality, and Stock Prices

THE JOURNAL OF FINANCE, Issue 3 2010
PETER ILIEV
ABSTRACT This paper exploits a natural quasi-experiment to isolate the effects that were uniquely due to the Sarbanes,Oxley Act (SOX): U.S. firms with a public float under $75 million could delay Section 404 compliance, and foreign firms under $700 million could delay the auditor's attestation requirement. As designed, Section 404 led to conservative reported earnings, but also imposed real costs. On net, SOX compliance reduced the market value of small firms. [source]