Abstract: Road accidents are a human tragedy. They involve high human suffering and monetary costs in terms of untimely death, injuries and social problems. India had earned the dubious distinction of having more number of fatalities due to road accidents in the world. Road safety is emerging as a major social concern around the world especially in India because of infrastructure project works. A case study was taken on NH – 07 which connects to various major cities and industries. The study shows that major cases of fatalities are due to bus, trucks and high speed vehicles. The main causes of accidents are due to high density, non-restriction of speed, use of mobile phones, lack of board signs on road parking, visibility restriction, improper geometric design, road use characteristics, environmental aspects, social aspects etc. Data analysis and preventive measures are enlightened in this paper.
Abstract: This paper empirically examines the dynamic relationship between financial deepening and economic growth in a monetary union. We find positive but weak evidence of impacts of financial deepening on growth for Gambia, Gabon and Sierra Leone. There is no evidence of any positive significant impact for Ghana and Nigeria. We argue that, the weak evidence between financial deepening and economic growth can be a consequence of the inability of assessing credit (long-term loans), credit worthiness, lack of information and low level of bank deposits by the private sector despite the improvement in the financial sector.
Abstract: During aircraft maintenance scheduling, operator calculates the budget of the maintenance. Usually, this calculation includes only the costs that are directly related to the maintenance process such as cost of labor, material, and equipment. In some cases, overhead cost is also included. However, in some of those, downtime cost is neglected claiming that grounding is a natural fact of maintenance; therefore, it is not considered as part of the analytical decision-making process. Based on the normalized data, we introduce downtime cost with its monetary value and add its seasonal character. We envision that the rest of the model, which works together with the downtime cost, could be checked with the real life cases, through the review of MRO cost and airline spending in the particular and scheduled maintenance events.
Abstract: In Singapore, talent retention is one of the most persistent and real issue companies have to grapple with due to the tight labour market. Being resource-scarce, Singapore depends solely on its talented pool of high quality human resource to sustain its competitive advantage in the global economy. But the complex and multifaceted nature of turnover phenomenon makes the prescription of effective talent retention strategies in such a competitive labour market very challenging, especially when it comes to monetary incentives, companies struggle to answer the question of “How much is enough?” By examining the interactive effects of perceived alternative employment opportunities, annual salary and satisfaction with compensation on the turnover intention of 102 Singapore Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians (PMET) through correlation analyses and multiple regressions, important insights into the psyche of the Singapore talent pool can be drawn. It is found that annual salary influence turnover intention indirectly through mediation and moderation effects on PMET’s satisfaction on compensation. PMET are also found to be heavily swayed by better external opportunities. This implies that talent retention strategies should not adopt a purely monetary based blanket approach but rather a comprehensive and holistic one that considers the dynamics of prevailing market conditions.
Abstract: Strategic investment decisions are characterized by
high innovation potential and long-term effects on the
competitiveness of enterprises. Due to the uncertainty and risks
involved in this complex decision making process, the need arises for
well-structured support activities. A method that considers cost and
the long-term added value is the cost-benefit effectiveness estimation.
One of those methods is the “profitability estimation focused on
benefits – PEFB”-method developed at the Institute of Management
Cybernetics at RWTH Aachen University. The method copes with
the challenges associated with strategic investment decisions by
integrating long-term non-monetary aspects whilst also mapping the
chronological sequence of an investment within the organization’s
target system. Thus, this method is characterized as a holistic
approach for the evaluation of costs and benefits of an investment.
This participation-oriented method was applied to business
environments in many workshops. The results of the workshops are a
library of more than 96 cost aspects, as well as 122 benefit aspects.
These aspects are preprocessed and comparatively analyzed with
regards to their alignment to a series of risk levels. For the first time,
an accumulation and a distribution of cost and benefit aspects
regarding their impact and probability of occurrence are given. The
results give evidence that the PEFB-method combines precise
measures of financial accounting with the incorporation of benefits.
Finally, the results constitute the basics for using information
technology and data science for decision support when applying
within the PEFB-method.
Abstract: Given the increase in the number of e-commerce sites,
the number of competitors has become very important. This means
that companies have to take appropriate decisions in order to meet the
expectations of their customers and satisfy their needs. In this paper,
we present a case study of applying LRFM (length, recency,
frequency and monetary) model and clustering techniques in the
sector of electronic commerce with a view to evaluating customers’
values of the Moroccan e-commerce websites and then developing
effective marketing strategies. To achieve these objectives, we adopt
LRFM model by applying a two-stage clustering method. In the first
stage, the self-organizing maps method is used to determine the best
number of clusters and the initial centroid. In the second stage, kmeans
method is applied to segment 730 customers into nine clusters
according to their L, R, F and M values. The results show that the
cluster 6 is the most important cluster because the average values of
L, R, F and M are higher than the overall average value. In addition,
this study has considered another variable that describes the mode of
payment used by customers to improve and strengthen clusters’
analysis. The clusters’ analysis demonstrates that the payment method is
one of the key indicators of a new index which allows to assess the
level of customers’ confidence in the company's Website.
Abstract: Revenue leakages are one of the major challenges
manufacturers face in production processes, as most of the input
materials that should emanate as products from the lines are lost as
waste. Rather than generating income from material input which is
meant to end-up as products, losses are further incurred as costs in
order to manage waste generated. In addition, due to the lack of a
clear view of the flow of resources on the lines from input to output
stage, acquiring information on the true cost of waste generated have
become a challenge. This has therefore given birth to the
conceptualization and implementation of waste minimization
strategies by several manufacturing industries. This paper reviews the
principles and applications of three environmental management
accounting tools namely Activity-based Costing (ABC), Life-Cycle
Assessment (LCA) and Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA) in
the manufacturing industry and their effectiveness in curbing revenue
leakages. The paper unveils the strengths and limitations of each of
the tools; beaming a searchlight on the tool that could allow for
optimal resource utilization, transparency in production process as
well as improved cost efficiency. Findings from this review reveal
that MFCA may offer superior advantages with regards to the
provision of more detailed information (both in physical and
monetary terms) on the flow of material inputs throughout the
production process compared to the other environmental accounting
tools. This paper therefore makes a case for the adoption of MFCA as
a viable technique for the identification and reduction of waste in
production processes, and also for effective decision making by
production managers, financial advisors and other relevant
stakeholders.
Abstract: Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), vetch (Vicia villosa),
and grass pea (Lathyrus sativus L.) monocultures as well as mixtures
of barley with each of the above legumes, in three seeding ratios (i.e.,
barley: legume 75:25, 50:50 and 25:75, based on seed numbers) were
used to investigated forage yield and competition indices. The results
showed that intercropping reduced the dry matter yield of the three
component plants, compared with their respective monocrops. The
greatest value of total dry matter yield was obtained from barley25-
grasspea75 (5.44 t ha-1) mixture, followed by grass pea sole crop (4.99
t ha-1). The total actual yield loss (AYL) values were positive and
greater than 0 in all mixtures, indicating an advantage from
intercropping over sole crops. Intercropped barley had a higher
relative crowding coefficient (K=1.64) than intercropped legumes
(K=1.20), indicating that barley was more competitive than legumes
in mixtures. Furthermore, grass pea was more competitive than vetch
in mixtures with barley. The highest land equivalent ratio (LER),
system productivity index (SPI) and monetary advantage index
(MAI) were obtained when barley was mixed at a rate of 25% with
75% seed rate of grass pea. It is concluded that intercropping of
barley with grass pea has a good potential to improve the
performance of forage with high land-use efficiency.
Abstract: This study analyzes the critical gaps in the
architecture of European stability and the expected role of the
banking union as the new important step towards completing the
Economic and Monetary Union that should enable the creation of
safe and sound financial sector for the euro area market. The single
rulebook together with the Single Supervisory Mechanism and the
Single Resolution Mechanism - as two main pillars of the banking
union, should provide a consistent application of common rules and
administrative standards for supervision, recovery and resolution of
banks – with the final aim of replacing the former bail-out practice
with the bail-in system through which possible future bank failures
would be resolved by their own funds, i.e. with minimal costs for
taxpayers and real economy. In this way, the vicious circle between
banks and sovereigns would be broken. It would also reduce the
financial fragmentation recorded in the years of crisis as the result of
divergent behaviors in risk premium, lending activities and interest
rates between the core and the periphery. In addition, it should
strengthen the effectiveness of monetary transmission channels, in
particular the credit channels and overflows of liquidity on the money
market which, due to the fragmentation of the common financial
market, has been significantly disabled in period of crisis. However,
contrary to all the positive expectations related to the future
functioning of the banking union, major findings of this study
indicate that characteristics of the economic system in which the
banking union will operate should not be ignored. The euro area is an
integration of strong and weak entities with large differences in
economic development, wealth, assets of banking systems, growth
rates and accountability of fiscal policy. The analysis indicates that
low and unbalanced economic growth remains a challenge for the
maintenance of financial stability and this problem cannot be
resolved just by a single supervision. In many countries bank assets
exceed their GDP by several times and large banks are still a matter
of concern, because of their systemic importance for individual
countries and the euro zone as a whole. The creation of the Single
Supervisory Mechanism and the Single Resolution Mechanism is a
response to the European crisis, which has particularly affected
peripheral countries and caused the associated loop between the
banking crisis and the sovereign debt crisis, but has also influenced
banks’ balance sheets in the core countries, as the result of crossborder
capital flows. The creation of the SSM and the SRM should
prevent the similar episodes to happen again and should also provide
a new opportunity for strengthening of economic and financial
systems of the peripheral countries. On the other hand, there is a
potential threat that future focus of the ECB, resolution mechanism
and other relevant institutions will be extremely oriented towards
large and significant banks (whereby one half of them operate in the
core and most important euro area countries), and therefore it remains
questionable to what extent will the common resolution funds will be used for rescue of less important institutions. Recent geopolitical
developments will be the optimal indicator to show whether the
previously established mechanisms are sufficient enough to maintain
the adequate financial stability in the euro area market.
Abstract: The aim of the present study is to detect the chaotic
behavior in monetary economic relevant dynamical system. The
study employs three different forms of Taylor rules: current, forward,
and backward looking. The result suggests the existence of the
chaotic behavior in all three systems. In addition, the results strongly
represent that using expectations in policy rule especially rational
expectation hypothesis can increase complexity of the system and
leads to more chaotic behavior.
Abstract: In this paper, we explore the macroeconomic effects
of the European Single Market on Austria by simulating the
McKibbin-Sachs Global Model. Global interdependences and the
impact of long-run effects on short-run adjustments are taken into
account. We study the sensitivity of the results with respect to
different assumptions concerning monetary and fiscal policies for the
countries and regions of the world economy. The consequences of
different assumptions about budgetary policies in Austria are also
investigated. The simulation results are contrasted with ex-post
evaluations of the actual impact of Austria’s membership in the
Single Market. As a result, it can be concluded that the Austrian
participation in the European Single Market entails considerable
long-run gains for the Austrian economy with nearly no adverse sideeffects
on any macroeconomic target variable.
Abstract: The main objective of this article is to examine the
impact of interest rates on investments in Poland in the context of
financial crisis. The paper also investigates the dependence of bank
loans to enterprises on interbank market rates. The article studies the
impact of interbank market rate on the level of investments in Poland.
Besides, this article focuses on the research of the correlation
between the level of corporate loans and the amount of investments
in Poland in order to determine the indirect impact of central bank
interest rates through the transmission mechanism of monetary policy
on the real economy. To achieve the objective we have used
econometric and statistical research methods like: econometric model
and Pearson correlation coefficient.
This analysis suggests that the central bank reference rate
inversely proportionally affects the level of investments in Poland
and this dependence is moderate. This is also important issue because
it is related to preparing of Poland to accession to euro area. The
research is important from both theoretical and empirical points of
view. The formulated conclusions and recommendations determine
the practical significance of the paper which may be used in the
decision making process of monetary and economic authorities of the
country.
Abstract: Microscopic simulation tool kits allow for
consideration of the two processes of railway operations and the
previous timetable production. Block occupation conflicts on both
process levels are often solved by using defined train priorities. These
conflict resolutions (dispatching decisions) generate reactionary
delays to the involved trains. The sum of reactionary delays is
commonly used to evaluate the quality of railway operations, which
describes the timetable robustness. It is either compared to an
acceptable train performance or the delays are appraised
economically by linear monetary functions. It is impossible to
adequately evaluate dispatching decisions without a well-founded
objective function. This paper presents a new approach for the
evaluation of dispatching decisions. The approach uses mode choice
models and considers the behaviour of the end-customers. These
models evaluate the reactionary delays in more detail and consider
other competing modes of transport. The new approach pursues the
coupling of a microscopic model of railway operations with the
macroscopic choice mode model. At first, it will be implemented for
railway operations process but it can also be used for timetable
production. The evaluation considers the possibility for the customer
to interchange to other transport modes. The new approach starts to
look at rail and road, but it can also be extended to air travel. The
result of mode choice models is the modal split. The reactions by the
end-customers have an impact on the revenue of the train operating
companies. Different purposes of travel have different payment
reserves and tolerances towards late running. Aside from changes to
revenues, longer journey times can also generate additional costs.
The costs are either time- or track-specific and arise from required
changes to rolling stock or train crew cycles. Only the variable values
are summarised in the contribution margin, which is the base for the
monetary evaluation of delays. The contribution margin is calculated
for different possible solutions to the same conflict. The conflict
resolution is optimised until the monetary loss becomes minimal. The
iterative process therefore determines an optimum conflict resolution
by monitoring the change to the contribution margin. Furthermore, a
monetary value of each dispatching decision can also be derived.
Abstract: The study is a review of the literature concerning the
consequences of non-standard monetary policy, which are used by
central banks during unconventional periods, threatening banking
sector instability. In particular, the attention was paid to the effects of
non-standard monetary policy tools for financial markets. However,
the empirical evidence about their effects and real consequences for
financial markets is still not final. The main aim of the study is to
survey consequences of standard and non-standard monetary policy
instruments, implemented during the global financial crisis in the
United States, United Kingdom and euro area, with particular
attention to the results for the stabilization of global financial
markets. The study consists mainly of the empirical review,
indicating the impact of the implementation of these tools for
financial markets. The following research methods were used in the
study: literature studies, including domestic and foreign literature,
cause and effect analysis and statistical analysis.
Abstract: A field experiment was carried out at Arab El-
Awammer Research Station, Agric. Res. Center. Assiut Governorate
during summer seasons of 2013 and 2014. The present study assessed
the effect of cowpea with maize intercropping on yield and its
components. The experiment comprised of three treatments (sole
cowpea, sole maize and cowpea-maize intercrop). The experimental
design was a randomized complete block with four replications.
Results indicated that intercropped maize plants with cowpea,
exhibited greater potentiality and resulted in higher values of most of
the studied criteria viz., plant height, number of ears/plant, number of
rows/ear, number of grains/row, grains weight/ear, 100–grain weight
and straw and grain yields. Fresh and dry forage yields of cowpea
were lower in intercropping with maize than sole. Furthermore, the
combined of the two seasons revealed that the total Land Equivalent
Ratio (LER) between cowpea and maize was 1.65. The Aggressivity
(A) maize was 0.45 and cowpea was -0.45. This showed that maize
was the dominant crop, whereas cowpea was the dominated. The
Competitive Ratio (CR) indicated that maize more competitive than
cowpea, maize was 1.75 and cowpea was 0.57. The Actual Yield
Loss (AYL) maize was 0.05 and cowpea was -0.40. The Monetary
Advantage Index (MAI) was 2360.80.
Abstract: Mobile social games recently become extremely
popular, spawning a whole new entertainment culture. However,
mobile game players are fickle, quickly and easily picking up and
abandoning games. This pilot study seeks to identify factors that
influence users to discontinuing playing mobile social games. We
identified three sacrifices which can prompt users to abandon games:
monetary sacrifice, time sacrifice and privacy sacrifice. The results
showed that monetary sacrifice has a greater impact than the other two
factors in causing players to discontinue usage intention.
Abstract: The purposes of this research were to identify the perception of customers towards Krung Thai Bank’s image and to understand the customer attitude towards Krung Thai Bank’s image in Bangkok, Thailand. This research utilized quantitative approach and used questionnaire as data collection tool. A sample size of 420 respondents was selected by simple random sampling. The findings revealed that the majority of respondents received information, news, and feeds concerning the bank through televisions the most. This information channel had significantly influenced on the customers and their decisions to utilize the bank’s products and services.
From the information concerning the attitudes towards overall image of the bank, it was found that the majority respondents rated the bank’s image at the good level. The top three average attitudes included the bank’s images in supports government's monetary policies, being renowned and stable, and contributing in economical amendments and developments, with the mean average of 4.01, 3.96 and 3.81 respectively. The attitudes toward the images included a business leader in banking, marketing, and competitions. Offering prompt services, and provided appropriate servicing time were rated moderate with the attitudes of 3.36 and 3.30 respectively.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to explore the economic circumstances in which the selective credit policy, the least used instrument of four types of instruments on disposal to central banks, should be used. The most significant example includes the use of selective credit policies in response to the emergence of the global financial crisis by the FED. Specifics of the potential use of selective credit policies as the instigator of economic growth in Croatia, a small open economy, are determined by high euroization of financial system, fixed exchange rate and long-term trend growth of external debt that is related to the need to maintain high levels of foreign reserves. In such conditions, the classic forms of selective credit policies are unsuitable for the introduction. Several alternative approaches to implement selective credit policies are examined in this paper. Also, thorough analysis of distribution of selective monetary policy loans among economic sectors in Croatia is conducted in order to minimize the risk of investing funds and maximize the return, in order to influence the GDP growth.
Abstract: The scope of this paper and the aim of proposed model were to apply monetary Input –Output (I-O) analysis to point out the importance of reusing know-how and other requirements in order to reduce the production costs in a manufacturing process for a laptop computer. I-O approach using the monetary input-output model is employed to demonstrate the impacts of different factors in a manufacturing process. A sensitivity analysis showing the correlation between these different factors is also presented. It is expected that the recommended model would have an advantageous effect in the cost minimization process.
Abstract: Numerous studies carried out in the developed
western democratic countries have shown that the ideological
framework of the governing party has a significant influence on the
monetary policy. The executive authority consisting of a left-wing
party gives a higher weight to unemployment suppression and central
bank implements a more expansionary monetary policy. On the other
hand, right-wing governing party considers the monetary stability to
be more important than unemployment suppression and in such a
political framework the main macroeconomic objective becomes the
inflation rate reduction. The political framework conditions in the
transition countries which are new European Union (EU) members
are still highly specific in relation to the other EU member countries.
In the focus of this paper is the question whether the same
monetary policy principles are valid in these transitional countries as
well as they apply in developed western democratic EU member
countries. The data base consists of inflation rate and unemployment
rate for 11 transitional EU member countries covering the period
from 2001 to 2012. The essential information for each of these 11
countries and for each year of the observed period is right or left
political orientation of the ruling party.
In this paper we use t-statistics to test our hypothesis that there are
differences in inflation and unemployment between right and left
political orientation of the governing party. To explore the influence
of different countries, through years and different political
orientations descriptive statistics is used. Inflation and unemployment
should be strongly negatively correlated through time, which is tested
using Pearson correlation coefficient.
Regarding the fact whether the governing authority is consisted
from left or right politically oriented parties, monetary authorities
will adjust its policy setting the higher priority on lower inflation or
unemployment reduction.