Octavio A. Ramirez and Carlos A. Carpio
The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of the levels of inaccuracy associated with three different premium estimation methods, one of which attempts to mimic the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of the levels of inaccuracy associated with three different premium estimation methods, one of which attempts to mimic the protocol currently used by the Risk Management Agency (RMA), on the actuarial performance of the US crop insurance program.
Design/methodology/approach
The analyses are conducted using empirically‐grounded simulation and other computational methods, under various plausible assumptions about the producer's risk aversion behavior and knowledge of his/her actuarially fair premium.
Findings
Regardless of the assumed producer knowledge and behavior, it is concluded that the persistently high government subsidy levels required to keep the program solvent could be solely explained by the inaccuracy in the RMA's premium estimates. In other words, the observed need for large subsidies does not necessarily imply that the program is systematically favoring less efficient farmers or particular crops or production areas. Also, contrary to the commonly accepted “adverse selection” argument, it is shown that farmers having more information about their actuarially fair premiums than the insurer is not the reason why high subsidies are needed. Actuarial performance, however, could be improved by using the more elaborate methods exemplified in the paper, as well as larger sample sizes for premium estimation.
Originality/value
The paper provides conclusions and recommendations that could substantially reduce the amount of public subsidies needed to keep the US crop insurance program solvent.
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Miguel Angel Navas, Carlos Sancho and Jose Carpio
The purpose of this paper is to present a new disruptive maintenance model based on new technologies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a new disruptive maintenance model based on new technologies.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach is carrying out through the impact of the Industry 4.0, Internet of things, big data, virtual reality and additive manufacturing on maintenance.
Findings
The findings are that new technologies are an evolutionary challenge that is immediately affecting maintenance engineering. It presents a unique opportunity to make a disruptive evolution of maintenance.
Research limitations/implications
The correct development of Maintenance 4.0 relates to the correct implementation of Industry 4.0.
Practical implications
Maintenance 4.0 will greatly improve the main operating indicators: safety, reliability, availability and cost.
Social implications
Maintenance 4.0 will contribute to a circular and sustainable economy.
Originality/value
For the first time, a complete new Maintenance Engineering 4.0 model is proposed. The application of the new technologies appears in each specific maintenance process of the product life cycle.
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Qi Kang, Carlos E. Carpio, Chenggang Wang and Zeng Tang
This research examined the impacts of diversified income from trading caterpillar fungus on pastoral households' livestock production and income. The specific objectives were to…
Abstract
Purpose
This research examined the impacts of diversified income from trading caterpillar fungus on pastoral households' livestock production and income. The specific objectives were to identify the main factors underlying participation in caterpillar fungus trade and to explore the impacts of a diversified income from trading fungus on livestock production activities and income.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from a pastoral household survey (n = 503) in five Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures. The authors employed propensity score matching (PSM) procedures to estimate the effects of participation in trading caterpillar fungus.
Findings
Pastoral households participating in caterpillar fungus activities maintain smaller herds, sell fewer animals for profit, slaughter more livestock for family consumption and experience fewer livestock deaths compared to nonparticipants. There is also some evidence that pastoral households participating in caterpillar fungus activities have a higher annual income compared to nonparticipants.
Research limitations/implications
A direct measure of grassland degradation was not included due to the data limitation. The estimated average treatment effects could differ under different observed households' characteristics.
Originality/value
This study fills a gap in the literature on the impacts of diversified income on livestock production activities. The authors provide a new perspective on the controversy over the extraction of caterpillar fungus. This study contributes to exploring the dual role of income diversification in addressing poverty and grassland resource degradation for Tibetan pastoral communities.
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Miguel Angel Navas, Carlos Sancho and Jose Carpio
The purpose of this paper is to present the results of the application of various models to estimate the reliability in railway repairable systems.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present the results of the application of various models to estimate the reliability in railway repairable systems.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology proposed by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), using homogeneous Poisson process (HPP) and non-homogeneous Poisson process (NHPP) models, is adopted. Additionally, renewal process (RP) models, not covered by the IEC, are used, with a complementary analysis to characterize the failure intensity thereby obtained.
Findings
The findings show the impact of the recurrent failures in the times between failures (TBF) for rejection of the HPP and NHPP models. For systems not exhibiting a trend, RP models are presented, with TBF described by three-parameter lognormal or generalized logistic distributions, together with a methodology for generating clusters.
Research limitations/implications
For those systems that do not exhibit a trend, TBF is assumed to be independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.), and therefore, RP models of “perfect repair” have to be used.
Practical implications
Maintenance managers must refocus their efforts to study the reliability of individual repairable systems and their recurrent failures, instead of collections, in order to customize maintenance to the needs of each system.
Originality/value
The stochastic process models were applied for the first time to electric traction systems in 23 trains and to 40 escalators with ten years of operating data in a railway company. A practical application of the IEC models is presented for the first time.
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Samir Sayadi, Yamna Erraach and Carlos Parra-López
The purpose of this paper is to translate consumer requirements regarding olive-oil quality attributes into specific olive-growing practices that most contribute to satisfy these…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to translate consumer requirements regarding olive-oil quality attributes into specific olive-growing practices that most contribute to satisfy these attributes.
Design/methodology/approach
After identifying consumer requirements or needs regarding different attributes of olive-oil quality, through a survey of 439 olive-oil consumers, the authors determine the olive-growing practices that optimally satisfy consumer needs through expert opinions. Finally, the use of expert knowledge to construct the House of Quality or the first matrix of quality function deployment allow the authors to define the relative contribution of the various olive-farming practices to the satisfaction of consumer requirements.
Findings
The findings have shown that the olive-oil quality attributes most requested by consumers incorporate organoleptic (e.g. acidity, flavour, colour), sociocultural (e.g. creating employment in rural areas, maintenance of the rural population) and environmental ones (environmental externalities). The “separation of olives collected from ground and trees” (separation), “timing of harvesting” (according to a fruit-ripeness index), the “method of the ground harvest” (no picking from the ground), and the “method of tree harvest” (handpicking) were some of the most commonly identified olive-farming practices that contribute the most to meeting consumers’ needs with regard to olive-oil quality.
Research limitations/implications
The study suggests detailed analyses of the relationships between customer requirements and other agents practices involved in the olive sector (processing industries: mills, distribution, and marketing management, etc.) to more fully investigate the impact of all these practices on consumers’ perceived olive-oil quality attributes. This is the most reliable way to guarantee that the most sought-after quality characteristics are taken into account, not only in the farming stage but also in the various different stages of the olive agri-food chain.
Practical implications
Findings represent an opportunity in the market value chain to develop a quality olive oil which is more oriented towards the consumer and able to face future segmentations in the market. This is one of the main innovative features of this study, as it offers “good practice” guidelines to agents of the olive-oil sector from the consumer perspective.
Social implications
This study provides positive implications to consumers, providing them important tools to make an informed choice, and producers and marketers helping the design of production strategies to optimally satisfy the consumer preference with regard to olive-oil quality, and attain a competitive advantage by adding value to the product.
Originality/value
This paper is regarded as the pioneer in the literature translating the “consumer voice” regarding olive-oil quality into specific olive-growing practices “good-practices guidelines”. Thus, the relevant required quality olive-oil attributes should be clearly described on the label, to enable consumers to identify the quality features and make an informed choice. Furthermore, to meet consumers’ needs, the olive-oil sector should focus on the olive-growing practices that optimally satisfy consumer requirements concerning olive-oil quality attributes. This would help to improve legitimacy and boost public support for the Common Agricultural Policy subsidies for the agricultural sector in general, and the olive sector in particular. The findings are particularly valuable in helping policy makers to design marketing strategies to improve the sustainability and competitiveness of Spanish olive oil.
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Jorge Carlos Carpio-Aguilar and María-Laura Franco-García
This paper presents an analysis of the influence of “Joint Environmental Policy-making” (JEP) in the operation of the company Smurfit Kappa (SK) in The Netherlands, Austria and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents an analysis of the influence of “Joint Environmental Policy-making” (JEP) in the operation of the company Smurfit Kappa (SK) in The Netherlands, Austria and Denmark (NL&AD). The paper aims to answer the question: to what extend has different levels of jointness and voluntariness of cardboard packaging-chain agreements between federal, governmental and business actors led to different recycling performances within the same company?
Design/methodology/approach
JEP's analysis was framed under the model described by Mol, Volkmar and Liefferink by using information from mixed-methods throughout a semi-structured questionnaire for interviews and revision of relevant secondary data. This is a case of cross-national comparison for which origin and implementation level of JEPs were described per country, in accordance with those stages of the cardboard production chain.
Findings
Jointness and voluntariness amongst other actors from governmental areas and business ranked high for the Dutch packaging-chain agreements with a visible impact in SK's recycling rates. SK in Austria and in Denmark, in this order, had a lower implementation level of JEPs which could be reflected in a lower recycling performance than in the Dutch SK subsidiaries. The context matters, including both political and social conditions. In particular, the role of householders as a last link in the recycling chain. Based on this, the selected countries share some societal characteristics associated with the environmental public awareness and active social participation.
Originality/value
This paper fulfills an analysis of how environmental policy making is affected by the country context within the same company.
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Rojas-Trejos Carlos Alberto and González-Velasco Julián
Waste production is one of the most important problems that humankind faces. Human-based activities generate diverse waste types that have to be treated and disposed differently…
Abstract
Waste production is one of the most important problems that humankind faces. Human-based activities generate diverse waste types that have to be treated and disposed differently. This results in the need to build more facilities to manage the waste and to avoid further environmental damage. Colombia established a successful policy to close open dumps and to control pollution. Notwithstanding the advances that have been made in final disposal, it is necessary to extend the life of the final disposal sites and increase the closure of open landfills. Valle del Cauca is the third most populated Colombian province, and it is also considered the third province that generates more waste. This chapter addresses the problem of locating solid waste disposal centers in Valle del Cauca by applying the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) with fuzzy logic, a multicriteria method that compares opinions of a decision-making group. Additionally, each potential location area is characterized by considering industrial and environmental issues, societal dynamics, infrastructure and topography, costs, and taxes. After applying a variant of AHP, the decision-making group was able to find that Jamundi is the best location to open the disposal center. The method shows strong potential to identify and prioritize alternative locations for a diverse group of stakeholders. Most importantly, the methodology lets us structure better qualitative and quantitative data, as well as to link multiple levels to avoid choosing locations that will affect society, environment, and other stakeholders, without considering the trade-offs among diverse criteria considering benefits, opportunities, costs, and risks (BOCR).
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Juan Carlos Muñoz-Mora, Sebastian Aparicio, Diego Martinez-Moya and David Urbano
Motivated by a lack of evidence regarding the effect of migration on entrepreneurship in a highly informal country, such as Colombia, this paper has a twofold purpose. First, it…
Abstract
Purpose
Motivated by a lack of evidence regarding the effect of migration on entrepreneurship in a highly informal country, such as Colombia, this paper has a twofold purpose. First, it explores how Venezuelan immigration affects entrepreneurial activity in Colombian regions. Second, it intends to shed light on this relationship, by distinguishing between formal and informal sectors.
Design/methodology/approach
With a sample of 1,776,063 individuals, from the Labor Survey Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares (GEIH) from the Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE), the authors employ an instrumental variable approach to account for the selection of immigrants into locations with more or less desirable conditions.
Findings
The results suggest Venezuelan immigration positively influences self-employment and own-account workers, but negatively affects employers. However, once these immigrants proliferate in the informal sector, the effects increase.
Originality/value
This paper brings new insights into the intersection between immigration, unofficial economies, and entrepreneurship. First, while the prior literature focuses on migration from developing to developed countries, migratory flows between developing economies and its effects on local entrepreneurial activity remain unexplored. Second, although informality is mostly common in developing countries, little (albeit growing) evidence of its role in the relationship between migration and entrepreneurship research exists. Finally, the authors bring together these two phenomena to enhance our understanding of different types of entrepreneurial activities when immigration and informality take place. Policy implications are derived from these insights.
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Javier Fernando Del Carpio Gallegos and Francesc Miralles
Firm innovative performance in emerging markets must take into account the peculiarities of their competitive environment. Research on the effect of innovation on firm performance…
Abstract
Purpose
Firm innovative performance in emerging markets must take into account the peculiarities of their competitive environment. Research on the effect of innovation on firm performance focuses mainly on high-tech firms in developed countries. This study proposes a model that empirically examines how technological and non-technological innovation influence Peruvian manufacturing firms' performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the resource-based view, a model is proposed that allows the mediation effects of technological innovation and non-technological innovation on firm performance among low and medium-low technological intensity manufacturing firms to be analyzed. The study uses structural equation modeling and mediation analysis with data from 503 Peruvian firms researched in the 2012 National Survey of Innovation.
Findings
The model's validation shows that the integrated perspective is relevant for emerging markets like Peru. Moreover, the results confirm that technological and non-technological innovation and their interrelationship are important for understanding the performance dimensions of Peruvian manufacturing firms.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature on innovation in Latin American economies, proposing and validating a model that combines the mediation effects of technological and non-technological innovation to explain the relevant dimensions of firm performance in emerging markets.