Migration as a consumption activity

"While a generalized utility maximization approach to migration decisionmaking is not innovative, the principal extensions of this paper involve the search for an instrument capable of measuring changes in utility levels consistent with all preferences (i.e., with all forms of utility functions), requiring only data on observed behaviour. Our approach is to construct a Location-Specific Utility Index (LSUI), whose component variables serve as proxies for the arguments in [U.S.] households' utility functions.... The testable hypothesis is formulated as follows: Assuming constant household preferences and expansion of the household's feasible set over time, the household's utility level is greater following the migration decision.... The results are compared with the households' migration decisions. The empirical evidence shows that migration may reasonably be modelled as a consumption activity by households to maximize utility." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)     

Academic economists behaving badly? A survey on three areas of unethical behavior

This article measures the degree to which academic economists have engaged in unethical behavior and the degree to which academic economists believe the profession as a whole engages in unethical behavior. Three main types of unethical behavior are examined: (1) falsification of research; (2) expropriation of graduate student research or including an undeserving co-author on a research paper; and (3) exchange of grades for gifts, money, or sex. Using a unique data set gathered at the 1998 American Economic Association (AEA) meetings, we find that there is a significant amount of misconduct, particularly in the second category.     

Toward an Optimal Asset Allocation for Charitable Remainder Trusts

Economic theory, relevant research, and a Monte Carlo model are used to develop investment guidelines for charitable remainder unitrusts (CRUTs). Investment for CRUTs should involve a significant share of equities, with as much as 70 percent allocated to equities for long‐term CRUTs. Adjusting allocations as payout beneficiaries get older is unnecessary given the nature of CRUTs, donors, and simulated outcomes. The authors propose that a fixed asset allocation be used instead of one that changes over time and that CRUTs with higher payouts should use a more aggressive asset allocation (more equities).     

Combinatorial design of a minimum cost transfer line

The problem of equipment selection for a production line is considered. Each piece of equipment, also called unit or block, performs a set of operations. All necessary operations of the line and all available blocks with their costs are known. The difficulty is to choose the most appropriate blocks and group them into (work)stations. There are some constraints that restrict the assignment of different blocks to the same station. Two combinatorial approaches for solving this problem are suggested. Both are based on a novel concept of locally feasible stations. The first approach combinatorially enumerates all feasible solutions, and the second reduces the problem to search for a maximum weight clique. A boolean linear program based on a set packing formulation is presented. Computer experiments with benchmark data are described. Their results show that the set packing model is competitive and can be used to solve real-life problems.     

Office of the future — New challenges for operational research

A technological barrage has been fired on the office environment in an attempt to attack rising costs and improve productivity. Although very new, a dramatic level of effort is already being applied. The state of the art is changing daily but so far the problems still outnumber the solutions. The opportunities to contribute are significant. This paper briefly describes the scene, characterizes the state-of-the-art and suggests an entry strategy for the OR professional. The probable response of the OR profession is considered.     

A CUSUM SCHEME BASED ON THE EXPONENTIAL DISTRIBUTION FOR SURVEDLLANCE OF RARE CONGENITAL MALFORMATIONS

A method of monitoring the incidence of malformations is described. It is suitable for systems where the number of births between successive malformations is known or can be estimated with reasonable accuracy. The method utilises a cusum technique based on the exponential distribution to detect an increase in the incidence of malformations above a baseline level. Adequate information to enable the implementation of the method is presented. The proposed method compares favourably with others such as the Poisson cusum and the modified sets technique.