Modeling a low-carbon garment supply chain

This article attempts to introduce indirect carbon emission and trade-credit concept in a network optimisation model for sustainable supply chain. The proposed model optimises total cost, total direct carbon emission, total indirect emission in the form of embodied carbon footprint of the raw material and total trade-credit amount over the purchased item in a supply chain. The model calculates the total cost by considering purchasing cost, logistics cost, handling cost and manufacturing cost. It attempts to measure the direct emission involved in manufacturing and logistics operations. The model has the capability to consider dissimilar trucks used for transportation according to their operating cost and carbon emission. Multi-objective goal programming is applied to deal with four objectives to find a tradeoff among these objectives. The result suggests that managers should capture the direct as well as the indirect emission which helps in arriving at appropriate strategy for a sustainable supply chain. The effectiveness of the proposed model is demonstrated through a case of a garment supply chain. This model also supports in deciding appropriate goal for carbon emission, supply chain costs, etc.     

Fordham symposium on ridge regression:introduction

The symposium was held on July 26 and 27, 1983 at the scenic top floor Faculty Lounge of the Leon Lowenstein Center, a part of the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham University in New York. It was attended by about forty people from all over, as represented by the affiliations of the authors. This issue of Communications in Statisticsis devoted to the Fordham symposium. This introduction is limited to an overview with highlights, since abstracts accompany the papers.

The “call for papers” issued in November 1982 indicated that ridge methods and multicollinearity problems would be the main theme, and that both methodological and applied papers will be included.     

Knowing One’s Lot in Life Versus Climbing the Social Ladder: The Formation of Redistributive Preferences in Urban China

This paper examines, how individual preferences for redistribution in general and redistribution to improve access to education, improve social protection for the poor, reduce income inequality and reduce unemployment depend on beliefs about what determines one’s lot in life and self-assessed prospects for climbing the social ladder in urban China. We find that beliefs about what determine one’s lot in life and subjective perceptions of future mobility are correlated with preferences for redistribution. We find that those who believe one’s lot in life is outside their control are generally more likely to favour redistribution. We show that this result is consistent with the existence of an altruism effect among the rich and entitlement effect among the poor. These findings are robust to the inclusion of control variables for the respondent’s personal characteristics and the location in which he or she lives.     

Insights into the Societal Risk of Nuclear Power Plant Accidents

The elements of societal risk from a nuclear power plant accident are clearly illustrated by the Fukushima accident: land contamination, long‐term relocation of large numbers of people, loss of productive farm area, loss of industrial production, and significant loss of electric capacity. NUREG‐1150 and other studies have provided compelling evidence that the individual health risk of nuclear power plant accidents is effectively negligible relative to other comparable risks, even for people living in close proximity to a plant. The objective of this study is to compare the societal risk of nuclear power plant accidents to that of other events to which the public is exposed. We have characterized the monetized societal risk in the United States from major societally disruptive events, such as hurricanes, in the form of a complementary cumulative distribution function. These risks are compared with nuclear power plant risks, based on NUREG‐1150 analyses and new MACCS code calculations to account for differences in source terms determined in the more recent SOARCA study. A candidate quantitative societal objective is discussed for potential adoption by the NRC. The results are also interpreted with regard to the acceptability of nuclear power as a major source of future energy supply.     

An Empirical Analysis of the Effect of Supply Chain Disruptions on Long‐Run Stock Price Performance and Equity Risk of the Firm

This paper investigates the long‐term stock price effects and equity risk effects of supply chain disruptions based on a sample of 827 disruption announcements made during 1989–2000. Stock price effects are examined starting one year before through two years after the disruption announcement date. Over this time period the average abnormal stock returns of firms that experienced disruptions is nearly –40%. Much of this underperformance is observed in the year before the announcement, the day of the announcement, and the year after the announcement. Furthermore, the evidence indicates that firms do not quickly recover from the negative effects of disruptions. The equity risk of the firm also increases significantly around the announcement date. The equity risk in the year after the announcement is 13.50% higher when compared to the equity risk in the year before the announcement.     

Trust,Social Networks and Subjective Wellbeing in China

Using data from the World Values Survey, this study examines the associations among trust, social networks and subjective wellbeing in China. We address the endogenous nature of trust and social networks, and examine how these elements of social capital affect subjective wellbeing. We also explore the interplay between trust and social networks. Existing literature suggests that trust and social networks positively impact wellbeing, with one strand of the literature suggesting that in developed countries social capital is a stronger determinant of wellbeing than income. However, we find that this is not the case for China (a developing country) where the effects of trust and social networks on wellbeing are found to be relatively weaker compared to the effect of income.     

The Effect of Antenatal Care on Professional Assistance at Delivery in Rural India

Delivering births in a medical institution or at home with professional medical assistance has been shown to promote safe motherhood and child survival. Yet three-quarters of births in rural India continue to take place at home, most of them without the assistance of any trained health worker. This study examines the role of antenatal care (ANC) in promoting professional assistance at delivery, using data from India’s 1992–93 and 1998–99 National Family Health Surveys (NFHS-1 and NFHS-2). We estimate the effect of number of antenatal care visits (0, 1–2, 3+) on professional assistance at delivery (no assistance, professional assistance at home, delivery in a medical institution), using multinomial logistic regression, controlling for demographic, geographic, and socioeconomic factors, pregnancy complications, and two measures of access to health facilities. The results indicate that, after controlling for other variables (including ANC), pregnancy complications and access to health facilities do not have much effect on assistance at delivery. By contrast, ANC has a large effect, even after all other variables are controlled. The effect of ANC on professional assistance at delivery is larger in South India than in North India, and predicted percentages receiving professional assistance are higher in South India than in North India. A policy implication is that increased antenatal care coverage can be an effective means of increasing professional assistance at delivery, especially delivery in a medical institution.

Estimating Housing Infill Potential: Developing a Case for Floorspace Pooling in Ahmedabad,India

This paper demonstrates a rapid and inexpensive methodology (using minimal data) for estimating housing infill potential and develops the idea of residential floorspace pooling to deliver the infill. Estimates are based on surveying 11 km2 of the residential land in Ahmedabad. The analysis suggests that Ahmedabad has a huge potential for infill development, which could accommodate significantly more than its new housing requirements for 2031, within the existing footprint of the city. The second part of the paper discusses development of the idea of floorspace pooling as a tool to enable supply of the new housing infill floorspace in the market.