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In this paper we contrast a number of univariate models of Canadian GDP. Our preferred models are used to provide a business cycle chronology for Canada, which is compared with some existing, more judgmentally determined chronologies. We find that a simple, 'two quarters of negative growth' rule for determining recession dates is the most similar to our chronology. We also find that the most recent recession in Canada was unique in both its length and the slow speed of recovery. JEL Classification: C22, C51, C52, E32 Phases du cycle d'affaires au Canada. Dans ce mémoire, les auteurs contrastent un certain nombre de modèles du PIB canadien. Les modèles préférés sont utilisés pour définir une chronologie des cycles économiques du Canada qu'on peut comparer avec d'autres chronologies existantes basées davantage sur le jugement. On découvre que la règle "deux trimestres de croissance négative" est celle qui se rapproche le plus de la chronologie proposée quand il s'agit de définir les dates de récession. On découvre aussi que la récente récession canadienne a été unique tant par sa durée que par la lenteur avec laquelle la reprise subséquente s'est amorcée.

El autor hace un exhaustivo repaso de las reformas gubernamentales emprendidas por Felipe V. La intensidad y coherencia de la práctica de gobierno son puestas en correlación con una afirmación del poder del monarca, con originalidad respecto del modelo absolutista francés. Con todo las resistencias de la élite política disminuyeron sensiblemente desde 1724 el alcance del reformismo. ; L'autor fa un exhaustiu repàs de les reformes governamentals empreses per Felip V. La intensitat i coherència de la pràctica del govern són posades en correlació amb una afirmació del poder del monarca, amb originalitats respecte del model absolutista francès. Amb tot, les resistències de l'elit política van disminuir sensiblement l'abast del reformisme des del 1724. ; The author makes an exhaustive review of the governmental reforms undertaken by Philip V. The intensity and coherence of the government practice is put in correlation with an affirmation of the power of the monarch, with originality respect to the French absolutist model. The resistance of the political elite diminished yet sensibly from 1724 the reach of the reforming policy.

Safety in the process industry is currently playing an increasingly important role. In the European Union the Seveso II directive requires that companies that store certain amounts of dangerous liquids or gases shall take appropriate measures to reduce the potential risks. Concerning safety-related systems, the (draft) IEC 61508 standard is already adopted by many companies to comply with the Seveso II directive. Contrary to the older standards, IEC 61508 does not only cover the classical technical aspects, but also the business processes that are relevant for the entire safety lifecycle. The standard introduces a structure that consists of safety lifecycle models. The overall safety lifecycle describes required activities associated with safety during the entire lifecycle of the equipment, from the concept phase to the decommissioning phase. For a real operating process installation a study has been performed to investigate what steps should be taken in order to implement the IEC 61508 safety standard. This study is based on the overall safety lifecycle model and uses a flowchart approach that addresses all relevant items of the overall safety lifecycle.

ABSTRACTLiterature on information systems (IS) planning implicitly assumes that a sophisticated IS planning process leads to greater IS success. This paper questions the exclusive reliance on this traditional belief. Instead, because IS planning requires significant organizational resources, prior IS success is essential to convince top management of the importance of IS planning sophistication. Therefore, IS success may influence IS planning sophistication. Several theoretical arguments are advanced in support of this explanation.Data from a survey of 236 academic institutions are used to empirically assess the two alternative directions of the relationship between IS planning sophistication and IS success. Four structural models including the alternative causal directions are evaluated. Two of these models are supported. Together, they imply that for a high level of IS planning sophistication, either the previous ISs should have been successful or the organization should possess advanced information technology capabilities. Thus, empirical results suggest that the explanation presented here (i.e., IS success facilitates IS planning sophistication) provides an equally good alternative to the more traditional explanation (i.e., IS planning sophistication facilitates IS success).

Many interesting situations of public good provision such as a bystander's decision to help a victim, a committee member's decision to veto, or a company's decision to develop innovative products can be described by the volunteer's dilemma (VOD). The authors analyze a variant of the VOD in which the costs of producing a public good are shared equally among the volunteers rather than paid in full by each of the volunteers. The game theoretic solution predicts that the probability of volunteering is larger under the condition of sharing than when each volunteer pays the full cost. It is predicted that, even when cost sharing, the individual probability to volunteer decreases with group size, and larger groups still underproduce the public good. Predictions are tested using data collected via a mailed questionnaire to students of Berne University. The quantitative predictions of the game-theoretic models do not describe the data well, even when the models are extended with risk preferences. However, the less informative qualitative prediction that cost sharing increases the individual probability to volunteer is supported by the data.

This paper provides a simple model of repeated extortion. In particular, we ask whether corrupt government officials' ex post opportunism to demand more once entrepreneurs have made sunk investments entails further distortion in resource allocations. We show that the inability of government officials to commit to future demands does not distort entry decisions any further if technology is not a choice variable for the entrepreneurs. The government official can properly discount the initial demand in order to induce the appropriate amount of entry. If, however, the choice of technology is left to the entrepreneurs, the dynamic path of demand schedules will induce entrepreneurs to pursue a "fly-by-night" strategy by adopting a technology with an inefficiently low sunk cost component. In this case, we show that the unique equilibrium is characterized by a mixed strategy of the government official on future demand. Our model thus explains why arbitrariness is such an inseparable feature of corruption. We also investigate implications of the stability of the corrupt regime for the dynamic extortion and discuss how our framework can be applied to other investment contexts involving the risk of expropriation.

In common with most other mass democratic parties the Conservative party has a large group of active members who sustain the party over time. A model is developed to explain variations in activism within the party, which takes account of the 'paradox of participation'. The results, based on the first national random sample survey of Conservative party members, show that activism is motivated by three classes of factors. Activism is motivated, firstly, by a variety of selective incentives, such as ambitions for elective office. It is motivated, secondly, by a desire for the party to achieve policy goals. These are 'collective goods', which are subject to the problem of free-riding. However, since activists can influence policy outcomes, via their contacts with party leaders, they have high levels of personal efficacy and a direct incentive to participate, which can override the paradox of participation. Finally, activism is motivated by expressive concerns, as measured by the strength of the respondent's partisanship, a motivation for involvement which lies outside a narrowly cast rational choice model of political participation.

A substantial amount of behavioral research in business has attempted to uncover the relative importance decision makers attach to different decision variables (cues) used in their decision processes. This paper reports on two experiments that examine methodological issues concerning the assessment of cue importance. The first experiment examined whether the categorical descriptions given to cues in many modeling studies affect the importance decision makers attach to those cues. Results revealed that the importance attributed was significantly affected by the categories used to define cues. Additionally, because different techniques have been utilized to model cue importance, the second experiment examined the level of agreement between importance measures derived from two commonly used modeling techniques (ANOVA and information boards) under varying levels of task complexity. Results indicated that cue importance measures generally exhibited a moderate level of agreement. However, the use of different modeling techniques appears to affect the importance attributed to cues for some decision makers. In addition, the level of agreement was not affected by changes in task complexity. Implications of these results for future research studies that model decision behavior are discussed.

AbstractSome conceptual problems which are related to the way data (i.e. empirical information) are represented in model building are discussed. Elements of a framework for modelling are proposed in which a constructive relationship between the data and the modelling relation itself is incorporated. The main novelty of this approach is the use of the notion of information set, which is defined as the set of observed values of those observables which are actually available as data sources for a given model, as contrasted to a complete set of observations where questions of restricted availability cannot be raised. This permits the application of complexity theory in a new way. Some examples are given where, as a consequence, essential differences between descriptions, otherwise considered equivalent, will be revealed. One application, showing the existence of fundamentally inequivalent forms of dynamics which belong to different information sets, is elaborated in more detail.la science occidentale est fondée sur la doctrine monastique d'un univers ordonné, créé par un Dieu qui reste hors de la nature et la gouverne par des lois accessibles á la raison humaine.

D. Hibbs's work on the politics of macroeconomic policy ("Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy," & "Communication," American Political Science Review, 1977, 71, 1467-1487; & 1983, 77, 447-451, respectively) is replicated & extended by considering political effects on unemployment in GB & the US from Jan 1947 to Dec 1983, based on data gathered from the UN Monthly Bulletin of Statistics. Unemployment is seen to fall under left-wing & rise under right-wing governments. However, these partisan effects on unemployment in an open economy like GB's can only be satisfactorily estimated relative to the level of world economic activity. The US has major effects on world economic activity but is also subject to feedback from the economies of other countries. Politicians' strategic incentives & economic regime constraints determine whether partisan effects on unemployment will be sustained, transitory, or absent. In GB, only a model in which partisan impacts are transitory satisfactorily estimates the effects of changes of party control. In the US, only the transitory-impact model is able to estimate partisan effects in recent administrations. 4 Tables, 1 Figure, 32 References. Modified HA

Is structural mobility stable in the Province of Québec? There is no unique answer to that question as many structural mobility models can be designed to fit the pattern of occupational distributions in the 1954, 1964, and 1974 occupational mobility tables in Québec. Each of these models drives the researcher to different conclusions concerning the stability of the intergenerational mobility structure. A secondary analysis of mobility data shows how difficult it is to conclude in this case on the basis of a statistical analysis only. Theoretical efforts are needed to disentangle the empirical snare.La structure de mobilité sociale inter‐générationnelle du Québec est‐elle stable depuis les années 50? Il n'y a pas de réponse unique à cette question puisque plusieurs modèles de mobilité peuvent expliquer les distributions d'occupations des fils selon les occupations des pères à chacune des périodes observées. Certains de ces modèles permettent de conclure à une certaine stabilité, d'autres indiquent plutôt le changement. Seule une théorie de la mobilité sociale et de son histoire contemporaine pourrait permettre de choisir entre ces modèles.

Includes bibliographical references. ; 2016 Summer. ; Security vulnerabilities can represent enormous risks to society and business organizations. A large percentage of vulnerabilities in software are discovered by individuals external to the developing organization. These vulnerabilities are often exchanged for monetary rewards or a negotiated selling price, giving rise to vulnerability markets. Some of these markets are regulated, while some are unregulated. Many buyers in the unregulated markets include individuals, groups, or government organizations who intend to use the vulnerabilities for potential attacks. Vulnerabilities traded through such markets can cause great economic, organizational, and national security risks. Vulnerability markets can reduce risks if the vulnerabilities are acquitted and remedied by the software developers. Studying vulnerability markets and their related issues will provide an insight into their underlying mechanisms, which can be used to assess the risks and develop approaches for reducing and mitigating the potential risks to enhance the security against the data breaches. Some of the aspects of vulnerability—discovery, dissemination, and disclosure—have received some recent attention. However, the role of interaction among the vulnerability discoverers and vulnerability acquirers has not yet been adequately addressed. This dissertation suggests that a major fraction of discoverers, a majority in some cases, are unaffiliated with the software developers and thus are free to disseminate the vulnerabilities they discover in any way they like. As a result, multiple vulnerability markets have emerged. In recent vulnerability discovery literature, the vulnerability discoverers have remained anonymous. Although there has been an attempt to model the level of their efforts, information regarding their identities, modes of operation, and what they are doing with the discovered vulnerabilities has not been explored. Reports of buying and selling the vulnerabilities are now appearing in the press; however, the nature of the actual vulnerability markets needs to be analyzed. We have attempted to collect detailed information. We have identified the most prolific vulnerability discoverers throughout the past decade and examined their motivation and methods. A large percentage of these discoverers are located outside of the US. We have contacted several of the most prolific discoverers in order to collect firsthand information regarding their techniques, motivations, and involvement in the vulnerability markets. We examine why many of the discoverers appear to retire after a highly successful vulnerability-finding career. We found that the discoverers had enough experience and good reputation to work officially with a good salary in some well- known software development companies. Many security breaches have been reported in the past few years, impacting both large and small organizations. Such breaches may occur through the exploitation of system vulnerabilities. There has been considerable disagreement about the overall cost and probability of such breaches. No significant formal studies have yet addressed this issue of risk assessment, though some proprietary approaches for evaluating partial data breach costs and probabilities have been implemented. These approaches have not been formally evaluated or compared and have not been systematically optimized. This study proposes a consolidated approach for identifying key factors contributing to the breach cost by minimizing redundancy among the factors. Existing approaches have been evaluated using the data from some of the well-documented breaches. It is noted that the existing models yield widely different estimates. The reasons for this variation are examined and the need for better models is identified. A complete computational model for estimating the costs and probabilities of data breaches for a given organization has been developed. We consider both the fixed and variable costs and the economy of scale. Assessing the impact of data breaches will allow organizations to assess the risks due to potential breaches and to determine the optimal level of resources and effort needed for achieving target levels of security.

In 2010, the South Indian state of Kerala's Communist-led coalition government, the Left Democratic Front (LDF), unveiled a policy to convert the entirety of the state to organic farming within ten years; some estimates claim that approximately 9,000 farmers were already participating in certified organic agriculture for export at the time of the announcement. Kerala is oftentimes hailed as a "model for development" by development practitioners and environmentalists because of such progressive environmental politics (e.g., McKibben 1998). Recent scholarship from Political Ecology, however, has christened organic farming as a neoliberal project, and much like globalized, conventional agriculture (e.g., Guthman 2007 and Raynolds 2004). Drawing from fourteen months of fieldwork in Kerala between 2009-2011, I explore this tension between Kerala as a progressive, political "model," and globalized, corporatized organic agriculture. I utilize Kerala's experiences with organic farming to present another story about North-South relations in globalized organic farming. In contrast to recent Political Ecological work surrounding alternative food systems, I contend that organic agriculture can actually offer meaningful possibilities for transforming the global agricultural system in local places. Using Polanyian (1944) and Gramscian (1971) understandings of civil society and social change, I argue that Kerala's agrarian crisis of the 1990s, stemming from the commodification of Kerala's agrarian environment and the intensification of chemical-based, cash crop agriculture, stimulated an ecological countermovement in the late twentieth century. This crisis included several farmer suicides and pesticide-poisoning from Endosulfan. Kerala's civil society and political institutions actively developed this countermovement by relying on an existing institutional structure that supports redistributive reforms, and a history of political organizing by Kerala's Left. This ecological countermovement is now comprised of organic farming institutions (e.g., vanguard certification-centered bodies such as the Indian Organic Farmers Producer Company Limited (IOFPCL)) and policies (e.g., Kerala's 2010 Organic Farming Policy), that are re-embedding market-driven agriculture ecologically and socially. To augment my Polanyian analysis, I also utilize analytics from Global Commodity Chain and Global Value Chain scholarship, and rely on Cultural Political literature and the work of several Kerala scholars (e.g., Heller 1999 and Herring 1983), to argue that Kerala's organic farming movement is promoting the civic engagement of organic farmers in agricultural governance. Kerala's Organic Farming Policy, for example, represents an alternative form of state-led development that prioritizes local-level decision making. Finally, I explore the bifurcation of Kerala organic farming countermovement between proponents of Kerala's Organic Farming Policy and certified organic farming for export; each defines organic farming differently. I contend that this divide is not "natural," but the result of a conjuncture of agrarian cultural politics, an "imaginary" of Kerala as a biodiverse "hotspot," existing political priorities, and political economic and geographic changes in places like Wayanad District. This evidence illustrates that countermovements occur on and are shaped by terrains with history, and are far from monolithic. These findings also trouble the idealization of Kerala as a "model," and demonstrate that organic farming politics can take on different forms throughout the world, contingent on local and global factors and dynamics. I conclude, however, that Kerala's organic movement does not have a predetermined future: it is neither destined to be a "model" nor homogenized and conventionalized by the forces of globalization. Evidence from Kerala instead elucidates that organic agriculture can offer a valid critique of chemical-dependent capitalist agriculture, but not necessarily in the way that current Political Ecological thought would prescribe.

Battery electric vehicles (EVs) have received vast attention in the recent decade, especially due to their potential environmental benefits. The car industry has invested huge amounts in the battery electric vehicle technology, leading to a much larger selection of car models with better comfort, driving range and options for recharging the batteries. Several studies have indicated that a great share of car households would now be able to maintain their current mobility patterns with only a minor level of adaption (Christensen 2011; Pearre et al. 2011; Greaves et al. 2014). Still, the driving range of a fully recharged EV is of great importance to the potential users (Jensen et al. 2013; Dimitropoulos et al. 2013; Mabit & Fosgerau 2011; Franke & Krems 2013), but as the battery capacity of the EVs continue to increase, the mobility constraints related to former EV models will most probably be reduced. Thus, the EV alternative has changed from being a product for a very small group of enthusiasts to being an actual car alternative for a common household and knowledge about which type of households would be interested in EVs is extremely valuable for both industry and policy makers. However, as the EV market is still quite immature in most countries, lack of data on EV users is a common problem for researchers. Data on EV purchase and use have thus often been collected by means of data from intentional statements (see e.g. Bühler et al. 2014), stated preferences (see e.g. Bunch et al. 1993; Hidrue et al. 2011; Jensen et al. 2014) and EV vehicle trials (Golob & Gould 1998; Franke & Krems 2013; Jensen et al. 2014). While such studies have provided important insight into various areas of the EV market, the fact that the results are not based on actual behaviour means that they are subject to a high degree of uncertainty. Being the global EV market forerunner, Norway has a better foundation for studying the EV market based on actual EV owners. On these grounds, Klöckner et al. (2013), studied differences in car use between EV and conventional vehicle (CV) users. Also in Norway, Mersky et al. (2016) and Bjerkan et al. (2016) both studied the effect of policy incentives on EV purchase. Compared to these existing studies, we contribute to the literature with a more advanced model to study the EV market and we focus on the market in Denmark and Sweden. In particular, we use revealed preference information to investigate how household characteristics, attitudes, norms, perceived barriers and perceived functional attributes of the EVs affect the probability of being an EV household. The data utilized in this study was collected in connection with the EU project GREAT, which aims to reduce fossil emissions by improving supply for alternative-fuelled vehicles in northern Europe. Besides detailed individual and household characteristics from a sample of both EV and CV household users, the data contains detailed information on individual determinants of EV adaption based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen 1991). Data were collected through an online survey in Sweden and Denmark. The Swedish study was distributed through different channels including the intranet of regions Skåne and Västra Götaland, different newletters and EV related facebook groups. In Denmark, EV users were contacted via the infrastructure provider E.ON, while the CV users were contacted through the online panel of the market research institute EPINION. In total 1364 observations are available for Denmark and 1288 for Sweden. Descriptive statistics of the sample show that EV respondents were to a much higher extend male, had a higher household income and higher education level and were more often self-employed, lived less often alone and more often had children compared to CV users. Comparing Tesla users to other EV users, we found that Tesla users perceived less functional barriers in terms of EV usage, had more positive affective attitudes related to driving an EV and felt to a higher degree supported by relevant others to use/buy an EV (subjective norm). Interestingly, they did not report more positive symbolic attitudes in relation to their EV ownership. We modelled the probability of being an EV household with an advanced discrete choice model, taking both household characteristic and the latent determinants of EV adoption into account. A preliminary hybrid choice model with a latent variable for perceived barriers and most relevant household characteristics is presented below for the Danish sample.