This dissertation develops an economic theory of leadership based on assignment of information. Common theories assume that organizations exist to reduce transaction costs by replacing imperfect markets with incomplete long term contracts that give managers the power to command subordinates. This view reverses all of these premises: I study an organization in which it is costless to transmit and process information, contracts exist in the backgound if at all, and agents are not bound to the organization. The organization is held together by economies of scale in generating information and by the advantages of controlling access to that information. The minimalist model of organizations produces a minimalist theory of leadership: leaders have no special talent but are leaders simply because they are given exclusive access to certain information. A single leader induces a first best outcome if his incentives are aligned with his subordinates. If a single leader is not credible, then diluting the power of leadership by appointing multiple informed leaders can ensure credibility and improve e.ciency but can not produce the first best. If agents are di.erentiated by their costs of cooperation the most cooperative player is not necessarily the best leader. In this scenario, the ability of the group to sustain fully cooperative outcomes may depend on the player with the least propensity to cooperate. Therefore, to maximize e.ciency (i.e., to maximize the range of circumstances in which e.cient cooperation is sustainable), the group should sometimes promote less cooperative people. Here, "less cooperative" means lazy or busy rather than disagreeable. This dissertation also applies the idea of leadership (endorsement) to voluntary provision of public goods. I show that when the leader is unable to fully reveal his information expected contributions, ex-ante, are unambigeously higher in the leader-follower setting. That is partial revelation of information induces more contribution compared to full revelation or complete information. I also show that if the utility functions are linear then ex-ante welfare is unambigeously higher in the presence of an informed endorser. / Ph. D.

Biological functions that use amino acids (AA) are limited by AA supply. This concept was likened to staves in a barrel, where the shortest stave determines the barrel's ability to hold water (Mitchell and Block, 1946). Inaccuracies in models that predict nutrient supply and requirements of dairy cows result in inefficient feeding, as under-prediction of requirements results in deficiency, and over-prediction results in excess. To avoid limitations in production due to AA deficiencies, protein is fed in quantities that likely exceed requirements. Overfeeding of AA results in increased expenses for producers and increased N excretion to the environment, providing economic and environmental incentives to increase N-efficiency. Work presented in the following chapters evaluated the impact of AA supplementation on milk production in dairy cattle, and evaluated the PREP10 and NRC (2001) nutrient requirement model predictions. In two feeding trials (Chapter 2 and Chapter 3), low protein diets did not result in decreased milk production, indicating that protein requirements were overestimated. Although supplementation of AA did not increase milk production, low protein diets resulted in greater N-efficiency, especially when supplemented with Histidine. Evaluation of the PREP10 and NRC (2001) models (Chapter 4) used production data from the literature to identify deficiencies in prediction equations, and found that correction of model bias would considerably reduce prediction errors. Model inaccuracies affect the inefficiency of dairy cow feeding, and must be evaluated to improve feed efficiency. Such improvements could act synergistically with AA supplementation to more closely match nutrient supply to requirements. / Master of Science

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a linear programming technique that has been used extensively in the literature to measure relative efficiency. One of the main attributes of DEA is that it can model multiple inputs and multiple outputs in the model. In this research work, attributes pertaining to service quality have been modeled using the Network model.The primary research is the augmentation of the existing Network model to include input/ output variables that are imprecise from a measurement point of view. These variables are qualitative assessments that have a linguistic representation/ interpretation. A very good example of this variable would be "Pleasantness". Given the fact that there are different evaluators, there is a certain degree of impreciseness associated with the representation of each of these qualitative variables. This imprecision is captured using the fuzzy sets. The triangular membership functions were used to describe the membership functions. So a unique network model that captured fuzzy variables was created. The second main research contribution is that this is the first attempt of capturing service quality and efficiency of customer service representatives. The generic model that was created was used to evaluate the performance of the customer service representatives in a major airline. The results that were obtained, was shared with the decision makers at the airline for validation. The results that were obtained from the model also helped us validate the model with the other existing models.One of the main advantages of using the DEA/ Network/ Fuzzy model was that the imprecision involved in measuring the customer service representatives were accounted for. This enabled the decision maker in making the right decisions and not penalizing a customer service representative for imprecision in the data. Graphical Interpretations were also provided for the results that were obtained from the analysis. / Master of Science

A case study examined contractor demographics, business characteristics, costs and production information from twenty-three tree-length logging firms in six southern states from 1988 to 1994. Firms were evaluated in regard to the economic efficiency with which they converted inputs - dollars of capital, consumables, labor, overhead and insurance and contract hauling - into outputs - tons of wood delivered to the mill. While the firms exhibited a wide range of efficiency, average annual efficiency of all firms combined seemed to be relatively stable for the time period. Firms delivered between 20,000 and 250,000 tons of wood annually with a median of 61,000 tons. Coastal plain operations tended to be the largest, followed by piedmont, then Appalachian mountain operations. Annual production as a function of annual expenditures showed no obvious economies of scale in operation size. Most contractors increased annual production during the study, five contractors had production levels in the final year of the study that were less than their first year. Efficiency generally improved in firms that increased production gradually through better utilization of existing capacity. Contractors expanding their operations to increase productivity seemed to suffer efficiency losses more often than gains. Those firms that hauled their own wood had higher efficiencies than firms that contracted out trucking. There were no significant efficiency differences between loggers in the three physiographic regions within their respective trucking strategies. Efficiency generally declined as average annual hauling distance increased, however a regression equation explained only 18% of the variation in total economic efficiency. / Master of Science

This paper seeks to compare production costs of similar farms to determine competitiveness across countries. A data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach was used to calculate efficiency indices for farms producing corn, soybeans, wheat, both corn and soybeans, and both corn and wheat. Technical efficiency, allocative efficiency, and cost efficiency were compared for all farms. The data consisted of a five-year (2013-2017) panel of 24 corn-producing farms, 15 soybean-producing farms, 38 wheat-producing farms, 13 farms producing both corn and soybeans, and 17 farms producing both corn and wheat. The <i>agri benchmark</i> network at the Thünen Institute (TI) of Farm Economics manages the dataset that was used in this analysis. Outputs were measured using revenue. Input costs included direct costs, operating costs, and overhead costs.<br>

Device-to-Device (D2D) communication is one of the technologies for next generation communication system. Unlike traditional cellular network, D2D allows proximity users to communicate directly with each other without routing the data through a base station. The main aim of this study is to improve the overall energy efficiency (EE) of D2D communications overlaying cellular system. To reduce the complexity of joint EE optimization, we decompose the main EE problem into two subproblems; resource efficiency (RE) optimization in the first stage and EE optimization for D2D pairs in the second stage. Firstly, we propose an alternative two-stage RE-EE scheme for a single cellular user equipment (CUE) and a D2D pair utilizing uplink spectrum. Later, we extend this work for multiple CUEs and D2D pairs by considering the downlink orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA). By exploiting a range of optimization tools including the Bisection method, interior point algorithm, fractional programming, Dinkelbach approach, Lagrange dual decomposition, difference of convex functions, and concave-convex procedure, the original non-convex problems are solved and we present iterative two-stage RE-EE solutions. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed two-stage scheme for uplink scenario outperforms the cellular mode and dedicated mode of communications and the performance is close to the global optimal solution. The results also show that the proposed schemes for downlink resource sharing provide improved system EE performance with significant gain on EE for D2D users compared to a two-stage EE-EE solution, which is obtained numerically. Furthermore, the RE and EE optimization for non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) are considered to study the effect of users' access to the whole spectrum. The results indicate that the proposed RE scheme for NOMA with D2D communications achieves higher system EE compared to the OFDMA based schemes.

在行列設計(row-column design)的架構下，當行總和與列總和皆為總試驗處理數的倍數時，我們考慮行效果與列效果的相互比較之最適性。延續Shah和Sinha(1993)的結果，在給定行總和及列總和的情況下，我們導出達成齊一最適設計(uniformly optimal design)的充分條件。此外，當總實驗單位固定時，達成全域最適設計(universally optimal design)的充分條件亦被求出。我們同時列舉許多相關的設計排列法。 / We consider the problem of comparing row effects and column effects in the row-column design setup when the row sizes and column sizes are all multiples of the number of treatments. Following the work of Shah and Sinha (1993), we derive a sufficient condition for uniformly optimal designs for given values of the row sizes and column sizes. We also derive a sufficient condition for universally optimal designs when the total number of experimental units is fixed. Several examples of designs with high efficiencies are provided.

Banking industry has been playing a significant role in the process of economic development of Taiwan. There exists an inseparable relationship between its operation quality and the steady growth of national economy. Nevertheless, the drastically increasing numbers of bank in the recent years have caused a vicious competition in this industry. Meanwhile, the global economic recession also leads to the continuous rise of the percentage of nonperforming loans, ever-reducing profit earning as well as the financial chaos and crisis in the banking industry. This study adopts a more reliable efficiency evaluation method------ Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA) to judge the operation performance of banks. Besides, the CCR model and BCC model in DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) are employed to explore whether the source of low efficiency comes from pure technical efficiency or from scale efficiency. Through slack variable analysis, this study suggests some room of improvement for the input and output of the low-efficiency banks. In view that the percentage of nonperforming loans is one of the essential factors for evaluating the operation performance of banks, this study puts it in the output variable of DEA so as to overcome the paradoxical isotonicity being caused. After verification is made by the study, the results show that it is really workable.

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Abstract After our country joins WTO, will face the strong capital competition pressure of the international large-scale financial institution, and after foreign businessman's bank has grand capital, the industry manages completely dark, in the face of so strong impact country the financial market fluctuates and aggravates, has increased the operation pressure of the domestic banking, too. How to transform this pressure into helping hand, utilize aquistion and merger to consider complementarily , lower costs then improve the competitiveness, it is really the question which the banking of Taiwan needs to face at present. Domestic aquistion and merger case or makes up the financial domain that the financial holding company has already affected 14 financial holding companies in Taiwan to reform with the operation pattern jointly at present, but these financial holding companies can reach the value expected and comprehensive result which is greater than two of one plus one ( Synergy ) The goal needs checking and tests directly. It does not belong to the financial holding company at home to spy on put the independent bank, in case of financial market saturation, the profit shrinks, the income reduces by a wide margin, the quality of the assets is not good, so that is it put rate is it wait for numerous unfavourable factor to remain high to exceed, how face assets huge financial holding company lay big bank create life their extremely, whether it is influenced that purpose calls it and manages the performance; Establish financial holding company purpose is it can reach category economy and purpose of the large-scale production to call separately. Purpose of this research, focus on wanting to untie it under the trend of the international finance, can really improve the bank and manage the performance and business efficiency of independent bank to establish the financial holding company under the double pressure of the domestic trouble and foreign invasion and really not so good as finance holding company bank put. Because of above-mentioned backgrounds and motives, so this text hope book probe into by document, materials collect and utilize materials not to make analytic approach of holding in place with a net ( Data Envelopment Analysis , abbreviated as DEA) ,displaying the result of study, it is by offering competent authorities or the financial holding company policymaker to the government and wanting to set up some reference suggestions of bank of the financial holding company. Keywords: Data Envelopment Analysis , The materials charter and hold analytic approach, technological efficiency, pure technological efficiency, scale efficiency