Thèse--Strasbourg. / Bibliography: p. [257]-270.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Alberta, 2010. / Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on July 7, 2010). A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Transportation Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2007. / Title from title screen (site viewed July 12, 2007). PDF text: iii, 108 p. : ill. UMI publication number: AAT 3252831. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-146)

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on October 30, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-74).

Um bom sistema de previsão de demanda é um dos passos para o sucesso de uma empresa. Previsões com baixos erros permitem a manutenção de um estoque reduzido, uma ocupação de fábrica e uma gestão financeira mais eficiente, em conjunto com outros benefícios trazidos por um sistema confiável. Há diversas formas de realizar uma previsão, mas há anos a que vem sendo considerada mais promissora é a que integra métodos quantitativos e qualitativos. Ambos os métodos possuem vantagens exclusivas, o que torna a integração particularmente interessante. Este trabalho visa o desenvolvimento e teste de um sistema de previsão em uma empresa de grande porte, a fim de disponibilizar uma forma confiável de integração de métodos. Busca ainda validar o auxilio de especialistas nos ajustes de previsão de forma que os problemas provenientes do julgamento humano possam ser evitados. Uma comparação entre as várias previsões realizadas é apresentada, de forma que o leitor possa interpretá-las e julgar quais possam ser as mais adequadas à situação em que se encontra. / A good forecasting system is one of the steps to the success of a company. Forecasts with small errors enable the maintenance of a reduced inventory, a more efficient factory occupation and financial management, together with other benefits provided by a reliable system. There are several ways to make a forecast, but for years the quantitative and qualitative methods integrated has been considered more promising. Both methods have unique advantages which makes it particularly interesting integration. This paper aims to develop and test a forecasting system in a large company in order to provide a reliable form of integration methods. It also seeks to validate the aid of experts in the predictive adjustments so that problems derived from the human judgment can be avoided. A comparison of the various forecasts made is provided in a way that the reader can interpret them and judge which may be the most appropriate to the situation you are in.

This dissertation is a collection of three chapters on inflation dynamics and money demands. Chapter 1 tests the forward-looking New Keynesian Phillips curve using a novel panel data set for the 50 U.S. states from year 1977 to 2005. Consistent with Gali and Gertler (1999), our results support a linkage between inflation and real unit labor cost, and reject a linkage between inflation and output gap. We also address several important econometrics issues in the empricial studies. Our tests on model identification and instruments validity reveal that compared with the model with real unit labor cost, the GMM estimators in the model with output gap are more sensitive to the choice of instruments. Also, we find that the unit labor cost has stronger persistence than the output gap, and that these two variables have almost opposite dynamic cross correlations with inflation. We conclude that the observed high autocorrelation properties of U.S. inflation-as measured by the sum of AR coefficients-is well described by the forward-looking New Keynesian Phillips curve. In the second chapter, we extend the pure forward-looking New Keynesian Phillips curve to a hybrid model. We adopt a dynamic panel data model by adding a lagged inflation variable to the explanatory variables. We find relative larger weights of future inflation than the lagged inflation. This finding confirms the forward looking behavior in theory and it is also consistent with our results from the pure forward-looking model estimation. Furthermore, we obtain more evidence of dominant forward-looking behavior by using the principal components based instruments. Our results show that principal components based methods produce more precise estimates with a substantial decrease in all three estimated standard errors. We obtain more evidence of dominant forward-looking behavior across all regressions. By comparing two groups of the Kleibergen-Paap Wald F rk statistic (KP statistic), we find that using principal components is a good option to overcome the weak identifications. This finding is consistent with Bai and Ng (2010) and Kapetanios and Marcellino (2010). However, contrast with our earlier findings, in the hybrid model, the identification of the parameter of the real marginal cost becomes a problem. The third chapter investigates the long-run money demand using a panel data set for the 50 U.S. states from year 1977 to 2005. Regional heterogeneity as well as the cointegration and cross-section correlation properties of panel data are considered in great detail. Contrary to previous studies in the field, we adopt panel data techniques with nonstationary and cointegrated variables which controls for dynamics, non-stationarity, parameter heterogeneity and unobserved time-varying heterogeneity. The empirical results reveal an income elasticity close to 0.7 and an interest semi-elasticity around -0.02 and these two parameter values match closely with the empirical estimates by Ball (2001). Furthermore, it is found that the magnitude of the estimates of error correction term is much less than unity (around 0.05), which suggests that the adjustment time of U.S. money demand to return to its long-run equilibrium may be rather long. Compared to a standard homogeneous panel model of money demand function, our results obtained from heterogeneous panel model estimation indicate that the heterogeneity across states is important. It shows that the observed instability of money demand functions in aggregate U.S. studies could be explained by inappropriate aggregation across heterogeneous states. After accounting for regional heterogeneity, the estimates of income elasticity for the U.S. money demand function are clearly less than one.

Um bom sistema de previsão de demanda é um dos passos para o sucesso de uma empresa. Previsões com baixos erros permitem a manutenção de um estoque reduzido, uma ocupação de fábrica e uma gestão financeira mais eficiente, em conjunto com outros benefícios trazidos por um sistema confiável. Há diversas formas de realizar uma previsão, mas há anos a que vem sendo considerada mais promissora é a que integra métodos quantitativos e qualitativos. Ambos os métodos possuem vantagens exclusivas, o que torna a integração particularmente interessante. Este trabalho visa o desenvolvimento e teste de um sistema de previsão em uma empresa de grande porte, a fim de disponibilizar uma forma confiável de integração de métodos. Busca ainda validar o auxilio de especialistas nos ajustes de previsão de forma que os problemas provenientes do julgamento humano possam ser evitados. Uma comparação entre as várias previsões realizadas é apresentada, de forma que o leitor possa interpretá-las e julgar quais possam ser as mais adequadas à situação em que se encontra. / A good forecasting system is one of the steps to the success of a company. Forecasts with small errors enable the maintenance of a reduced inventory, a more efficient factory occupation and financial management, together with other benefits provided by a reliable system. There are several ways to make a forecast, but for years the quantitative and qualitative methods integrated has been considered more promising. Both methods have unique advantages which makes it particularly interesting integration. This paper aims to develop and test a forecasting system in a large company in order to provide a reliable form of integration methods. It also seeks to validate the aid of experts in the predictive adjustments so that problems derived from the human judgment can be avoided. A comparison of the various forecasts made is provided in a way that the reader can interpret them and judge which may be the most appropriate to the situation you are in.

A presente investigação teve como objetivo estudar o comportamento do preço do aço laminado plano não revestido nos mercados internacional e nacional, com ênfase à bobina de aço laminada a quente, produto com maior volume negociado internacionalmente dentre os aços planos. Tendo como premissa que esse produto é uma commodity, e que o seu preço internacional é ditado por um mercado competitivo a partir da relação entre oferta e demanda, o trabalho identifica o grau de influência de algumas variáveis independentes sobre a função demanda do produto, tais como renda, geografia, novos atores internacionais e crises políticas, dentre outras. Os resultados obtidos demonstraram que, no mercado nacional, os preços internacionais e o imposto de importação têm grande influência sobre a formação do preço das usinas produtoras. Para possibilitar ao leitor um melhor entendimento sobre o setor siderúrgico, esta dissertação também descreve o setor, contemplando a sua história e evolução, as tecnologias usadas, os produtos gerados, a alocação geográfica dos mercados produtor e consumidor, a organização empresarial desse tipo de negócio, os eixos de comércio e a análise das forças competitivas. / The work study the price behavior of the flat rolled steel not coated, with focus on the hot rolled steel coil, on the international and national market. Starting with the supposition that the studied product is a commodity and that its international price are made in a competitive market, from the offer and demand relationship, the work try to identify de influence degree of some independent variables over the product demand function: Income, geography, international new players, economic e politic crisis, etc. In the national market, the work show the influence of the international prices and the import duty over the steel making price curve. To permit a better understanding about the steel industry, the work describe this industry, showing his history, evolution, used technology, the products, his geography, business organization, trade axis and analise the competitive forces.