Le contexte du transport de marchandises en transit à travers les Alpes est d’abord marqué par plusieurs décennies de croissance importante des flux. Cette croissance est cependant inégale dans le temps et selon les passages considérés. Un second élément de contexte tient à la fragilité particulière des territoires alpins vis-à-vis des impacts de la circulation : plus qu’ailleurs, on y constate une montée des préoccupations environnementales. Cette thèse vise à comprendre l’élaboration des politiques publiques de transport concernant le trafic transalpin. Elle s’attache d’abord à évaluer la mesure dans laquelle ce processus d’élaboration participe de l’émergence d’un espace géopolitique alpin. Elle cherche ensuite à préciser le rôle des outils technico-économique au sein de ce processus. La question sera abordée à deux échelles différentes, à travers deux études de cas : une histoire de l’évolution des objectifs assignés au projet Lyon-Turin depuis sa naissance ; une analyse des dispositifs de la concertation autour des questions de transport menée à l’échelle de l’arc alpin dans son ensemble. Un premier résultat apparait sous la forme d’une « alpinisation » progressive de la question du transit alpin. Elle se traduit en premier lieu par une représentation de l’arc alpin comme un système de passages interconnectés et, en second lieu, par la mise en place de structures de concertation rassemblant les acteurs concernés à l’échelle du massif. Un second ensemble de résultats montre d’abord comment les outils technico-économiques utilisés et leurs usages sont complètement insérés dans ce processus d’ « alpinisation ». Il fait apparaitre ensuite le glissement d’un usage déterministe de ces outils, où les résultats ont davantage vocation à justifier des décisions antérieures à un usage procédural, où les outils sont utilisés de façon de plus en plus partagée par les différents acteurs, pour simuler les différentes options politiques et participer à l’élaboration de mesures précises. / The context of freight transport in transit through the Alps is marked by several decades of traffic flow growth. Such a growth has been uneven over time and from passage to passage. A second element characterises this context. It deals with the peculiar fragility of the alpine areas to traffic impacts: the rising of environmental concerns in these regions appears to be stronger than elsewhere. The aim of this thesis is to comprehend the elaboration of transportation public policies concerning the transalpine traffics. Firstly, we endeavour to assess to which extent this decision making process has contributed towards the emergence of a geopolitical alpine space. Secondly, we seek to clarify the role of economical tools inside this process. The issue will be addressed at two different scales, on the basis of two case studies: the history of the Lyon-Turin project, aiming at retracing the evolution of the strategic goals it has integrated over time; the analysis of the alpine cooperation systems dealing with transports issues developed at the whole alpine arc scale. Outcomes show a progressive “alpinisation” of the transit question. Firstly, it results of a representation of the Alps as a system of interconnected passages. Secondly, it relies on the construction of some structures of cooperation bringing together actors involved by transalpine transit. Another group of outcomes shows that the economical assessment tools and their usage are closely linked to this “alpinisation” process. It also highlights an evolution from a deterministic approach, where economical tools mainly play a justification role for some pre-established strategies, to a procedural approach, where they are shared by actors and used in order to simulate different political options and to help so in designing policies.

Arctic sea ice has undergone a dramatic transformation in recent decades, including a substantial reduction in sea ice extent in summer months. Such changes, combined with relatively recent advancements in seasonal (1-12 months) to decadal forecasting, have prompted a rapidly-growing body of research on forecasting Arctic sea ice on seasonal timescales. These forecasts are anticipated to benefit a vast array of end-users whose activities are dependent on Arctic sea ice conditions. The research goal of this thesis is to address fundamental challenges pertaining to seasonal forecasts of Arcitc sea ice, with a particular focus placed on improving operational sea ice forecasts in the Canadian Seasonal to Interannual Prediction System (CanSIPS). Seasonal forecasts are strongly dependent on the accuracy of observations used as initial condition inputs. A key challenge initializing Arctic sea ice is the sparse availability of Arctic sea ice thickness (SIT) observations. I present on the development of three statistical models that can be used for estimating Arctic SIT in real time for sea ice forecast initialization. The three statistical models are shown to vary in their ability to capture the recent thinning of sea ice, as well as their ability to capture interannual variations in SIT anomalies; however, each of the models is shown to dramatically improve the representation of SIT compared to the climatological SIT estimates used to initialize CanSIPS. I conduct a thorough assessment of sea ice hindcast skill using the Canadian Climate Model, version 3 (one of two models used in CanSIPS), in which the dependence of hindcast skill on SIT initialization is investigated. From this assessment, it can be concluded that all three statistical models are able to estimate SIT sufficiently to improve hindcast skill relative to the climatological initialization. However, the accuracy with which the initialization fields represent both the thinning of the ice pack over time and interannual variability impacts predictive skill for pan-Arctic sea ice area (SIA) and regional sea ice concentration (SIC), with the most robust improvements obtained with two statistical models that adequately represent both processes. The final goal of this thesis is to improve the quantification of uncertainty in seasonal forecasts of regional Arctic sea ice coverage. Information regarding forecast uncertainty is crucial for end-users who want to quantify the risk associated with trusting a particular forecast. I develop statistical post-processing methodology for improving probabilistic forecasts of Arctic SIC. The first of these improvements is intended to reduce sampling uncertainty by fitting ensemble SIC forecasts to a parametric probability distribution, namely the zero- and one- inflated beta (BEINF) distribution. It is shown that overall, probabilistic forecast skill is improved using the parametric distribution relative to a simpler count-based approach; however, model biases can degrade this skill improvement. The second of these improvements is the introduction of a novel calibration method, called trend-adjusted quantile mapping (TAQM), that explicitly accounts for SIC trends and is specifically designed for the BEINF distribution. It is shown that applying TAQM greatly reduces model errors, and results in probabilistic forecast skill that generally surpasses that of a climatological reference forecast, and to some degree that of a trend-adjusted climatological reference forecast, particularly at shorter lead times. / Graduate

This study examines the impact of Statements of Financial Accounting Standards No. 141 and No. 142 (hereafter SFAS 141, 142) on the characteristics of financial analysts' earnings forecasts after mergers. Specifically, I predict lower forecast errors for firms that experienced mergers after the enactment of SFAS 141, 142 than for firms that went through business combinations before those accounting changes. Study results present strong evidence that earnings forecast errors for companies involved in merging and acquisition activity decreased after the adoption of SFAS 141, 142. Test results also suggest that lower earnings forecast errors are attributable to factors specific to merging companies such as SFAS 141, 142 but not common to merging and non-merging companies. In addition, evidence implies that information in corporate annual reports of merging companies plays the critical role in this decrease of earnings forecast error. Summarily, I report that SFAS 141, 142 were effective in achieving greater transparency of financial reporting after mergers. In my complementary analysis, I also document the structure of corporate analysts' coverage in "leaders/followers" terms and conduct tests for differences in this structure: (1) across post-SFAS 141,142/pre-SFAS 141, 142 environments, and (2) between merging and non-merging firms. Although I do not identify any significant differences in coverage structure across environments, my findings suggest that lead analysts are not as accurate as followers when predicting earnings for firms actively involved in mergers. I also detect a significant interaction between the SFAS-environment code and leader/follower classification, which indicates greater improvement of lead analyst forecast accuracy in the post-SFAS 141, 142 environment relative to their followers. This interesting discovery demands future investigation and confirms the importance of financial reporting transparency for the accounting treatment of business combinations.

The master´s thesis is focused on the assessment of financial performance of the company using statistical methods. The theoretical part describes financial indicators, time series, regression analysis and correlation analysis. The analytical part contains the calculation of financial indicators, which are used to determine the actual financial situation of the company. Subsequently, statistical methods are used to predict future development and the aim is to detect dependence between indicators. The last third part includes suggestions for improving the current situation of the company.

The master’s thesis deals with the assessment of the financial performance of the company using statistical methods. The theoretical part describes the issues necessary for the practical part, financial indicators, time series, regression analysis and correlation analysis. In the practical part of the work is a calculation of selected financial indicators, then statistical methods are used to predict future developments and to detect dependencies between the indexes. The last section contains suggestions for improving the current situation.

Luftverkehrsprognosen stellen ein wichtiges Instrument dar, die Luftverkehrsinfrastruktur zu beeinflussen. Hinter vielen der Projekte, die von Luftverkehrsprognosen begleitet werden, stehen Interessen. Dies gilt insbesondere für Ausbauvorhaben von Flughäfen, die von eindeutigen Zielen und Wünschen getragen werden. Die Gutachter, die im Rahmen solcher Ausbauvorhaben tätig werden, sind der Gefahr ausgesetzt, beeinflusste Prognosen zu erstellen. Es ist Ziel der folgenden Arbeit, die Qualität von Luftverkehrsprognosen in Deutschland empirisch zu überprüfen. Dabei stößt man auf das Problem, dass es für Luftverkehrsprognosen praktisch nur einen Gutachter gibt. Dies ist die Intraplan Consult GmbH. Prognosen anderer Gutachter liegen in so geringer Zahl vor, dass sie nicht empirisch auswertbar sind. Wir beschränken uns im Folgenden deshalb darauf, die Prognosen von Intraplan Consult GmbH zu analysieren. Wir glauben, dass die Untersuchungsergebnisse allgemeingültigen Charakter haben und auf andere Luftverkehrsprognosen übertragbar sind. Es werden drei Fragestellungen untersucht. • Überzeichnen die Luftverkehrsprognosen der Intraplan Consult GmbH die tatsächliche Verkehrsentwicklung? • Gibt es Hinweise darauf, dass Überzeichnungen bei bestimmten Prognosegrößen (z.B. PAX, Fracht, Flugbewegungen) besonders häufig vorkommen? • Gibt es Hinweise darauf, dass Überzeichnungen bei bestimmten Gutachtentypen bzw. Gutachtenanlässen (z.B. Erweiterungen, behördliche Genehmigungen) besonders häufig vorkommen? Die empirische Untersuchung zeigte, dass die Prognosen insgesamt betrachtet tendenziell die tatsächliche Verkehrsentwicklung überschätzen. Es konnte zudem ermittelt werden, dass die Qualität der Ergebnisse stark streut und sich nicht normalverteilt verhält. Weiterhin konnten Wendepunktefehler im Prognose-Realisierungs-Diagramm beobachtet werden. Das bedeutet, dass das Modell von Intraplan Wendepunkte von Entwicklungen nicht erkennen kann. Die Airlines haben in den von den Prognosen erfassten Zeiträumen Strategiewechsel vorgenommen, die von Intraplan nicht erkannt wurden. Im weiteren Verlauf wurden die drei Prognosegrößen (i) Passagiere, (ii) Fracht- und Postaufkommen sowie (iii) Flugbewegungen einzeln analysiert. Alle drei Größen zeigten systematisch überschätzende Prognosen. Besonders stark ist dies bei den Flugbewegungen zu erkennen. Die Prognosen wurden nach ihrem Zweck in die Kategorien „Planfälle bei Genehmigungsgutachten“, „Worst-Case-Fälle bei Genehmigungsgutachten“ sowie „Marktstudien“ getrennt. Alle drei Kategorien weisen systematische Fehlschätzungen auf. Bei den Marktstudien liegen systematische Überschätzungen vor. Sie sind tendenziell etwas geringer als bei Planfallprognosen, wo die Überschätzungen erhebliche Größenordnungen annehmen (20-50% zu hohe Wachstumsraten). Worst-Case-Prognosen unterschätzen die tatsächliche Entwicklung systematisch. Da die beiden letzteren Kategorien (also Planfälle vs. Worst-Case-Fälle) im Zusammenhang mit Ausbauvorhaben an Flughäfen stehen, liegt die Vermutung nahe, dass im Rahmen der Genehmigungsgutachten die Worst-Case-Prognosen gezielt zu niedrig angesetzt werden (Unterschätzung), während die Planfallprognosen zu hoch angesetzt werden (Überschätzung), um das jeweilige Ausbauvorhaben in einem bedeutenderen Licht erscheinen zu lassen. Die Wendepunktfehler zeigen, dass Intraplan Strategiewechsel der Luftverkehrsunternehmen nicht richtig prognostiziert. Dies kann im Zusammenhang mit dem von den Auftraggebern verfolgten Zweck der Projekte stehen: Andere als die von den Auftraggebern gewünschten Strategien werden nicht abgebildet. Dieses sind, wie die empirischen ex post Ergebnisse zeigen, weder alle denkbaren Strategien und nicht einmal die wahrscheinlichsten Strategien. In der Luftverkehrswirtschaft wird argumentiert, dass die Prognosen von Intraplan nur wegen der Finanzkrise 2008, die nicht vorhersehbar gewesen wäre, so schlecht seien. Unsere Analyse zeigt für einige Flughäfen tatsächlich deutliche Brüche der Entwicklung nach der Finanzkrise. Bei anderen Flughäfen ist demgegenüber eine Konstanz der Entwicklung vor und nach der Finanzkrise festzustellen. Auch bei diesen Flughäfen ist aber die Prognose schlecht. Darüber hinaus gibt es Flughäfen, bei denen Airlines Strategiewechsel schon vor der Finanzkrise vorgenommen haben. Auch bei diesen hat das Prognosemodell von Intraplan schlechte Resultate erzielt. Bei anderen Flughäfen dagegen, ist die Prognoseleistung trotz Finanzkrise gut. Alles in allem zeigt sich deshalb, dass es weniger die Finanzkrise von 2008 ist, die zu Fehlprognosen führt, als die fehlende Fähigkeit, die Strategien der Airlines richtig abzubilden. / Aviation traffic forecasts and airport analyses are important instruments which influence decisions on aviation related infrastructure. Behind many of such infrastructure projects, which are supported by forecast analyses, one finds political interests. This is especially the case for aviation projects, such as infrastructure enlargement projects of airports, which are motivated by distinct goals and desires. Referees who act within this framework are exposed to the risk of producing biased results. The quality of such aviation traffic forecasts is the subject of this working paper. To begin with, one major obstacle is that there is only one such referee available in Germany - Intraplan Consult GmbH. Other referees have only a minimal, insignificant share of output, which cannot be used for any further empirical investigation. This is the reason why the present working paper focuses on airport analyses produced by Intraplan Consult GmbH. We believe that these research results are of common character, and thus are transferable to other related airport studies. The following three research questions have been investigated: • Do recent aviation traffic forecasts performed by Intraplan Consult GmbH overestimate actual traffic developments? • Are there any indications that some specific forecast measures (such as PAX, freight and cargo, flight movement) might be overestimated exceptionally frequently? • Are there any indications that specific types and events of forecast analysis (such as airport expansion projects, official authorisation of a project by the public administration) overestimated exceptionally frequently? Empirical investigation has shown that forecast analyses tend to be indeed overestimated, compared to the actual traffic developments. It could be shown that the quality of the research results is widespread and not normally distributed. Furthermore, systematic errors with regard to the point of inflection in forecast-realisation-diagrams were identified. This means that models constructed by Intraplan could not identify points of inflection on the development path in the real world. For instance, airlines have undergone structure and strategic changes over the periods of investigation which could not be captured by Intraplan models. In addition, three forecast measures, namely the amount of (i) passenger, (ii) freight and post and the (iii) flight movements, have been analysed. All three of them have shown systematic overestimated forecast results. In particular, forecasts of flight movements have been largely overestimated. These forecast analyses have further been categorized according to their purpose, namely project cases for the issue of approval certificates, worst-case scenarios for the issue of approval certificates and market studies. All three categories show systematic misjudgements and miscalculations. Regarding the market studies, systematic overestimation was identified. It tends to be less severe than for the project cases, where extreme estimates of 20-50% higher growth rates were found. In contrast to this, worst-case scenarios systematically underestimated actual development trends. The last two of which suggest the assumption that, when analysing enlargement projects of airports, worst-case scenario forecast figures and project case forecast figures have been deliberately manipulated in order to put the expansion project in question into the right perspective. Misjudgement by Intraplan, regarding the points of inflection, shows that they cannot forecast any strategic development by the aviation industry flawlessly. However, it can be assumed that this may also be in the interest of their contractors. Others as those suggested strategies by their clients are not included in their models. To further strengthen this suggestion, all empirical ex post results show that only a small share of all possible strategies, and especially the most improbable strategies, had been used. The aviation industry argues that miscalculation by Intraplan only relates to the events around the financial crisis in 2008, which have been unpredictable. Our research results showed that few airports had indeed been hit, regarding their development, by the financial crisis in 2008 and after. Others, however, have shown no effect and continued their rather constant development before and after the financial crisis. Forecast analyses have also been inaccurate and false for these airports. In addition to this, some of these airports had already undergone a strategic change, airline strategic change, before the financial crisis. As well, with regard to these airports, the forecast model by Intraplan produced false results. On the other hand, some forecast results have been correct, despite the financial crisis. All in all, it can be argued that incorrect forecasts have not been caused as much by the financial crisis as by the missing capacities of the model to incorporate strategic change.

Budgeting has a long tradition within management control but has faced criticism for being too expensive, time-consuming and irrelevant due to the inflexible nature of traditional fixed budgeting. In an increasingly volatile business environment, organizations need to move beyond the historical view inaugurated by the traditional budget and towards a more dynamically conducted budget that adapts to the environment. The proposed solution to the budget issue has been alternative budgeting methods such as beyond budgeting, rolling forecasts and zero-based budgeting, which are argued to excel with the utilities offered through emerging technology such as business intelligence, which has been on top of organizations agenda in over a decade. The purpose of this thesis is to increase the awareness of how business intelligence can improve the budgetary process to become more adaptive to the environment. This thesis takes a qualitative approach where six respondents were interviewed to form three groups; BI Experts, BI Prospects and BI Users, to elicit different perspectives of BI utility on the budgetary process. These perspectives were analyzed against the proposed purpose of budgeting to provide good targets, efficient resource allocation and reliable forecasts. The result of this thesis show that business intelligence can improve the budgeting process by providing more reliable forecasts through increased data accessibility and more reliant data, as well as ease of reporting. The budget process becomes less costly and time consuming in terms of data errors and reporting activities. An additional finding for this thesis is that there is a visionary discrepancy between the three defined groups.

Economic analysis is often employed for the purpose of efficient decision-making and allocation of societies’ resources and has been utilized in the Swedish national infrastructure planning since the 1960’s. The topic of this report is the utilisation of CBA in investigating the benefits and costs of transport investments in Sweden and its consequent role as a decision basis. It is the study of various actors’ perspectives on CBA itself, and not least its role within Swedish transport-planning. On the one hand the study concerns the actors interpretation of the current practice, on the other; their perspectives of how CBA ideally should be utilized. The purpose of the study is to be able to, by combining existing ideas, insights and competences in ways which can bridge the diverse perspectives, increase awareness concerning the utilisation and role of CBA in Swedish transport planning. The goal is not to argue against the use of CBA as a method or decision basis, nor to study the technicalities of the method, but rather, it is an attempt to make sense of CBA through the interpretation of various actors’ perspectives from commission to decision. Two main research questions are put forth to lead towards this purpose: First, how does the understanding of CBA vary among actors? And secondly, how can CBA be utilised to its full potential in transport planning? / Ekonomisk analys används ofta för att uppnå ett effektivt beslutsfattande och fördelning av samhällets resurser, i den svenska nationella infrastrukturplaneringen har de nyttjats sedan 1960-talet. Ämnet för denna rapport är användningen av CBA för att utreda nyttor och kostnader av transportinvesteringar i Sverige och dess åtföljande roll som beslutsunderlag. Det är en studie av olika aktörers perspektiv på samhällsekonomisk analys (CBA), och inte minst dess roll inom svenskt transportplanering. Å ena sidan gäller studien olika aktörers tolkning av nuvarande praxis, å andra sidan deras perspektiv på hur CBA helst bör användas. Syftet med studien är att, genom en kombination av befintliga idéer, insikter och kompetenser på ett sätt som kan överbrygga olika perspektiv, öka medvetenheten om användningen och betydelsen av CBA i svensk transportplanering. Målet är inte att argumentera mot användningen av CBA som metod eller beslutsunderlag, inte heller att studera de tekniska aspekterna av metoden, studien syftar snarare att försöka skapa förståelse för CBA genom tolkning av olika aktörers perspektiv från beställning till beslut. Två huvudsakliga forskningsfrågor lyfts fram för att leda mot detta syfte: För det första, hur varierar förståelsen av CBA mellan aktörerna? Och för det andra, hur kan CBA utnyttjas till sin fulla potential i transportplaneringen?

This thesis aims to examine whether it is possible to forecast which firmswill be shorted. To do this a regression was constructed using a sample of thecompanies currently included in S&P 500. Short interest as percentage offloat was set as the dependent variable with volatility, institutionalownership, past stock returns, growth in net sales and price-to-earnings ratio(P/E) as the independent variables. Our results concluded that all variablesexcept institutional ownership were statistically significant at a 5% level withthree of these being significant even at a 1% level. Based on these results, webelieve that it to a certain degree is possible to forecast which firms will beshorted.

A South African GSM telecommunications market consisting of two incumbents and an entering third player, is modelled utilising a non-linear, system dynamics approach. The model calculates subscriber choice based on a calculated utility. The utility is used to obtain a probability which is fed into a Bass type differential equation relating the different states in the model to their time derivatives. The model encapsulates all the prominent postpaid price plans in the market, as well as five different demographic market segments. Model Predictive Control is used to synthesise a linear feedback controller which uses the observed market state to optimally determine a price time series for one of the operators’ products. The series will maximise Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for the operator over the simulation time interval. Besides ARPU, the controller is also able to increase total revenue and minimise churn over the simulated interval for the optimising operator, and thus provides valuable decision support to the marketing management of such an operator. / Dissertation (MEng (Electronic))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted