Thesis deals with the gambling industry in the Czech Republic since 2012, when the major amendment of lottery act was introduced, which allowed municipalities to regulate or eventually completely prohibit gambling with generally binding ordinances. The complete ban, which began to be implemented within some municipalities, caused an emergence of the black market. This economically interesting phenomenon is in terms of the thesis resolved - its origin and forms of expression. Furthermore, the thesis deals with the emergence of new laws that will gradually apply from 2016 and 2017. It analyses the impact on companies operating in the sector, the state budget and municipal budgets. There is also research of background data and economic models that the Ministry of Finance results from and in contrast to the critical analysis of the social costs of gambling it is being considered whether prepared regulation in the form of substantial increases in taxes is adequate or not. As the solution method was chosen descriptive analysis of relevant materials, especially the outputs from the Ministry of Finance, specifically established institutions, municipalities and real companies operating in the sector, as well as explanatory reports from lawmakers proposing new laws. The executed analysis provides a critical look at some of the background bases of the regulator. It impeaches the calculation of the social costs of gambling, which are further imbedded into a broader context in order to revalue the severity of the problem. Also is examined the estimation of the additional revenue from gambling after the tax increase, shifting the point of profitability and the transition to the emergence of a black market. The main contribution of this thesis is the emphasis on the greatest possible objectivity in the analyzing and processing of a wide range of inputs, which are further critically evaluated. This thesis comprehensively summarizes the situation of the gambling industry, its present and future regulation considering its bases and possible impacts.

Food-borne illness is a significant burden both with regard to public health and financially. Efforts to reduce the level of food-borne illness continue to concentrate on the full food supply chain with particular regard given to Campylobacter, the most commonly reported zoonosis and the greatest burden to public health. The focus of this research is domestic food safety practises, where there is no regulation. Food safety is reliant on people’s knowledge or awareness, their ability to adopt safe food handling practises and for the correct behaviours to achieve this, to be routine. The elicitation of awareness and perceptions with regard to food safety are problematic due to the complexities of human nature, including the presence of several forms of bias, such as social desirability bias and optimistic bias. The research was designed in order to try to minimise such biases, whilst further understanding influences on food safety preparation behaviour. Food safety preparation behaviours and kitchen hygiene were investigated between people who had campylobacteriosis in comparison to people who had not had food poisoning. Whilst no difference was noted in the kitchen hygiene between the two groups, significant differences were noted in self-reported food preparation behaviours. Optimistic bias was exhibited by both groups but when tested again after six months had elapsed, the group who had not had food poisoning increased their optimism, introducing a significant difference in optimistic bias between the two groups. Awareness of a number of unsafe food behaviours was explored for individuals and groups of people using a method developed as part of the research. This method of hazard awareness uses video as a stimulus, creating an interactive survey, combined with attitudinal and demographic data. Changes were made to perceptions of knowledge and risk following the hazard perception challenge, with the number of hazards missed, influencing this movement in perception. The risk perception of unsafe food handling behaviours was examined using a novel technique Best-Worst Scaling, in order to identify relative risks. This technique, in conjunction with latent class modelling, demonstrated a difference in perceptions between food safety experts and members of the general public. However, these differences are nuanced and demonstrate that heterogeneity exists both within and across the groups. Taken together, these findings have extended the research on domestic food safety behaviour and risk perceptions. It has done so by developing and testing novel methods to elicit relative risk perceptions and hazard perception with regard to food safety behaviours. The results provide valuable evidence for stakeholders particularly with regard to the novel methods used in identifying the heterogeneity and influences of food safety behaviour between groups of people. It also provides important tools for stakeholders, risk managers and communicators to use in future research, communication and education.

This thesis explores the concepts and measurements of chronic poverty, with application to Kazakhstan. A rigorous analysis of different approaches in the measurement of poverty and chronic poverty is presented in this study. Five matching techniques have been applied for the construction of unintended panel data based on KHBS 2001-2009. The substantial test of reliability, representativeness and robustness of the constructed panel data has examined. The attrition biases of the longitudinal data have been studied rigorously. The appropriate equivalence scale has been determined through regression analysis to the Kazakhstan HBS. The sensitivity of conventional and chronic poverty measures to various poverty lines and equivalence scales studied in this thesis. The stochastic dominance analysis of per adult equivalent consumption expenditures has been presented. The chronic poverty measures and determinants of chronically and transient poor have been estimated. It illustrates that the main correlates of chronic poverty are education, employment status of the head of household, household composition, the ownership of assets such as a dwelling other than main dwelling, a car, access to water in the house and location. The correlates of transient poverty are similar to chronic poverty; however some of them have opposite signs, for example the ethnicity of the head of household, household compositions, an ownership of a dwelling other than main dwelling, location in urban area and repayments of loan in 2008. The Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition analysis of the gap in consumption expenditures between chronically and transient poor, chronically poor and non-poor explains the differences through returns to endowments. Poverty transitions analysis illustrate improvement in poverty dynamics in later period of the study in 2006-2009. Long durations of poverty prevail among singles with children and couples with children. Poverty exit rates are higher than poverty entry rates for the whole period of 2001-2009. The multivariate hazard regression models are estimated to examine differences in people's experience of poverty over a period of time. For individuals who enter poverty, the total span of time that they spend in poverty consequently depends on both the chances of exit from poverty and the chances of re-entry to poverty. The results confirm the negative duration dependence of the hazards of poverty exit and re-entry for longer lengths of state. The only factor significantly positive influence on poverty exit is a location in Almaty. Many correlates of the model estimation have the same signs for the hazard rate of poverty exit and re-entries. These facts mean that these factors are common for transient poor, who are moving in and out poverty in given period of time. As defined before the existence of children under age six will increase the hazard rate of poverty re-entry.

This master thesis deals with causes and some of the main instituonal answers to the financial crisis of 2007-2009. The thesis also ppresents a brief historical overview of US financial crisis. The main aim of the first chapter is to decide whether the US historical crisis have something in common. The answer is that the past crisis really share something and the difference is rather in historical circumstances. The second chapter is dedicated to some of the financial crisis causes such as Community Reinvestment Act,Gramm Leach Bliley Act, Commodity Futures Modernization Act and also to the role of moral hazard. This thesis is of a firm belief that the only aspect that can be blamed is the phenomenon of moral hazard. The last chapter is focused on the main instituonal answers to the crisis. Dodd-Frank Act, Volcker rule, reorganization of derivative market, some of the changes in rating agencies regulation and also BASEL III consequences for capital requirements are all under the radar.

L’analyse des risques liés aux objets rocheux (effondrement ou affaissement de terrain, écroulement de falaise, etc.) s’effectue généralement dans un contexte lourd en incertitudes. Malheureusement, les outils dont dispose aujourd’hui l’expert pour réaliser ses études souffrent de ne pouvoir apporter de solutions suffisamment précises pour réellement saisir ce contexte d’incertitude. Ce mémoire effectue d’abord un retour sur la notion d’incertitude dans les études de risques liés au sol et au sous-sol. Une définition et une typologie détaillée en sont proposées et des outils, issus de la littérature ou développés dans le cadre de la thèse, sont fournis pour permettre un traitement pratique de chacune des classes introduites. L’utilisation des probabilités comme outil d’aide à la prise en compte des incertitudes est ensuite examinée. Une discussion, confrontant les approches fréquentiste et épistémique, est proposée pour évaluer la possibilité et les limites d’une interprétation opérationnelle de résultats probabilistes dans une analyse de risque. Ce travail est principalement destiné à l’expert du terrain réalisant une étude de risque. Ainsi, plusieurs exemples réels (analyse de la stabilité d’une mine de charbon, étude de l’aléa fontis au droit d’une carrière souterraine de gypse, réalisation d’un Plan de Prévention des Risques Miniers) sont proposés pour éclairer les propos, illustrer l’adaptabilité des outils introduits aux méthodologies actuelles, et présenter les avantages concrets que le traitement des incertitudes et le calcul probabiliste peuvent apporter en terme d’aide à la démarche d’expertise et à la communication entre les acteurs de la gestion du risque / Analyses of risks related to ground and underground issues (surface collapses, subsidence, rockfalls, etc.) are generally undertaken in a strong context of uncertainty. However, tools that are available for geotechnical expert to carry out his study suffer today from not being able to really seize this context of uncertainty. This work takes firstly stock of the notion of uncertainty in risk analyses. It provides a definition and a typology of uncertainty that can be concretely used by the expert. For each of the defined classes, methods allowing an operational treatment of uncertainties are presented, either extracted from a literature survey or developed in the framework of the Thesis. The use of probabilities as an expertise-help tool is secondly examined. A discussion, which distinguishes between frequentist and epistemic interpretations of probabilities, is proposed to evaluate the benefits and implications that probabilities can have towards the practical elaboration of a risk analysis. This study is mainly dedicated to the field expert in charge of the analysis. Numerous concrete examples (analysis of surface stability above an underground coal mine, sinkhole development analysis over an underground gypsum mine, elaboration of a Mining Risk Prevention Plan) are therefore provided both to present the main results of the work and to illustrate the adaptability of the tools being introduced to the current methodologies of analysis. They also aim at highlighting the fact that the treatment of uncertainties and the use of probabilities in risk analyses can facilitate the process of expertise and allow a better communication between the various actors of risk management

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:18:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 manoel_correia_neto.pdf: 631677 bytes, checksum: 188540e42a4e80cd55ce6dadd7d341c4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-04-24 / The path this work had as its starting point the exposure of theoretical frameworks of classical liberalism and positivist criminology, responsible for building the legal and criminal speech that legitimizes the power to punish the state and ideology of social defense, which, in short, contends that the criminal law a reaction to the behavior of a deviant minority and protecting the interests of the majority; ie the crime as an evil and off in response, remedy, that the state is legitimized the minister is paid back either as counter-stimulus for restoring order. Immediately thereafter, exposed as research conducted from the theoretical contributions of social reaction and especially of critical criminology, were responsible for the delegitimization of that discourse and ideology, revealing the true and hidden function of the penal system, its inverted effectiveness: the legitimation and reproduction social asymmetries through social control of the most vulnerable strata. The size of this dysfunction can be measured when known that about 40% (forty percent), Brazil, and 60% (sixty percent), Alagoas, of all the prisoners, experience probation, a number that draws attention criminologists, but also of researchers from several other areas as well as a portion of the civil society, the choice made by the criminal justice system of deprivation of liberty prior to sentencing and often the processing itself. And this, despite the declared speech or the curriculum of the Brazilian procedural law erect the presumption of innocence the fundamental principle with seat in the Federal Constitution and therefore, as a rule that prevents the treatment of guilty to those who have not been convicted of commission of a crime. From this problem, then realized the collection of data from all denegatórios judgments of habeas corpus order judged within one year by the criminal chamber of the Court of Alagoas, were present when the foundation the need for prison maintenance ante the presence of authorizers requirements to decree; the data revealed that the "dangerousness of the prisoner," the "possibility of repetition delitiva" and the "gravity of the crime" were the reasons that concentrated the attention of the judges. Thus, separated three typical decisions and through the content analysis method, I looked beyond the declared content, that other, unspoken, hidden, able to reveal the real reason for the high number of preventive imprisonment. In conclusion, the research has shown that pre-trial detention has fulfilled a real security measure attributable to function, considered "dangerous" if giving high importance to the elements of information collected during the investigation, since "its conduct", and revealing the "dangerousness" is none other than that assigned by the police. In this regard, police selectivity held, as shown by studies of critical criminology on the weakest and most precarious strata of society, is sealed by the court selectivity, which contributes decisively to the criminal justice system to hold its real neutralization of functions and discipline of classes lower social. / O caminho percorrido neste trabalho teve como ponto de partida a exposição dos marcos teóricos do liberalismo clássico e da criminologia positivista, responsáveis pela construção do discurso jurídico-penal que legitima o poder de punir do Estado e da ideologia da defesa social, a qual, em suma, sustenta ser o direito penal uma reação ao comportamento de uma minoria desviante e proteção aos interesses da maioria; ou seja, o crime como um mal e a pena como resposta, remédio, que o Estado está legitimado a ministrar seja como retribuição, seja como contra-estímulo, para restauração da ordem. Ato contínuo, expus como pesquisas realizadas a partir dos aportes teóricos da reação social e, especialmente, da criminologia crítica, foram responsáveis pela deslegitimação daquele discurso e ideologia, revelando a verdadeira e oculta função do sistema penal, sua eficácia invertida: a legitimação e reprodução das assimetrias sociais através do controle social dos extratos mais vulneráveis. A dimensão desta disfunção pode ser medida quando conhecido que cerca de 40% (quarenta por cento), no Brasil, e 60% (sessenta por cento), em Alagoas, dentre todos os encarcerados, experimentam prisão preventiva, número que chama a atenção de criminólogos, mas também de pesquisadores de diversas outras áreas, bem como de uma parcela da sociedade civil, para a opção feita pelo sistema de justiça criminal de privação da liberdade anterior à condenação e, muitas vezes, ao próprio processamento. E, isto, apesar de o discurso declarado ou o conteúdo programático do direito processual brasileiro erigir a presunção de inocência a princípio fundamental, com assento na Constituição Federal e, portanto, como regra que impede o tratamento de culpado àqueles que não tenham sido condenados pela prática de um crime. A partir deste problema, então, realizei a coleta de dados de todos os acórdãos denegatórios de ordem de habeas corpus julgados no período de um ano pela câmara criminal do Tribunal de Justiça de Alagoas, quando estivesse presente no fundamento a necessidade da manutenção da prisão ante a presença dos requisitos autorizadores para decreto; os dados revelaram que a periculosidade do preso , a possibilidade de reiteração delitiva e a gravidade do crime eram os motivos que concentravam a atenção dos magistrados. Desta forma, separei três decisões típicas e, através do método de análise de conteúdo, busquei, para além do conteúdo declarado, aquele outro, não dito, oculto, capaz de revelar o real motivo para o alto número de encarceramento preventivo. Em conclusão, a pesquisa demonstrou que a prisão preventiva tem cumprido uma real função de medida de segurança para imputáveis, considerados perigosos , dando-se elevada importância aos elementos informativos colhidos durante a investigação, posto que a conduta imputada , e reveladora da periculosidade , não é outra senão aquela atribuída pela autoridade policial. Neste sentido, a seletividade policial, realizada, como demonstram os estudos da criminologia crítica sobre os extratos mais débeis e precários da sociedade, é chancelada pela seletividade judicial, que contribui decisivamente para que o sistema penal realize suas reais funções de neutralização e disciplina das classes sociais inferiores

This dissertation focuses on understanding and modeling how contracts function in practice. The existing principal-agent literature usually involves two players: a principal (investors) provides capital to an agent (managers or entrepreneurs) on a project subject to asymmetric information. However, many real financing arrangements between firms and investors are intermediated by another agent - a bank, a venture capitalist, or a fund family, etc. In these three-tier settings, there are two contracts to deal with two conflicts of interest - a framework that simply hasn't been studied thoroughly in the principal-agent literature. The first chapter is co-authored with my Ph.D. advisors Prof. Andrea M. Buffa and Prof. Lucy White. In this chapter, we consider a general economic setting in which a principal has all the bargaining power, and she has to hire two agents exerting complementary efforts on her project. The principal chooses from two contracting schemes - direct contracting and delegated contracting - whether to contract directly with both agents or instead to contract with one agent alone and delegate this agent to contract with the other agent. We find that delegated contracting can be optimal when contracts are private. With direct contracting, each agent fears that the principal will opportunistically reduce the other agents' bonus, muting incentives to exert effort. With delegated contracting, one agent observes the contract of the agent he hires, alleviating effort concerns, but allowing rent extraction. In delegating, the principal trades off the losses of control and rent extraction by the hiring agent against the gains from improved observability and effort. We find that it is optimal for the principal to delegate when the hiring agent is sufficiently skilled or the effort complementarity is sufficiently strong. The second chapter considers an entrepreneurial finance setting in which an entrepreneur needs two things - expert advice and capital - in addition to her own idea and effort. The entrepreneur has all the bargaining power, and she chooses to finance her project from two sources: angels and venture capitalists. Venture capitalists are different from angels in two aspects. First, angels are individuals investing their own capital, while venture capitalists are intermediaries investing on behalf of limited partners (LPs). Second, venture capitalists provide expert advice while angels don't. With angel financing, the entrepreneur obtains expert advice from a consultant who is independent of the angels. With venture capital financing, the entrepreneur obtains expert advice bundled together with capital from a venture capitalist only. I show that when contracts are private, raising capital directly from angels is more expensive because the entrepreneur has the incentive to cut down on expert advice to save money. Angels optimally set a higher cost of capital to be compensated for the lack of verifiability. On the other hand, LPs are able to infer the amount of expert advice through the venture capitalist's shares in the venture. I show that venture capital financing is optimal for the entrepreneur in competitive labor and capital markets. Moreover, convertibles arise endogenously as the optimal security held by the venture capitalist. Convertible securities have features of both debt and equity, allowing the entrepreneur to provide enough incentives to the venture capitalist while minimizing the cost of capital from the LPs. The third chapter further analyzes the entrepreneur's optimal financing problem in which venture capital is scarce relative to angel capital. Compared with competitive venture capital, the venture capitalist's compensation stays the same while the LPs demand a higher return. The entrepreneur and the venture capitalist share the extra cost of financing, and their expected payoffs and the project's profitability decrease in the scarcity level of venture capital. With venture capital financing, the entrepreneur trades off the loss due to the scarcity of venture capital against the gains from the improved transparency in contracting. I find that angel financing is optimal when venture capital is sufficiently scarce. Compared with angel financing, the investors as LPs demand a higher return than angels only when venture capital is scarcer than what it makes angel financing optimal.

Titel: Relationen mellan chefer och medarbetare - Ett principal-agent-perspektiv Universitet: Malmö Universitet Kurs: TR128C – Företagsekonomi: Examensarbete i Transport Management Författare: Jens Andersson, Olle Karlsson & Mattias Pettersson Handledare: Benedikte Borgström Nyckelord: Agentteori, agentproblem, måldivergens, informationsasymmetri, moral hazard, adverse selection, programmerbarhet Syfte: Att utifrån ett principal-agent-perspektiv studera hur relationen mellan chefer och medarbetare i den studerade miljön påverkas av förekomsten av informationsasymmetri och skilda målbilder, samt hur motivationen att prestera på arbetsplatsen kan påverkas av incitamentsstrukturer kopplade till kontraktsupplägget och olika nivåer av övervakning. Metod: Studien har genomförts via en kvalitativ ansats där data insamlats genom intervjuer, observationer och textanalys. Teori: Studiens teoretiska ramverk bygger på principal-agent-teorin och dess komponenter med fokus på informationsasymmetri och skilda målbilder. Slutsatser: I den studerade miljön där relationen mellan principal och agent kännetecknas av hög informationsasymmetri, hög programmerbarhet och parterna motiveras av olika målbilder står principalen inför valet att antingen komplettera ett beteendebaserat kontrakt med tillräckliga övervakningsmekanismer för att utröna agentens beteende, eller försöka upprätta ett resultatbaserat kontrakt. Hög informationsasymmetri kopplat till ett beteendebaserat kontrakt riskerar att lägga grunden för problem kopplade till moral hazard då agenterna blir helt fria att agera efter sina egna målbilder. / Title: The relationship between managers and workers - An agency perspective University: Malmö Universitet Course: TR128C – Business Administration: Bachelor thesis in Transport Management Writers: Jens Andersson, Olle Karlsson & Mattias Pettersson Mentor: Benedikte Borgström Keywords: Agency theory, agency problem, goal divergence, information asymmetry, moral hazard, adverse selection, programmability Purpose: From an agency perspective study how the relationship between managers and workers in the studied environment is affected by the existence of information asymmetry and diverging goals, and also how the motivation to perform at the workplace can be affected by different incentive structures related to the contract form and different levels of surveillance. Methods: The study has been conducted via a qualitative approach and the data has been collected through interviews, observations and text analysis. Theories: The studies theoretical framework is based on the agency theory and its components with a focus on information asymmetry and diverging goals. Conclusion: In the studied environment the relationship between principal and agent is characterized by asymmetrical information flows, high programmability, and diverging goals. This leaves the principal to either reinforce a behavioral based contract with sufficient surveillance to uncover the agent’s behavior, or to try and establish a contract based on results. A high degree of information asymmetry in combination with a behavioral based contract runs the risk of laying the foundation for problems related to moral hazard as the agents are free to act according to their own personal goals.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(地球環境学) / 甲第22105号 / 地環博第191号 / 新制||地環||37(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院地球環境学舎地球環境学専攻 / (主査)教授 宇佐美 誠, 准教授 SINGER JANE, 准教授 吉野 章 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Global Environmental Studies / Kyoto University / DFAM

ABSTRACT Santa Barbara Tea Fire Multi-Hazard Mitigation Benefit Cost Analysis David S Flamm This study examines the benefits and costs associated with the outright purchase of properties for hazard mitigation (“property acquisition mitigation”) in Santa Barbara, California which reduced four properties’ exposure to multiple hazards. The results indicate that the estimated overall benefit-cost ratio for property acquisition mitigation projects is 1.75:1 when the exposed properties meet a threshold of eminent threat for total loss. This study further suggests that when property acquisitions are performed in an area threatened by multiple hazards the mitigation becomes two to three times more beneficial than in an area threatened by a single hazard. Possible implications and future benefits associated with this mitigation and mitigations like this are also explored. Multi-hazard mitigation is an action taken to reduce or eliminate long-term risks from natural or human-caused hazards. A hazard is any condition or event with the potential to cause fatalities, injuries, property damage, infrastructure damage, economic interruptions, environmental damage, or other loss. The study area for the Tea Fire BCA (Benefit Cost Analysis) is subject to multiple hazards, primarily landslides, wildfires, and earthquakes. In an attempt to reduce the exposure to landslides a mitigation project was completed in 1998. This project included purchase of four properties by the City of Santa Barbara using federal and local funds. The undeveloped properties were left empty as open space to eliminate the exposure to risk. The project, originally intended to mitigate landslide risk, mitigated risk exposure to multiple hazards. The mitigation was put to the test during the Santa Barbara Tea Fire, a wildfire which burned approximately 2,000 acres of Santa Barbara County land in November, 2008. The following steps were followed to determine the overall loss avoidance: 1. Obtain building values before mitigation 2. Obtain current comparable building values 3. Determine burn recurrence in study area 4. Obtain fire damage estimates from FEMA BCA tool based on “before mitigation” building and contents values 5. Calculate “loss avoidance” and adjust for inflation using FEMA BCA tool 6. Add additional avoided losses not considered in BCA (e.g., emergency management costs) 7. Subtract new losses resulting from the project 8. Determine multi-hazard recurrence in study area Keywords: Hazard Mitigation, Benefit Cost Analysis, Loss Avoidance.