For decades, economic theories have been mostly based on rational choices made by selfish individuals to maximize their utility, while sociology spent a lot of efforts describing the environment of individuals and explaining how this environment shapes theirs decisions. However, the last thirty years have seen many sociological concepts appear in the economic literature. For example, behavioral economics introduces things such as envy or altruism in economic theories. Other notions such as social capital, social norms, trust or community became more and more present in economic papers. The objective of this new strand of literature is to engage into sort of socioeconomic approach and to shed some light on interpersonal relationships. This thesis belongs to this socioeconomic approach, and tries to explore new aspects of various concepts. The two first papers are theoretical. In the first one, we explore the negative side of social capital, which has not been studied extensively, by investigating the effect of a norm on consumers when moving is costly. In the second one, we introduce a sociological concept, namely social identity, in a classic economic model in order to show how social interactions modifies its results, and hence, the importance of taking such interpersonal relationships into account. The third and final paper is an empirical case study of social capital in Belgium, an exercise that has not been done before, with the objective of comparing the level of social capital between the various regions of the country. <p><p>In the first paper, The Tyranny of Social Norms on Individual Behavior, we study the negative effect of the existence of a norm and moving cost inside a community. Because of deviation cost (such as social shame or peer pressure for example), consumers inside a given community may not reach their ideal consumption, that is the consumption they would have without social constraint. On the other hand, moving to another community may be too expensive (in terms of social assets needed to be part of the new community). Hence, agents may get stuck in their community, being forced to consume something they do not want to. One example of such behavior is the underinvestment in education in some neighborhood. We show that such equilibria are possible and that they may be socially suboptimal equilibria as well as Pareto inferior equilibria. We also show that state intervention can correct those “bad” equilibria by operating transfers between agents in order to lower the moving cost.<p><p>In the second paper, Social Identity, Advertising and Market Competition, we use a particular approach of a sociological concept, namely Social Identity, which focuses on the fact that people want to signal who they are to others. We assume that this is done by choosing a specific consumption (think of fashion market for example). We show that under this assumption, the classical result of Bertrand Price Competition does not hold anymore, and that prices and profits are positive, meaning that social identity creates market power for firms. Moreover, if the number of goods is limited, groups will be formed, and there will be multiple equilibria, each one corresponding to a particular partition of the consumers. We then add the possibility for firms to use advertising. This allows consumers to have a coordination tool, but increases also market powers for firms. We investigate the various equilibria that arise and their impact in term of welfare.<p><p>In the third paper, Social Capital in Belgium, we construct an index of social capital using the European Social Survey, and we show that this index can be decomposed in three aspects: Trust, Social Activities and Social Network. We then study whether there is a difference in social capital between Belgium’s regions or not. We show that indeed, such difference exists, even when controlling for socioeconomic variables. In a third part, we investigate whether the level of social capital is higher or lower in Belgium than in other European countries, and we analyze European regional differences in term of social capital.<p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The main goal for this diplomatic field is to study the expansion achievement of a particular company breaking into the international market. First part of this study consists theoretical solutions which targets strategies of the best way to enter a new market in Austria. In this particular analysis it is covered a research on local and outlying regions. And this study covers the possibility of entering this market and consider the viability of expansion that may enhance it's growth and profitability. There are strategies put in place in this study that will outline the expenses of marketing and other solutions. It is vital to perform this study to assure that such business is not only going to be successful but also to perform at it's highest level.

The EU is faced with problems related to the unrestricted access to national welfare states of mobile EU workers. These problems are mainly framed by the growing opposition to the free movement of workers. The strongest contributing factor to these negative attitudes has commonly said to be actor-based, i.e. the media or political elites. However, more recent research has been shifting the focus to institutions as explanatory factor. I raise the question of to what extent individuals’ attitudes towards the free movement of workers are associated with their exposure to different welfare state institutional contexts. More specifically I explore the role of “earnings-relatedness” in specific social insurances for the attitudes of potential benefit claimants. Analyzing 12 EU/EFTA countries who are net receivers of mobile EU workers I find that in welfare state contexts with a high degree of earnings-relatedness the opposition to free movement is significantly lower than otherwise among the unemployed. Furthermore, I discover that these observations seem to vary depending on what part of the social insurance system one is analyzing.

No description available.

The master’s thesis on the topic “Market analysis and competition on the soft drinks market” describes current situation on the market, its structure with the focus on existing competition, it put the accent on the evaluation of the strategy applied by the strongest undertaking on the market, examines a describes distribution channels and analyse the market demand for products including its estimation of the trend in the future. This thesis results from theoretical resources as are general analysis used for the purpose of the market studies oriented on business sector as well as common environment and its own functioning and the thesis is based on the competitive strategy defined by M.E. Porter. Further the thesis is dealing with data resources and methods of data handling, including data collection, classification, segmentation and its following evaluation. Master´s thesis is the guideline for the market analysis and decisions concerning entering new markets and among others gives the answers to the questions concerned the actual situation on the market and subjects that are operation on the market.

S tím, jak se neustále vyvíjejí nové technologie pro energeticky náročná průmyslová odvětví, stávající zařízení postupně zaostávají v efektivitě a produktivitě. Tvrdá konkurence na trhu a legislativa v oblasti životního prostředí nutí tato tradiční zařízení k ukončení provozu a k odstavení. Zlepšování procesu a projekty modernizace jsou zásadní v udržování provozních výkonů těchto zařízení. Současné přístupy pro zlepšování procesů jsou hlavně: integrace procesů, optimalizace procesů a intenzifikace procesů. Obecně se v těchto oblastech využívá matematické optimalizace, zkušeností řešitele a provozní heuristiky. Tyto přístupy slouží jako základ pro zlepšování procesů. Avšak, jejich výkon lze dále zlepšit pomocí moderní výpočtové inteligence. Účelem této práce je tudíž aplikace pokročilých technik umělé inteligence a strojového učení za účelem zlepšování procesů v energeticky náročných průmyslových procesech. V této práci je využit přístup, který řeší tento problém simulací průmyslových systémů a přispívá následujícím: (i)Aplikace techniky strojového učení, která zahrnuje jednorázové učení a neuro-evoluci pro modelování a optimalizaci jednotlivých jednotek na základě dat. (ii) Aplikace redukce dimenze (např. Analýza hlavních komponent, autoendkodér) pro vícekriteriální optimalizaci procesu s více jednotkami. (iii) Návrh nového nástroje pro analýzu problematických částí systému za účelem jejich odstranění (bottleneck tree analysis – BOTA). Bylo také navrženo rozšíření nástroje, které umožňuje řešit vícerozměrné problémy pomocí přístupu založeného na datech. (iv) Prokázání účinnosti simulací Monte-Carlo, neuronové sítě a rozhodovacích stromů pro rozhodování při integraci nové technologie procesu do stávajících procesů. (v) Porovnání techniky HTM (Hierarchical Temporal Memory) a duální optimalizace s několika prediktivními nástroji pro podporu managementu provozu v reálném čase. (vi) Implementace umělé neuronové sítě v rámci rozhraní pro konvenční procesní graf (P-graf). (vii) Zdůraznění budoucnosti umělé inteligence a procesního inženýrství v biosystémech prostřednictvím komerčně založeného paradigmatu multi-omics.