This thesis describes research into the problem of transmission congestion management. The causes, remedies, pricing methods, and other issues of transmission congestion are briefly reviewed. This research is to develop market-based approaches to cope with transmission congestion in real-time, short-run and long-run efficiently, economically and fairly. Extended OPF techniques have been playing key roles in many aspects of electricity markets. The Primal-Dual Interior Point Linear Programming and Quadratic Programming are applied to solve various optimization problems of congestion management proposed in the thesis. A coordinated real-time optimal dispatch method for unbundled electricity markets is proposed for system balancing and congestion management. With this method, almost all the possible resources in different electricity markets, including operating reserves and bilateral transactions, can be used to eliminate the real-time congestion according to their bids into the balancing market. Spot pricing theory is applied to real-time congestion pricing. Under the same framework, a Lagrangian Relaxation based region decomposition OPF algorithm is presented to deal with the problems of real-time active power congestion management across multiple regions. The inter/intra-regional congestion can be relieved without exchanging any information between regional ISOs but the Lagrangian Multipliers. In day-ahead spot market, a new optimal dispatch method is proposed for congestion and price risk management, particularly for bilateral transaction curtailment. Individual revenue adequacy constraints, which include payments from financial instruments, are involved in the original dispatch problem. An iterative procedure is applied to solve this special optimization problem with both primal and dual variables involved in its constraints. An optimal Financial Transmission Rights (FTR) auction model is presented as an approach to the long-term congestion management. Two types of series F ACTS devices are incorporated into this auction problem using the Power Injection Model to maximize the auction revenue. Some new treatment has been done on TCSC's operating limits to keep the auction problem linear.

<p>The purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to a better understanding of how global seafood trade interacts with the governance of small-scale fisheries (SSFs). As global seafood trade expands, SSFs have the potential to experience significant economic, social, and political benefits from participation in export markets. At the same time, market connections that place increasing pressures on resources pose risks to both the ecological and social integrity of SSFs. This dissertation seeks to explore the factors that mediate between the potential benefits and risks of global seafood markets for SSFs, with the goal of developing hypotheses regarding these relationships. </p><p>The empirical investigation consists of a series of case studies from the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. This is a particularly rich context in which to study global market connections with SSFs because the SSFs in this region engage in a variety of market-oriented harvests, most notably for octopus, groupers and snappers, lobster, and sea cucumber. Variation in market forms and the institutional diversity of local-level governance arrangements allows the dissertation to explore a number of examples. </p><p>The analysis is guided primarily by common-pool resource (CPR) theory because of the insights it provides regarding the conditions that facilitate collective action and the factors that promote long-lasting resource governance arrangements. Theory from institutional economics and political ecology contribute to the elaboration of a multi-faceted conceptualization of markets for CPR theory, with the aim of facilitating the identification of mechanisms through which markets and CPR governance actually interact. This dissertation conceptualizes markets as sets of institutions that structure the exchange of property rights over fisheries resources, affect the material incentives to harvest resources, and transmit ideas and values about fisheries resources and governance.</p><p> The case studies explore four different mechanisms through which markets potentially influence resource governance: 1) Markets can contribute to costly resource governance activities by offsetting costs through profits, 2) markets can undermine resource governance by generating incentives for noncompliance and lead to overharvesting resources, 3) markets can increase the costs of resource governance, for example by augmenting monitoring and enforcement burdens, and 4) markets can alter values and norms underpinning resource governance by transmitting ideas between local resource users and a variety of market actors. </p><p>Data collected using participant observation, survey, informal and structured interviews contributed to the elaboration of the following hypotheses relevant to interactions between global seafood trade and SSFs governance. 1) Roll-back neoliberalization of fisheries policies has undermined cooperatives’ ability to achieve financial success through engagement with markets and thus their potential role as key actors in resource governance (chapter two). 2) Different relations of production influence whether local governance institutions will erode or strengthen when faced with market pressures. In particular, relations of production in which fishers own their own means of production and share the collective costs of governance are more likely to strengthen resource governance while relations of production in which a single entrepreneur controls capital and access to the fishery are more likely to contribute to the erosion of resource governance institutions in the face of market pressures (chapter three). 3) By serving as a new discursive framework within which to conceive of and talk about fisheries resources, markets can influence norms and values that shape and constitute governance arrangements.</p><p>In sum, the dissertation demonstrates that global seafood trade manifests in a diversity of local forms and effects. Whether SSFs moderate risks and take advantage of benefits depends on a variety of factors, and resource users themselves have the potential to influence the outcomes of seafood market connections through local forms of collective action.</p> / Dissertation

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / Jeffery R. Williams / The two topics addressed in this dissertation are both related to surface water quality. Reservoir sedimentation and water quality trading are examined from economic and environmental perspectives. Each topic and the resulting policy implications are relevant to stakeholders at the local, state, and federal levels. Reservoir sedimentation has been recognized as a major environmental, social, and economic issue in much of the Midwestern US. There is an effort to focus public and private funds to achieve the greatest return on the investment from soil erosion and sediment reduction strategies. How can physiographical and economic relationships within the watershed be quantified in such a way to provide insights into the selection of alternative management strategies? This study focuses on answering that question by integrating a physically-based watershed model with an economic analysis of alternative sedimentation reduction strategies for the case of Tuttle Creek Lake located in northeastern Kansas. Several key finding of this study are that both physiographical and economic factors must be considered for cost-effective conservation to occur. Considering these factors and targeting BMP implementation from 8 to 23 times more cost-effective than random implementation. If targeting cannot be done effectively or if “intangible” costs of BMP implementation are too large, dredging is likely to be more cost-effective. While this research compares the cost-effectiveness of various BMP implementation approaches in Kansas with dredging, the benefits associated with each of these strategies is not addressed. While there is substantial evidence that nonpoint sources have lower nutrient reduction costs than point sources, experience with water quality trading (WQT) reveals a common theme: little or no trading activity. These outcomes suggest the presence of obstacles to trading that were not recognized in the design of existing programs. To examine the ways that various market imperfections may impact the performance of a WQT market, an agent-based model is constructed, which simulates a hypothetical point-nonpoint market. This study first presents an overview of the concepts and simulation modeling technique used and then analyzes the effects of two prominent market impediments identified in the WQT literature: information levels and trading ratios. The results imply that if market designers feel that only a limited number of trades will be consummated, creating an institution that provides accessible information about buyers’ prices is preferred to providing information about sellers’ prices. Overall, more information is always better, but it becomes less important with higher trading ratios.

Background: It is argued that most of the new product do not fail in the end but it fails in the beginning of the innovation. Managing front end of NPD, is the most important and difficult challenges facing the innovation managers. Effectively promoting front end activities can contribute directly to the success of the new product. So, integrating market-based partners (suppliers and customers) in the front-end phase enhances the quantity and quality of ideas. Problem discussion: Authors have suggested the involvement of market-based partners as early as possible in the NPD process will reduce the fuzziness in front end phase. The collaboration process with market-based partners implies that combining the idiosyncratic resources in unique ways, firms would relish greater innovation success. But this process of integration or collaboration with market-based partners are not that easy as it entails different appropriation and coordination concerns. Majority of the literature is concentrated on integrating market-based partners in the back-end activities of NPD, leaving a bit of void in the front-end phase of NPD. Method: The methodological choice of this thesis follows an exploratory study to seek new insights into an existing subject. The thesis is a following a deductive approach and is qualitative in the research choice. Purpose: To provide insights on integrating market-based partners in the front-end phase of new product development where the information is scattered around. This thesis identifies a structure that facilitates the integration of market-based partners in the fuzzy front end of NPD to mitigate the appropriation concerns and challenges.

No description available.

<p>This thesis interrogates the claim that resource-poor, rural land seekers can acquire land through the land market which constitutes the central mechanism of land redistribution in South Africa&rsquo / s market-based land reform programme. The study explores two key aspects in relation to this claim. Firstly, it provides a critique of the underlying assumptions prevalent in much of the current market-based land reform policy, as advocated by its national and international proponents, and the manner in which the market as a mechanism for land redistribution has been conceptualized and its outcomes envisaged. Secondly, it considers the extent to which this conceptualization - which it is argued, draws on idealized and abstracted notions of land market functioning - is realized and examines the extent to which the espoused outcomes of market-based land reform policy are aligned with or contradicted by the functioning of real markets and the experiences of resource-poor land seeking people in their attempts to engage in the land market with limited state support. The details of the market&rsquo / s operation are analysed, with a distinction made between the operational practice of real markets &ndash / based on direct evidence-based observation <br /> and degrees of policy abstraction and theoretical assumptions regarding how markets should or might operate. The study&rsquo / s methodological framework draws on an agrarian political economy perspective, as used by theorists such as Akram-Lodhi (2007) and Courville (2005), amongst others. This perspective enables a consideration of the various contexts and socially embedded processes involved in land transactions and the extent to which these are shaped and framed by the politics of policy-making. In line with this perspective, the study focuses on the social relations brought to bear on the acquisition of land and the way in which land markets operate. It is suggested that land is not solely viewed as an economic commodity by land-seekers. Furthermore, it was found that markets cannot be understood as neutral institutions in which participants are equal players.</p>

No description available.

A significant global industry, the provision of market research is a business to business service where market research organizations provide market research information to customers, who in turn, need to make informed decisions about marketing strategy alternatives. This study involves a systematic literature review of the influences impacting on the use of market research information. It expounds the conditions, factors and mechanisms that induce or hinder the process of use among client organization users. In so doing, this investigation provides a descriptive assessment of the body of knowledge from which this study draws. This study proposes a theoretical framework of the reported conditions, factors and mechanisms that enhance or hinder the process at different stages of usage of market research. Influences like (user) organization’s strategy, structure, market philosophy, stance in the market and access to market research suppliers have a direct effect on how user organizations seek and apply market research information. The process of usage features seven phases, contrasting against the four or five phases that are typically reported in literature. Application of market research information in marketing decisions may follow one of three possible types of application: instrumental, conceptual and symbolic. This study also explores the various limitations in our understanding of this phenomenon. Relying on a number of published positivist contributions, our understanding of this process is composed of narrow views of specific causalities, each investigated independently from the rest. These result in an incomplete, inconsistent picture about a phenomenon. For instance, influences impacting on transformation and dissemination steps remain largely unknown, as are the factors impacting on application of market research information like symbolic use. Equally, published positivist researchoften relies on a single informant approach that is assumed to represent the reality of an entire organization. The study concludes with considerations about future work that may form part of my PhD research, intended to address a selection of gaps in the existing body of knowledge about this phenomenon.

The dissertation proposes three approaches for financial risk management. In the first topic, we investigate the stock return and risk of financial holding companies via Markov regime-switching model. The model reduces the disadvantage of traditional linear model, which disregard information of another regime if there exist structural change during the estimation periods. The empirical result shows that all financial holding companies have different stock risk between state 0 and state 1. Moreover, stock risks of all financial holding companies are significant lower after listing. That is, financial holding companies have diversification benefits after listing. In the second topic, we gauge the credit risk of guarantee issue in a bills finance company in Taiwan by a market-based model. Since bills finance companies engage in short-term loans, we renew the contract that can extend short-term loans to mid-and long-term loans. We find that the recovery rate, different industries and business cycle have significant impact on the credit risk of the bills finance company. In the third topic, we relax the assumption of Jarrow, Lando and Turnbull (1997), and propose an elaborate model to gauge the credit risk of Taiwanese bank loans. The empirical result indicates that the credit risk is heavily reliant on the recovery rate. Therefore, collateral value check procedure is very important, which has been found in previous topic. On the other hand, we find that the credit risk management is indifferent between banks participated in financial holding companies and others. That is, banks do not have better credit risk management if take part in financial holding companies. In conclusion, we expect approaches of the dissertation will be helpful for Taiwan¡¦s financial institutions to rise to the challenge of financial risk in the future.

<p>This thesis interrogates the claim that resource-poor, rural land seekers can acquire land through the land market which constitutes the central mechanism of land redistribution in South Africa&rsquo / s market-based land reform programme. The study explores two key aspects in relation to this claim. Firstly, it provides a critique of the underlying assumptions prevalent in much of the current market-based land reform policy, as advocated by its national and international proponents, and the manner in which the market as a mechanism for land redistribution has been conceptualized and its outcomes envisaged. Secondly, it considers the extent to which this conceptualization - which it is argued, draws on idealized and abstracted notions of land market functioning - is realized and examines the extent to which the espoused outcomes of market-based land reform policy are aligned with or contradicted by the functioning of real markets and the experiences of resource-poor land seeking people in their attempts to engage in the land market with limited state support. The details of the market&rsquo / s operation are analysed, with a distinction made between the operational practice of real markets &ndash / based on direct evidence-based observation <br /> and degrees of policy abstraction and theoretical assumptions regarding how markets should or might operate. The study&rsquo / s methodological framework draws on an agrarian political economy perspective, as used by theorists such as Akram-Lodhi (2007) and Courville (2005), amongst others. This perspective enables a consideration of the various contexts and socially embedded processes involved in land transactions and the extent to which these are shaped and framed by the politics of policy-making. In line with this perspective, the study focuses on the social relations brought to bear on the acquisition of land and the way in which land markets operate. It is suggested that land is not solely viewed as an economic commodity by land-seekers. Furthermore, it was found that markets cannot be understood as neutral institutions in which participants are equal players.</p>