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821 items in total found

Journal Articles | 2024

Exploiting travel sequences to optimise facility layouts with multiple input/output points

Sayyed Mahdi Ghorashi Khalilabadi Debjit Roy Rene de Koster

The facility layout problem (FLP) involves arranging departments on a shop floor to optimise specific objectives, traditionally focussing on pairwise flows between departments. However, these methods often underestimate total travel distances, especially when flows involve multiple input/output points and visits to more than two departments. To address this, connected movements – actual routes taken by transporters – must be considered. This study uses data captured from an Internet of Things (IoT) network and stored on cloud servers to analyze worker movements and accurately calculate travel distances. A mixed-integer programming model is proposed to minimise total travel distance using connected movements as input. Due to the problem's complexity, a biased random key genetic algorithm is employed to find optimal layouts. A case study at a fertiliser production company demonstrates the effectiveness of the approach, achieving a 15% reduction in travel distance compared to layouts generated by traditional methods. The IoT-enabled method also minimises productivity losses by optimising worker movements. While the study focuses on fertiliser manufacturing, the findings are applicable to other settings, such as warehousing, where complex movement sequences and multiple IO points are common in processes like picking, packing, and shipping.

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Journal Articles | 2024

Washed away: Industrial capital, labor, and floods

Anish Sugathan Arpit Shah Deepak Malghan

This study quantifies the dynamic impacts of floods on industrial capital and labor in India using a novel dataset combining geocoded flood events with firm facility-level data from 2000 to 2021. Employing a stacked difference-in-differences approach with carefully matched controls, we uncover persistent negative effects of floods on firms’ assets and employment, with striking heterogeneity across sectors and regions. In the post-flood period, we estimate declines from mean values in total assets of 46.1% (16.68 billion INR ≈ 225 million USD), employment of 49.0% (8.20 thousand workers), and the wage bill of 74.5% (5.52 billion INR ≈ 74 million USD). The sectoral impacts are highly varied: the information technology and communication, manufacturing, and utilities sectors experience significant declines in assets, while the financial services sector exhibits growth. Mapping the spatial distribution of flood events and industrial facilities reveals pronounced regional heterogeneity in flood exposure and economic impacts. Adding nuance to the empirical investigation of the ‘creative destruction’ hypothesis, we find limited evidence of systematic capital reallocation toward better-performing sectors, suggesting instead that floods generate sector-specific impacts with varying recovery patterns. These findings challenge assumptions of rapid post-disaster equilibration and have important implications for policymakers and firm managers in developing sector-specific strategies to mitigate the adverse impacts of floods in an increasingly climate-uncertain world.

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Journal Articles | 2024

On measuring Muslim segregation in urban India

Arpit Shah Anish Sugathan Naveen Bharathi Andaleeb Rahman Amit Garg Deepak Malghan

The spatial segregation of Muslims in urban India is central to their social, economic and political marginalisation. However, the quantitative characterisation of Muslim segregation has suffered from the lack of readily available demographic data at high spatial and temporal resolution. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of accurately quantifying Muslim segregation in urban India using the latest electoral rolls data from Bengaluru (a megapolis of over 13 million residents) and an improved open-source algorithm to identify Muslim names. Our approach provides significant improvements over past efforts in this regard. We introduce two new metrics (diversity and local divergence) to account for substantial intra-city variation in the spatial segregation of Muslims. Our analysis suggests that the threefold ghetto–enclave–mixed taxonomy that the extant literature has quantified for entire towns can be found within large urban agglomerations such as Bengaluru. Our quantitative framework for Muslim segregation helps uncover the complex relationship between segregation and the ghettoisation of Muslims in urban India. Our measurement framework uses publicly available data and can be applied to study segregation patterns across urban India.

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Journal Articles | 2024

Millets for sustainable development in India: A social cost benefit analysis from a policy perspective

Sukhpal Singh K V Ramani Rasananda Panda

Sustainable development goals (SDGs) like zero hunger, no poverty, good health and well-being, reduced inequalities, climate action, and responsible consumption and production also figure in the agenda of G20 which is about poverty alleviation and food security through combatting global hunger and malnutrition, and cooperation in research on climate-resilient and nutritious crops such as millets. During the International Year of millets (2023), India, which had declared 2018 as the ‘National Year of Millets’, has taken many initiatives to promote millets, as a part of the G20 presidency. In the context of climate change, millets have gained substantial attention for their unique adaptability in harsh conditions like semi-arid lands and drought-prone environments. Millets, also called nutri-cereals in India, mainly comprise pearl millet (bajra), sorghum (jowar) and finger millet (ragi), and contribute about 5% to India’s cereals production. India is the largest producer of millets globally, accounting for 41% of global and 80% of Asian production. Millets have been a part of daily diets in many regions of India prior to the Green Revolution, but many farmers lost interest in millet crop following the Green Revolution, possibly due to higher yield and profitability of rice. However, the literature examining the value chains and social cost–benefit analysis of millets vis-à-vis conventional crops is scanty. This paper examines the value chain economics of the three major millets (pearl millet, sorghum and finger millet) which account for 85% of the total production of millets in India from a social cost–benefit analysis (SCBA) perspective and examines if millets can be recommended as a nutritional supplement to rice. It examines the major millets on macro- and micronutrient aspects of nutrition. The paper argues for policy support for expand millet production, strengthen its value chain, create public awareness about the health benefits of millets and to undertake activities to promote millets as nutritional supplement to rice in India.

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Journal Articles | 2024

Tests to determine employer-employee relationships in India: Looking towards the future?

"M P Ram Mohan Sai Muralidhar K"

The employer-employee relationship forms the foundation from which a host of social security benefits and labour rights emerge. Workers are traditionally classified as employees hired under a contract of service or independent contractors hired under a contract for service. Over the years, Indian courts have relied on the control, integration, and multi-factor tests to determine the correct nature of employment contracts. This article explores the evolution of these tests and examines whether the burden of proof in determining the existence of employer-employee relationships requires modification. It then dissects the efficacy of the current multi-factor test in emerging platforms and gig economies by looking at the standard form contract signed by a popular food delivery platform with its delivery partners in India. Finally, the article explores the ability of the newly enacted labour codes, particularly the Code on Social Security 2020, to address the classification conundrum and its consistency with precedents.

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Journal Articles | 2024

Structural mean models for instrumented difference-in-differences

Tat-Thang Vo Ting Ye Ashkan Ertefaie Samrat Roy James Flory Sean Hennessy Stijn Vansteelandt Dylan S Small

In the standard difference-in-differences research design, the parallel trend assumption can be violated when the effect of some unmeasured confounders on the outcome trend is different between the treated and untreated populations. Progress can be made if there is an exogenous variable that (i) does not directly influence the change in outcome (i.e. the outcome trend) except through influencing the change in exposure (i.e. the exposure trend), and (ii) is not related to the unmeasured exposure - outcome confounders on the trend scale. Such exogenous variable is called an instrument for difference-in-differences. For continuous outcomes that lend themselves to linear modelling, so-called instrumented difference-in-differences methods have been proposed. In this paper, we will suggest novel multiplicative structural mean models for instrumented difference-in-differences, which allow one to identify and estimate the average treatment effect that is stable over time on the multiplicative scale, in the whole population or among the treated, when (i) a valid instrument for difference-in-differences is available and (ii) there is no carry-over effect across periods. We discuss the identifiability of these models, then develop efficient semi-parametric estimation approaches that allow the use of flexible, data-adaptive or machine learning methods to estimate the nuisance parameters. We apply our proposal on health care data to investigate the risk of moderate to severe weight gain under sulfonylurea treatment compared to metformin treatment, among new users of antihyperglycemic drugs.

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Journal Articles | 2024

Stochastic vehicle routing with delivery choice

Prahalad Venkateshan Kamlesh Mathur

We consider the problem of designing delivery routes for vehicles where the vendor has the choice of how much of the demand from a customer to fulfill. The customer demand is known a priori only as a probability distribution. Exact customer demand is known only after visiting the customer. Different customers are able to negotiate different prices for each unit of product with the vendor. Given a route, the objective is to decide at each customer location, how much demand to satisfy so as to maximize expected profit taking into account a linear penalty cost for unfulfilled demand and the vehicle routing costs. In this article, we develop several new structural results for this problem. We illustrate how these structural results can be embedded in different heuristic frameworks commonly used for deterministic vehicle routing problems. This helps develop efficient routes for a single vehicle as well as a multiple vehicle scenario for this stochastic variant. For small-sized problems that allow for exhaustive enumeration, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the illustrated heuristic. For larger problem instances, based on structural results, we develop methods that allow the heuristic to run more efficiently than otherwise. Results are reported on instances based on benchmark instances drawn from literature for upward of 100 customers and vehicle capacity up to 600 units. Computational times needed to heuristically solve such problems are within 1 100 s.

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Journal Articles | 2024

A field experiment on marketplace literacy and self-help group membership in subsistence marketplaces

Madhu Viswanathan, Arun Sreekumar, Saravana Jaikumar, Shantanu Dutta

We conducted a field experiment to gain marketing insights into low-income, subsistence consumers in emerging markets. We examined two phenomena– marketplace literacy which is knowledge and skills about the marketplace to overcome challenges with low income and relatively lower literacy, and membership in self-help groups that has empowered women around the world. We studied how these factors influence strategies for managing product quantities essential for day-to-day survival in contexts with resource constraints. In a prospective design, low-income women were randomly assigned to self-help groups and marketplace literacy education, with pre- and post-measurement. Our findings suggest that, whereas self-help group membership and marketplace literacy help women in low-income households improve their strategies to manage product quantities, the interaction of these two variables leads to counterintuitive outcomes. Our findings provide a nuanced understanding of how consumer and marketing insights can empower consumers in resource-constrained settings to become more effective.

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Journal Articles | 2024

Mutation of the Trademark Doctrine: Analysing actionable use to reconcile brand identities with constitutional safeguards

"M P Ram Mohan Aditya Gupta"

With continuous and consistent use, trademarks can come to signify opulence, luxury, and dependability; and become cultural icons. The modern trademark doctrine must accommodate these realities of the marketplace while, at the same time, accommodating the flourishing exchange of expressive uses through unauthorised use of trademarks. This push-and-pull has resulted in the complete obliteration of what were already obscure boundaries between the expressive and marketing spheres of trademark law. The present study examines the normative foundations of the modern trademark doctrine, drawing from American, English, and European trademark jurisprudence. These foundations are then extrapolated to Indian trademark law to create a workable limitation of the mutating trademark doctrine through recalibrating the actionable use requirement. The authors attempt to discern the normative foundations of the individual cause of actions in the infringement liability and argue that such foundations should serve to delimit the scope of protection offered therein. Given the relevance of expressive uses in trademark law, the present study also examines the relevance of constitutional and policy-based arguments in determining trademark infringement liability. We find that within Indian judicial discourse, there is an alarming disconnect between the normative foundations of infringement liability and their interpretation. This affects the interpretation of the limitations offered by the trademark statute and can potentially push trademark law in troubling directions.

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Journal Articles | 2024

Unraveling prosumption behavior for online reviews during environmental uncertainty: A stimulus-response perspective

Manisha Rathi Adrija Majumdar Sawan Rathi

Online reviews are effective information-sharing tools due to their word-of-mouth characteristics. The extant literature has considered reviews as independent variables that influence business performance, while the environmental factors shaping these reviews remain under-explored. We examine the impact of COVID-19-related environmental uncertainties on changes in review prosumption (production and consumption) behavior. Based on the stimulus-response theory, with COVID-19 as the stimulus and prosumption as the response, we examined the changes in the characteristics of online reviews. Using the difference-in-differences methodology, we analyze online reviews of restaurants in two US cities that experienced different levels of COVID-19 impact. On the production side, we find an increased use of contextual terms and negative sentiments. On the consumption side, we find an increase in review usefulness and a decline in funniness. The results are robust, supported by coarsened exact matching and falsification tests. We conclude with a discussion of the study’s implications and contributions.

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