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3721 items in total found

Journal Articles | 2022

Earnings-based borrowing constraints & corporate investments in 2007–2009 financial crisis

Ankitkumar Kariya

Journal of Corporate Finance

Recent work on the debt composition of non-financial firms finds that most of the large firms’ debt is cash flow-based with earnings-based borrowing constraints (EBCs), limiting the maximum debt relative to firms’ EBITDA. During the 2007–2009 crisis, EBCs tightened in the leveraged loan market. Consistent with the reduction in the supply of credit, I find that investments and debt issues of firms with binding EBCs reduce significantly compared to control firms. Furthermore, firms with binding EBCs cut their share repurchases and total payout during the crisis. In the cross-section, the reduction in investments and total payout is larger in the subsample of firms whose marginal borrowings are more likely to come from cash flow-based debt.

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Journal Articles | 2022

The changing portrayal of children in Indian advertisements: A comparative study of the three decades

Sharuti Choudhary andSubhadip Roy

Young Consumers

Purpose – This study aims to analyse the roles in which children have been portrayed in advertisements over three decades (1990–2000, 2000–2010 and 2010–2020) and what have been the changes in the portrayal of the children, including the changes in product type and target audience. Design/methodology/approach – The content of 212 television advertisements was analysed for the study; 32 advertisements belonged to 1990–2000, 38 belonged to 2000–2010 and 142 belonged to 2010–2020. Findings – It could be observed that in 2010–2020, marketers had primarily focused on children as their central idea behind making any advertisement. They were projecting children as an emotional and informational tool for attracting adults and children, directly or indirectly. Research limitations/implications – The implications of this study are manifold. Firstly, the study supports the theories of socialisation and the changing role of children in the same. Secondly, the trend over the decades hints at the marketer’s changing strategy behind using children in advertisements to target adult audiences. Practical implications – The significant implication for the practitioner is the possibility of having a child protagonist in an ad for the non-children target audience. Originality/value – This paper is one of the first to analyse the changing role of children in advertisements over a long time horizon.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Physimorphic vs. Typographic logos in destination marketing: Integrating destination familiarity and consumer characteristics

Subhadip Roy and Rekha Attri

Tourism Management

Research on the effectiveness of destination logos is sparse. The present study introduces the idea of physimorphic (nature resembling) logos and explores its effectiveness on the tourist vis a vis non-physimorphic or typographic logos. The study hypotheses are developed based on the theories of Cue Utilization, Processing Fluency and Cognitive styles. Three controlled experiments are conducted in sequence with a combined sample size of 514 respondents. Major findings indicate that a physimorphic logo may be more effective than a typographic logo in generating a positive attitude and visit intentions towards a destination, more so for an unfamiliar destination than a familiar one. The results also establish the mediating effect of processing fluency and moderating effect of cognitive styles. The study contributes to the body of tourism literature by introducing and exploring the concept of ‘physimorphism’. The practical implications of the study encourage the use of physimorphic logos for destination branding.

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Journal Articles | 2022

A multinational carbon-credit market integrating distinct national carbon allowance strategies

Miguel F. Anjos, Felipe Feijoo, and Sriram Sankaranarayanan

Applied Energy

We study the potential role and advantages of a multinational carbon-credit (CC) market allowing a set of countries to procure CCs for their domestic producers. We study the interaction of such a market with renewable portfolio standards, specifically regarding whether a country’s government or its energy producers are responsible for upholding the renewable portfolio standards (RPS), and how this impacts total emissions and energy mix. Implementing uniform carbon tax policies or cross-border emission trading systems hinders individual countries’ autonomy while strictly segregated carbon markets suffer from the tragedy of the commons. We develop a model where countries can have their own policies to allocate the CCs, which may include taxes or subsidies depending upon the country’s choices. We use a special form of equilibrium programs with equilibrium constraints (EPEC) game – Nash Among Stackelberg Players (NASP) – and recent algorithmic advances to identify equilibria for these games to identify the effect of such a common CC market, and the regional governments’ individualized interests on the resulting energy production patterns and emissions. We observe that countries could retain their autonomy and have reasonable freedom to set national policy by acting as intermediaries between the CC market and the producers. We carry out a case study using historical data and projections of energy production for the US and Canada, and observe the varying effects of such a common CC market on government policy and the behavior of energy producers. Establishing a common CC market could significantly reduce global emissions without infringing on national autonomy. Such a market helps governments to motivate producers to uphold renewable standards because if the producers do not voluntarily reduce emissions, then the government could enforce the obligation through its national policies, generally leading to a revenue loss for producers.

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Journal Articles | 2022

ShukraNitisara: A political economy treatise at the cusp of Indian kingdoms and colonial rule

Satish Deodhar

Indian Journal of Democratic Governance

Shukracharya’s treatise on political economy has been referred to in many ancient Indian texts such as Arthashastra, Buddhacharitam and Mahabharata. However, that treatise has been lost. A text titled Shukranitisara was brought to light in the nineteenth century. Written no later than the early part of the nineteenth century, the text has been written at the cusp of decline of the Indian kingdoms and entry of the colonial powers. The text is unique in that it seems to synthesize ancient Sanskrit writings as well as early regulations of East India Company. While a Sanskrit to English translation of the document exits and a few have also written about this text from the perspective of political science, nothing has been written from the perspective of economic policies. This is an effort to capture the economic aspects of the treatise. Among the four purusharthas or the life objectives, while Arthashastra had given primacy to artha or material wealth, Shukranitisara considers dharmic or ethical conduct as foremost for the economic decisions of the state and the householder. Among other things, the treatise addresses issues of governance, breadth of vocations and sciences, public finance, prices, markets, contracts, labour relations, and advice to a householder. If some of the policies mentioned in Shukranitisara are detailed and unique as compared to Arthashastra, some other are similar to the early regulations of the East India Company. Some of the policy advices from the text remain relevant even for today.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Polarised social media discourse during COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from YouTube

Samrat Gupta, Gaurav Jain, and Amit Anand Tiwari

Behaviour & Information Technology

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has attracted significant attention on social media platforms as these platforms provide users unparalleled access to ‘information’ from around the globe. In spite of demographic differences, people have been expressing and shaping their opinions using social media on topics ranging from the plight of migrant workers to vaccine development. However, the social media induced polarisation owing to selective online exposure to information during the COVID-19 pandemic has been a major cause of concern for countries across the world. In this paper, we analyse the temporal dynamics of polarisation in online discourse related to the COVID-19. We use random network theory-based simulation to investigate the evolution of opinion formation in comments posted on different COVID-19-related YouTube videos. Our findings reveal that as the pandemic unfolded, the extent of polarisation in the online discourse increased with time. We validate our experimental model using real-world complex networks and compare consensus formation on these networks with equivalent random networks. This study has several implications as polarisation around socio-cultural issues in crises such as pandemic can exacerbate the social divide. The framework proposed in this study can aid regulatory agencies to take required actions and mitigate social media-induced polarisation.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Exploring reasons for MD-PhD trainees’ experiences of impostor phenomenon

Devasmita Chakraverty, Jose E. Cavazos, and Donna B. Jeffe

BMC Medical Education

Background

Acceptance into U.S. MD-PhD dual-degree programs is highly competitive, and the lengthy training program requires transitioning between multiple phases (pre-clinical-, PhD-research-, and clinical-training phases), which can be stressful. Challenges faced during MD-PhD training could exacerbate self-doubt and anxiety. Impostor phenomenon is the experience of feeling like a fraud, with some high-achieving, competent individuals attributing their successes to luck or other factors rather than their own ability and hard work. To our knowledge, impostor phenomenon among MD-PhD trainees has not been described. This study examined impostor phenomenon experiences during MD-PhD training and reasons trainees attributed to these feelings.

Methods

Individuals in science and medicine fields participated in an online survey that included the 20-item Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale (CIPS); higher scores (range 20–100) indicate more frequent impostor phenomenon. Some respondents who reported experiencing impostor phenomenon also voluntarily completed a semi-structured interview, sharing experiences during training that contributed to feelings of impostor phenomenon. Interview transcripts were coded and analysed using the constant comparative method and analytic induction to identify themes.

Results

Of 959 survey respondents (students and professionals in science and medicine), 13 MD-PhD students and residents completed the survey, nine of whom (five male, four female; four white, five other race-ethnicity) also completed an interview. These participants experienced moderate-to-intense scores on the CIPS (range: 46–96). Four themes emerged from the interview narratives that described participants’ experiences of IP: professional identity formation, fear of evaluation, minority status, and, program-transition experiences. All reported struggling to develop a physician-scientist identity and lacking a sense of belonging in medicine or research.

Conclusions

Impostor experiences that MD-PhD participants attributed to bias and micro-aggressions in social interactions with peers, faculty, and patients challenged their professional identity formation as physician-scientists. It is important to further examine how MD-PhD-program structures, cultures, and social interactions can lead to feelings of alienation and experiences of impostor phenomenon, particularly for students from diverse and underrepresented populations in medicine.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Modeling landside container terminal queues: Exact analysis and approximations

Debjit Roy, Jan-Kees van Ommeren, René De Koster, and Amir Gharehgozli Ommeren

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological

With the growth of ocean transport and with increasing vessel sizes, managing congestion at the landside of container terminals has become a major challenge. The landside of a sea terminal handles containers that arrive or depart via train or truck. Large sea terminals have to handle thousands of trucks and dozens of trains per day. As trains run on fixed schedule, their containers are prioritized in stacking and internal transport handling. This has consequences for the service of external trucks, which might be subject to delays. We analyze the impact of prioritization on such delays using a stochastic stylized semi-open queuing network model with bulk arrivals (of containers on trains), shared stack crane resources, and multi-class containers. We use the theory of regenerative processes and Markov chain analysis to analyze the network. The proposed network solution algorithm works for large-scale systems and yields sufficiently accurate estimates for performance measurement. The model can capture priority service for containers at the shared stack cranes, while preserving strict handling priorities. The model is used to explore the choice of different internal transport vehicles (with coupled versus decoupled operations at the stack and train gantry cranes) to understand the effect on delays. Our results show that decoupled transport vehicles in comparison to coupled vehicles can mitigate the external truck container handling delays at shared stack cranes by a large extent (up to 12%). However, decoupled vehicles marginally increase the train container handling delays at shared stack cranes (up to 6%). When train arrival rates are low, prioritizing the handling of train containers at the stack cranes significantly reduces their delays. Further, such prioritization hardly delays external truck containers.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Loading and unloading trains at the landside of container terminals

Amir Gharehgozli, Debjit Roy, Suruchika Saini, and Jan-Kees van Ommeren

Maritime Economics & Logistics

We study the operational problem of loading and unloading trains at a container terminal. Trains are served by two gantry cranes which spread over multiple trains on parallel tracks at the terminal landside. Multiple straddle carriers are available to move containers between the stacking area and drop off locations perpendicular to the train tracks. The trains must be loaded and unloaded with given departure times. We develop a mixed-integer programming model to schedule the gantry cranes and straddle carriers to load and unload the trains. The objective is to minimize the total delay of trains. Due to the complexity involved, the problem is solved using a simulated annealing heuristic. We perform extensive numerical experiments to analyze the impact of different variables and parameters on minimizing the total delay. More specifically, the impact of three variables including the number of trains, containers on trains, and available straddle carriers are evaluated.

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Journal Articles | 2022

Dynamic vehicle allocation policies for shared autonomous electric fleets

Yuxuan Dong, René De Koster, Debjit Roy, and Yugang Yu

Transportation Science

In the future, vehicle sharing platforms for passenger transport will be unmanned, autonomous, and electric. These platforms must decide which vehicle should pick up which type of customer based on the vehicle’s battery level and customer’s travel distance. We design dynamic vehicle allocation policies for matching appropriate vehicles to customers using a Markov decision process model. To obtain the model parameters, we first model the system as a semi-open queuing network (SOQN) with multiple synchronization stations. At these stations, customers with varied battery demands are matched with semi-shared vehicles that hold sufficient remaining battery levels. If a vehicle’s battery level drops below a threshold, it is routed probabilistically to a nearby charging station for charging. We solve the analytical model of the SOQN and obtain approximate system performance measures, which are validated using simulation. With inputs from the SOQN model, the Markov decision process minimizes both customer waiting cost and lost demand and finds a good heuristic vehicle allocation policy. The experiments show that the heuristic policy is near optimal in small-scale networks and outperforms benchmark policies in large-scale realistic scenarios. An interesting finding is that reserving idle vehicles to wait for future short-distance customer arrivals can be beneficial even when long-distance customers are waiting.

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IIMA