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on Project, Program and Portfolio Management |
| By: | Soyolmaa Batbekh and; Keith Blackburn |
| Abstract: | Microfinance (small scale lending to the poor) is integrated into a dynamic macroeconomic model of income distribution. Two-period-lived agents, belonging to overlapping generation of dynastic families, choose between three alternative occupations - subsistence production, small-scale project investment and large-scale project investment. Subsistence activity is costless and riskless, whilst project investment is the opposite and may require external funding from financial institutions with imperfect powers of contract enforcement. In the absence of microfinance, only large-scale, collateralised loans are available through the traditional banking sector. Under such circumstances, initial inequalities persist as only the wealthy are able to acquire these loans, and as the small-scale enterprise is either not feasible or not profitable. With the introduction of microfinance, this venture is made both possible and attractive through the provision of non-collateralised loans and other features of microlending arrangements. Poverty and inequality are reduced as a result. |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:man:cgbcrp:106&r=ppm |
| By: | Flavia Cortelezzi; Giovanni Villani |
| Abstract: | This article describes a methodology for evaluating R&D investment projects using Monte Carlomethods. R&D projects generally involves multiple phases with or without overlapping. R&D investments are made often in a phased manner, with the commencement of subsequent phase being dependent on the successful completion of the preceding phase, it is known as sequential investment. Moreover, each stage creates an opportunity (option) for subsequent investment. Therefore, R&D projects can be considered as ‘Compound Options’ in which investments present uncertainty both in the gross project value and in costs. It is possible to use exchange options to value the R&D investment opportunities. In this paper, we propose to value the European and American Real Compound Exchange options through Monte Carlo simulation. We also provide a set of numerical experiments to provide evidence for the accuracy of the proposed methodology. |
| Keywords: | Pseudo Compound American Exchange option; R&D;Monte Carlo Methods. |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ufg:qdsems:04-2008&r=ppm |
| By: | Brouillette, Dany (Université Laval); Lacroix, Guy (Université Laval) |
| Abstract: | The Self-Sufficiency Project (SSP) is a research and demonstration project that offered a generous time-limited income supplement to randomly selected welfare applicants under two conditions. The first, the eligibility condition, required that they remain on welfare for at least twelve months. The second, the qualification condition, required that they find a full-time job within twelve months after establishing eligibility. In this paper we focus on a neglected and important feature of the program, namely that the financial reward for becoming qualified is inversely related to the expected wage rate. Under very simple assumptions we show that those who have a low expected wage rate have a clear incentive to establish eligibility. Empirical non-parametric evidence strongly suggests that individuals self-select into eligibility. We jointly estimate a participation equation and a wage equation that are correlated through individual random effects. Our results show that the omission of self-selectivity into qualification translates into slightly overestimated treatment effects. |
| Keywords: | SSP Applicant Study, heterogeneous treatment, self-selection |
| JEL: | I38 J31 J64 |
| Date: | 2008–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3738&r=ppm |
| By: | Corvellec, Hervé (Lunds universitet) |
| Abstract: | Risk is a key topic in the communication between developers of infrastructure projects, permit-granting authorities, and civil society. The nature of risk communication is contested among academics, however. Whereas some scholars conceive of risk communication as a matter of effectively communicating expert knowledge on factual matters to the public, others emphasize the role of symbolic construction and rhetoric. This article analyses how wind farm developers rhetorically construct risks in relation to the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for a proposed project. In Sweden, an EIA is a legally mandatory step in the application for an environmental permit. Our analysis is inspired by the New Rhetoric, the theory of argumentation developed by Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1958). It deals with the EIA for the Kriegers Flak project, the largest wind farm project granted an environmental permit in Scandinavia to date. We suggest that the authors of the EIA adopt a dual risk communication strategy; in the EIA they associate numerous risks to the project by identifying and cataloguing them; however, these risks are immediately disconnected from the project by being described as acceptable, manageable, negligible, or nonexistent. Although we draw from a single case study, we suggest that this paradoxical risk/no-risk dualism is characteristic of risk communication in EIAs, and we discuss some implications of such rhetoric of communication. |
| Keywords: | New Rhetoric; organization studies |
| Date: | 2008–10–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhb:gungri:2008_004&r=ppm |