•The two-stage stochastic programming model optimizes the social cost more effectively.•The total cost is a function of hurricane category and its interplay with risk.•It is preferable to deploy ...earlier for higher-strength hurricanes due to demand increase.•The number of dispensing sites increases exponentially with aversion to risk.•Funding for Lower severity-level supplies is preferred as the available budget is reduced.
We develop a two-stage stochastic programming model with recourse actions for hurricane preparedness. In the first stage, it works to optimize the locations of Points of Distribution (PODs), medical supply levels, and transportation capacity, and in the second, transportation decisions or flow. Our model minimizes the total social cost, comprised of deprivation and commercial logistics costs. Contrary to the extant literature, which typically employs robust optimization, we use probability distributions to avoid overly conservative estimates of hurricane impact. Additionally, our model facilitates the determination of optimal deployment time. We demonstrate the benefits of our approach in a case study. As risk attitude goes from optimistic to pessimistic, decision makers increase the number of PODs exponentially to spread the risk around. A similar trend holds for total costs as a function of hurricane category and its interplay with risk. Further, for lower strength hurricanes, regardless of risk attitude, the optimal decision is to deploy closer to landfall at 12 hours; for higher strength hurricanes, resources are best deployed earlier, at 36 hours, based on an exponential increase in demand for medical supplies. Deployment cost also increases exponentially as landfall approaches. These costs outweigh deprivation savings from an accurate demand estimate closer to landfall. However, when budget is limited, risk attitude is found to influence deployment decisions and a funding preference for lower severity-level supplies.
•Focus is on government and firm resource allocation strategies in cybersecurity risk planning.•Firms focus on prevention, detection, and containment safeguards, while government focuses on ...intelligence.•The countermeasure portfolio accounts for a strategic attacker and firm budgetary constraints.•Externality may reduce government intelligence.•Firms give preference to detection investment over containment safeguards.
We study the decision-making problem in cybersecurity risk planning concerning resource allocation strategies by government and firms. Aiming to minimize the social costs incurred due to cyberattacks, we consider not only the monetary investment costs but also the deprivation costs due to detection and containment delays. We also consider the effect of positive externalities of the overall cybersecurity investment on an individual firm’s resource allocation attitude. The optimal decision guides the firms on the countermeasure portfolio mix (detection vs. prevention vs. containment) and government intelligence investments while accounting for actions of a strategic attacker and firm budgetary limitations. We accomplish this via a two-stage stochastic programming model. In the first stage, firms decide on prevention and detection investments aided by government intelligence investments that improve detection effectiveness. In the second stage, once the attacker’s actions are realized, firms decide on containment investments after evaluating the cyberattacks. We demonstrate the applicability of our model via a case study. We find that externality can reduce the government’s intelligence investment and that the firm’s detection investment receives priority over containment. We also note that while prevention effectiveness has a decreasing impact on intelligence, it is beneficial to spend more on intelligence given its increasing returns to the reduction of social costs related to cybersecurity.
•Impact of a natural disaster on strategic choices of defender and allied nations faced with terrorism examined.•Non-cooperative sequential game with perfect information employed for analysis.•Impact ...on defense efforts of government and aid from allied nation evaluated.•Long term impacts wherein a natural disaster increases government’s defensive effort cost studied.•Counter-intuitive outcomes are realized when natural disaster of sufficiently small magnitude strikes.
We develop a simple game theoretic model to study the impact of a natural disaster on the coordination of defensive efforts by a target state (G) and an ally (A) in relation to the choice to stage an attack by a terrorist (T), to examine how the realization of a natural disaster can impact strategic choices in such a setting. We focus on “long term impacts” in which a natural disaster increases costs of defensive efforts for G. When costs for G are higher in this way, the optimal choice by A to provide assistance or not and the ultimate optimal choice by T to attack or not could be altered. For all possible parameter values, a unique Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibrium for the specified sequential move game is identified. A comparative statics analysis is conducted to determine how the natural disaster could alter the equilibrium outcome with respect to: (i) whether A chooses to provide assistance or not and (ii) whether T chooses to stage an attack or not. We show that for a natural disaster of sufficiently small magnitude, we could possibly realize one of two distinct counter-intuitive outcomes in which a natural disaster leads to: (i) A not providing assistance which otherwise would have been provided or (ii) T not staging an attack which otherwise would have been staged. That is, after a natural disaster occurs, it could be that (i) the ally of the target of a potential terrorist attack is less likely to provide defensive support or (ii) a terrorist attack is less likely to be launched.
•Robust models optimizing number, location, and capacity of Distribution Centers developed.•Parameter uncertainty within scenario and relative regret across scenarios modeled.•Facility damage, ...casualty by severity, and travel time uncertainties incorporated.•Concept of social costs probed against robustness of the relief network.•Social costs - setup, supply and deprivation costs due to delayed access modeled.
We develop robust models for earthquake preparedness by optimizing the number, location, and capacity of distribution centers (DCs). The goal is to minimize the total social costs, which include setup and initial supplies, as well as the deprivation costs associated with delayed access to supplies. The models incorporate various earthquake magnitude-specific uncertainties, such as facility damage, casualty by severity, and travel time. Examining the concept of social costs in light of an emerging concern in humanitarian logistics - the robustness of relief networks, we model two types of robustness: parameter uncertainty within a scenario and relative regret across scenarios. This unique approach reveals (1) the magnitude of social costs in the aftermath of an earthquake; (2) the hidden risks associated with inaccurate modeling of deprivation costs; and (3) the impact of budgetary constraints. We demonstrate the applicability of our approach via a case study featuring the Northridge region in California, which experienced two of the strongest earthquakes recorded in North America in 1971 and 1994.
•We study why countries violate human rights when faced with insurgencies.•The role of imperfect intelligence as a cause of such violations has been highlighted.•Conditions under which a tough policy ...does not work have been identified.•Empirical evidence from India suggests that a tough policy worsened insurgencies.
We explore why human rights violations take place in the midst of a rebellion. Authoritarian governments may not care for human rights but surprisingly several democratic governments have also condoned such violations. We show that the primary cause of such violations is faulty intelligence. There are two type of defective intelligence that can occur viz., missed alarm and false alarm. We consider each of these cases and determine the optimal human rights standard of the government. We then examine the effect of a decrease in the human rights standard on the probability of quelling the rebellion. In our theoretical model, this effect is indeterminate (i.e. can be positive or negative). We empirically quantify this effect using the case of Armed Forces Special Powers Act in India. Since the probability of quelling the rebellion is not directly observable, we use the magnitude of violence as its indicator. The magnitude of violence should be negatively related to the probability of the government’s success. We find that a lowering of the standard of human rights increases violence (i.e. reduces the chance of quelling the rebellion) and this effect is statistically significant.
In this study, we analyze the complexity of COVID-19 policies that must balance public health and economic outcomes by adopting a configurational perspective. Through a fuzzy-set qualitative ...comparative analysis (fsQCA), we reveal multiple, nonlinear combinations of the policies leading to the success and failure of health and economic outcomes, using 1543 cases built from a variety of sources. The results provide policymakers with a complementary and substitutive multiple-policy strategy in navigating a complex, unstable environment. Our analysis reveals several noteworthy findings. Each of the four outcomes can be achieved through different pathways. For instance, three configurations lead to Low COVID-19 Deaths, one suggesting an all-in approach with the presence of all causal conditions while an alternative pathway suggesting a combination of present and absent conditions. Further, we note that the causal-effect relation is asymmetric, e.g., school closures can lead to both Low and High COVID-19 Death outcomes, depending on both demand and supply policies undertaken. We provide valuable guidance to policymakers on the need to protect lives with the need to protect livelihoods, an ethical dilemma beyond health crisis settings. Our study framework applies to many policy decisions that involve weighing the protection of human life against economic loss.
•Executive Takeaways.•A configurational analysis of COVID-19 policies balances public health and economic outcomes.•It provides policymakers with complementary and substitutive strategies.•It reveals a cause/effect relationship that is conjunctional, equifinal, and asymmetric.•Results inform a policy matrix for mitigating the ethical dilemma of protecting both lives and livelihoods.
Robust optimization for hurricane preparedness Wang, Xinfang (Jocelyn); Paul, Jomon A.
International journal of production economics,
March 2020, 2020-03-00, Letnik:
221
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This paper applies the concept of social cost (i.e., logistic, deprivation, and fatality costs) to analyze the optimal deployment time, location and capacities of stockpiles for Points of ...Distribution (PODs) in hurricane preparedness. We first propose a single-stage, adaptive robust model to determine the optimal deployment time, given the time-variant characteristics of hurricanes. The model is nested in an optimal stopping-time framework that captures the trade-offs between increasing deployment costs and reduced uncertainty as the hurricane approaches landfall. Once the optimal deployment time has been determined, we then propose a less conservative, two-stage robust optimization model with recourse actions to determine the PODs’ location, stockpile capacities and flow. Tested on a case study, results show that 1) a non-adaptive model leads to poor decisions about the optimal deployment time; 2) improperly modeled deprivation costs pose significant hidden risks to decisionmakers; 3) deprivation costs increase $3–5 for every dollar cut when the available budget is strictly binding; and 4) significant savings in social cost result from the wait-and-see strategy implemented through the two-stage robust model.
In this paper, we look at the interaction of terrorism with immigrants’ quality of life (measured by the foreign-born unemployment rate and globalization level) for OECD countries, and its impact on ...GDP per capita. We find strong evidence that GDP per capita is adversely affected by domestic terrorism. The magnitude of this effect is also substantial: at the sample mean, a one-standard-deviation increase in the number of domestic incidents is found to decrease GDP per capita between 5.7 % and 7.8 % of the sample average depending on the specification used. These results contrast with previous research which finds that transnational terrorism primarily affects these economic indicators. We find strong evidence that when we factor in the interaction of the foreign-born unemployment rate with either type of terrorism, an increase in the foreign-born unemployment rate decreases GDP per capita. On the policy front, we show that peace is valuable, and OECD countries will benefit by adopting policies to reduce the problem of terrorism. We also find that an increase in the foreign-born unemployment rate has a large negative impact on GDP per capita and policies that close the gap between foreign-born and native-born unemployment rates (for example, those aimed at reducing discrimination against immigrants) help the economy.
This paper builds on existing research investigating the root causes of terrorism by considering youth unemployment as a measure of economic deprivation. In particular, the study focuses on terrorism ...in Middle Eastern and North African (MENAP) countries and features terrorism incident count data for the period 1998–2012 using negative binomial regression models. In our exogenous model, we find that while youth unemployment tends to increase domestic terrorism, it does not have any significant effect on transnational terrorism. Given concerns about endogeneity of youth unemployment in these models, we use two kinds of corrections-instrumental variables and lagged variables. We control for endogeneity by using military expenditure, under-five mortality rate and foreign direct investment as instruments. We are not able to reject the null hypothesis that youth unemployment is exogenous. Using lagged variables, we find a similar result as noted in the exogenous specifications with regard to the effect of youth unemployment on domestic and transnational terrorism. We also find evidence that domestic terrorism tends to have a positive relationship with press freedom, religious and linguistic fractionalization, and area of the country. Transnational terrorism has a positive association with the quality of democracy and a negative association with political stability and regulatory quality. The amount of natural resources tends to be negatively associated with domestic terrorism and positively associated with transnational terrorism.
•Youth unemployment increases domestic terrorism in MENAP countries.•We are not able to reject the null hypothesis that youth unemployment is exogenous.•Domestic terrorism is positively associated with press freedom.•Transnational terrorism is positively associated with the quality of democracy.•Transnational terrorism is negatively associated with political stability.
Does Hospital Status Affect Performance? Paul, Jomon A.; Quosigk, Benedikt; MacDonald, Leo
Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly,
04/2020, Letnik:
49, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This article investigates the impact of hospital profit status on quality of care as measured by risk-adjusted, 30-day, inpatient readmission rates gathered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid ...Services. It also evaluates the association between inpatient readmission rates and market concentration, measured by the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index, and various hospital characteristics. It concludes that nonprofit (NP) hospitals have a statistically significant negative association with readmission rates because they can focus on their mission without intense pressure to make a profit. We find no significant association between quality of care and hospital market competitiveness nor any statistically significant evidence to reject the exogeneity assumption of NP status.
