Explore the vast range of titles available.

We reconsider the decomposition of the comparative statics effect of a factor price increase on (unconditional) factor demand into a substitution and a size (or level) effect. While for the own price effect the substitution effect and the size effect go into the same negative direction, the cross price effect cannot be signed unambiguously, in general. But for two cases of regularity, homotheticity and complementarity, the size effect is negative. We furthermore show by example that in both special cases the cross substitution effects are still ambiguous, but that under complementarity the unconditional effect is always negative. Hence, if the cross substitution effect happens to be positive, it is dominated by the negative size effect in this case. We further show by example that without such regularity assumptions the cross price effect is ambiguous. Finally, we study the impact of a factor price increase on the cost, which can also increase or decrease.

We document a negative correlation, at business cycle frequencies, between the net job creation rate of large employers and the level of aggregate unemployment that is much stronger than for small employers. The differential growth rate of employment between initially large and small employers has an unconditional correlation of -0.5 with the unemployment rate, and varies by about 5percent over the business cycle. We exploit several datasets from the United States, Denmark, and France, both repeated cross sections and job flows with employer longitudinal information, spanning the last four decades and several business cycles. We discuss implications for theories of factor demand.

Electricity demand forecasting is essential for utilities. For the consumer, predictability of demand is vital for efficient operation, installation, sizing and maintenance planning. Hospitals, which are among the institutions with high-energy consumption, provide uninterrupted service 24 h a day, 7 days a week. Every hospital building is unique, and many do not conform to a typical shape or floor plan. Depending on the services provided, each hospital can differ significantly in terms of energy demand. Therefore, demand forecasting is one of the most complex elements of hospital construction. Although there are many studies on energy optimization related to hospital buildings in the literature, there is a knowledge gap regarding the maximum power estimation of hospitals. In this study, the annual electrical energy use of 23 public hospitals with over 100 beds in Istanbul is measured, and after determining the monthly peak loads, two new forecasting models are generated using regression techniques for maximum demand forecasting. It is determined that the design criteria used in power calculations in hospitals was very high. A positive result was obtained from the linear regression technique, which is one of the basic regression techniques, and it was shown that the maximum power needs of the hospital can be estimated with great confidence by determining a new design factor in the light of the determined values. This study allows designers to set maximum demands and select transformer and generator sizes with a single formula.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate industry-specific direct rebound effects and to relate these effects to industry energy efficiency programs. The rebound effect represents economic behavior that will offset energy savings from energy efficiency improvements. The paper focuses on four energy intense sectors in Sweden; pulp and paper, iron and steel, chemical, and mining, during 2001–2012. We apply a factor demand model that allows for asymmetric energy price responses, i.e. that firms respond differently to increasing and decreasing energy prices. The results show considerable rebound effects. For electricity and non-fossil fuels, efficiency improvements could even ‘backfire’. To mitigate this effect, policies, such as voluntary energy efficiency programs, should be combined with an increase in energy taxes if the ambition is to reduce overall energy use.

Background Low-value care is unnecessary care that contributes to inefficient use of health resources and constitutes a considerable proportion of healthcare expenditures worldwide. Factors contributing to patients’ demand for low-value care have often been overlooked and are dispersed in the literature. Therefore, the current study aimed to systematically summarize factors associated with patients’ demand for low-value care. Methods In this scoping review, scientific articles were identified based on a search query conducted in Embase and Scopus. We identified articles using search terms related to low-value care and demand-related factors, published in peer-reviewed journals, and written in English or Dutch. The titles, abstracts, results, and conclusions were inspected to only include articles that were deemed relevant for this topic. From these articles we extracted text fragments that contained factors associated with patients’ demand for low-value care. Hereafter, a thematic analysis was applied to openly, axially, and selectively code textual fragments to identify themes within the data. Results Forty-seven articles were included in this review. We identified eight core themes associated with patients’ demand for low-value care: cognitive biases, emotions, preferences and expectations, knowledge-related factors, socio-cultural factors, biomedical and care-related factors, economic factors, and factors related to the interaction with the healthcare provider. Within these core themes, thirty-three subthemes were identified. For example, risk aversion and anticipated regret aversion are sub-themes of cognitive biases, while consumerism and present and future income effects are sub-themes of economic factors. Conclusions Through this review we provide a systematic overview of factors associated with the demand for low-value care. We found that patients’ demand for low-value care could relate to a multitude of factors that were clustered into eight core themes and thirty-three subthemes. To understand the demand for low-value care from the patient’s perspective in greater detail, future research should focus on the interaction between and importance of these factors in different care contexts.

This paper considers the predictions for factor demand of a two-sector vertically integrated model of firms producing output using firm-specific capital along with a second sector producing firm-specific capital that adapts raw capital purchased in the market. Analysts rarely observe each sector separately. Aggregating over both sectors produces short-run and long-run factor demand functions that appear to be perverse, but when disaggregated obey standard neoclassical properties. For example, a firm’s response to a minimum wage could appear to violate the law of demand because it hires labor to install machines to replace the more expensive labor in the final output sector. Adjustment costs create the appearance of static inefficiency in the presence of dynamic efficiency.

The objective of identifying constraining factors is to reveal that the key obstacles affecting the competitiveness of South Africa's domestic orange industry include issues such as the \"quality of unskilled labor,\" \"trust in the honesty of politicians,\" \"electricity suppliers,\" \"health,\" \"South Africa’s land reform policy,\" \"South Africa’s BEE policy,\" and \"crime.\" Additionally, challenges related to the lack of quality infrastructure, bilateral agreements with trading countries, and poor performance of ports relative to their global counterparts have been identified. The constraining factors were ranked, with the top issues aligning closely with the industry's current challenges. In contrast, enhancing factors play a crucial role in boosting industry competitiveness in both domestic and international markets. The key elements contributing positively include the availability of unskilled labor, local input suppliers, scientific research institutions, technological quality, the cost of unskilled labor, soil conditions, and the sustainability of local input suppliers. Attention to maintaining and improving these factors is crucial for the sustained competitiveness of the South African orange sector.

The need to combat climate change and its devastating impacts while simultaneously addressing the urgent need to achieve zero hunger and no poverty as well as promoting good health and well-being makes transforming Africa’s smallholder agriculture towards greater sustainability an urgent necessity. This study examines the influence of the agricultural practices with climate-smart agriculture potentials (AP-CSAPs) on labour (and other production factors’) demand and input substitution. The study was based on primary data collected in a cross-section survey, in which 1500 smallholder rice farmers were drawn by a multistage random sampling across farming communities, local government areas, and states in Nigeria. The econometric data analysis was within the framework of Zellner’s Seemingly Unrelated Regression method in estimating parameters of a set of factor share equations. The study found that labour and fertilizer could not be readily substituted in Nigeria; hence, an increase in the unit price of labour and fertilizer results in a higher share of labour and fertilizer in the budget. In terms of the effects of AP-CSAP use on factor cost share, most of the AP-CSAPs are labour-intensive with the exception of agroforestry. Similarly, the use of organic manure and residue retention is significantly pesticide saving while zero/minimum tillage use is pesticide and fertilizer using. Given that most AP-CSAPs require higher labour requirements, their success is often impeded by labour shortages. Some of the policies to promote AP-CSAPs include creating incentives in the form of higher wages and/or compensation to bring people back to agriculture. Accessibility and availability of key inputs such as improved crop variety and seed of green manure and/or cover crops, and leveraging on community-driven development approach to provide labour-saving equipment to rice farmers, may boost the adoption of labour-using AP-CSAPs in Nigeria.

Promoting Party building and Civic-Concern Management in colleges and universities is of great significance to the implementation of the fundamental task of establishing morality, firming students’ ideals, and constructing a good school spirit and learning style. This paper takes the integration and development of party building and ideological and political management in colleges and universities as the starting point, screens the demand element indicators, and explores the demographic differences by using one-way ANOVA after conducting a questionnaire survey. Then Kano model and Better-Worse satisfaction index are used to analyze the demand element indicators for the integration of party building and ideological and political management in colleges and universities. Finally, a practical optimization path is proposed based on the three dimensions of the obtained essential attribute elements, desired attribute elements, and charismatic attribute elements. The specific results are as follows: the evaluation mechanism for the integration of party building and Civic and political management in colleges and universities varies across genders, academic qualifications, and majors (p<0.05), and the satisfaction coefficient of linkage between party building activities and practical teaching of Civic and political courses is the highest (0.7706), while the dissatisfaction coefficient of optimization of incentive methods is the highest (0.9751). The integration and development of party building and civic management in colleges and universities can be optimized by strengthening the top-level design, improving team construction and evaluation mechanisms, and guiding external assistance.

Purpose This study aims to uncover the determinants of Islamic financial inclusion in Indonesia. Design/methodology/approach This study uses the analytic network process (ANP) to gather expert opinions and responses from academics, regulators and practitioners. Findings The ANP analysis discovered that the level of Islamic financial inclusion in Indonesia is influenced by two main drivers: the supply and the demand. The demand factors for Islamic financial inclusion, ranked based on their level of significance, are as follows: financial literacy (0.27), religious commitment (0.22), socioeconomic factor (0.19) and social influence (0.17), respectively. From the supply side, primary catalysts for Islamic financial inclusion based on their level of importance are human capital (0.32), product and services (0.24), infrastructure (0.18) and policies and regulation (0.17), respectively. Research limitations/implications The present study does not include the Islamic insurance sector in its determinant framework of Islamic financial inclusion in Indonesia. Practical implications This study serves as a reference for regulators in formulating appropriate policy strategies to strengthen the Islamic financial inclusion in Indonesia. Originality/value This study is a pioneer attempt to identify distinctive factors that influence the level of Islamic financial inclusion in Indonesia by analyzing expert opinions from diverse groups of Islamic finance stakeholders.