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This study aims to analyse enterprises' performance in terms of the National Innovation System – NIS in three Africans countries: Egypt, Côte d'Ivoire and Cameroon. Drawing inspiration from the Schumpeterian approach of innovation and using the World Bank Enterprises Survey (WBES-2016) data, we estimated a multinomial logit model. The results show that innovation system's different spheres (academic, governmental, enterprise, societal and environmental) of the quintuple helix contribute more to improving the performance of technological innovation in Egypt than in other countries. In addition, the analyses enabled us to highlight the embryonic state of the NIS in Africa. Thus, underlying innovation policies have been proposed to improve enterprises' performance in terms of the NIS in the different countries studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Global Financial Crisis in 2007, a domino of banking distress episodes took place around the world, both at individual and systemic level. The bailout cost of these banking crises was extreme, especially in USA and EU countries, which were mostly affected. In recent years, there are many empirical studies, which attempt to develop a new mechanism of Early Warnings. As a result, more integrated and accurate systems are developed. Concerning the selection of the appropriate method, multivariate logit analysis is arguably one of the most popular models for EWSs. An important methodological issue, regarding the application of binary logit models, is how to deal with the observations following the onset of a banking crisis. One can either treat years after crisis as tranquil periods or remove them from the sample. In this paper, a multinomial logit model is applied to include all the crisis observations in the sample, treating them as a different outcome. Subsequently, this paper compares the predictive ability of binomial and multinomial logit models as EWSs for systemic banking crises in Eurozone, and, contrary to previous results, multinomial logit model does not seem to perform well to signal systemic banking crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Airport public transport systems are plagued by passenger queue congestion, imposing a substandard travel experience and unexpected delays. To address this issue, this paper proposes a bi-level programming for optimizing queueing network in airport access. Firstly, we derive queueing network for airport public transport system, which include the taxi, bus, and subway. Then, we propose a bi-level programming model for optimizing queueing network. The lower level subprogram is designed to solve the passenger transport mode choice, while the upper level subprogram is designed to minimize the number of passengers waiting to be served with queue tolls. Finally, we develop the successive weighted averages (MSWA) method to solve the lower subprogram's passenger share rates and the ant lion optimization (ALO) method to solve the bi-level program's queue toll scheme. The simulation results highlight that our strategy can alleviate queue congestion for daytime and evening scenarios and effectively improve evacuation efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assortment planning is a challenge for retailers because most current solutions only consider revenue maximization and ignore the trade-offs between revenue and market share. To address this challenge, we develop a bi-objective capacitated assortment planning (B-CAP) problem based on the multinomial logit (MNL) choice model and reveal managerial insights into the bi-objective function of the B-CAP problem. To solve this problem, we first examine the performance guarantees of the revenue-ordered assortment. Then, we provide parametric linear programming to generate candidate assortments and analyze the unimodality of the bi-objective function to simplify the computational complexity. Hence, the two-stage approach consisting of the geometric algorithm and Fibonacci search is designed to obtain the optimal solution. Finally, we present numerical experiments on both simulated and real data. The results indicate that the two-stage approach performs well in solving the B-CAP problem. Besides, an interesting finding is that market share may be significantly increased without a huge loss in total revenue when the trade-off parameter is small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fishing industry is a crucial means of reducing poverty and providing jobs for people living in coastal communities, but historically, there have been barriers to accessing markets. This study uses a cross-sectional survey to examine the factors that influence multiple sources of income, market involvement, and the level of market involvement for fishers in the Dawhenya reservoir, Ghana. Most households engaged in fishing only and were net sellers. The level of market involvement for net sellers or buyers is affected by declining fish catches and lack of inputs, while the intensity of market involvement is influenced by factors such as age, the number of dependents, access to infrastructure, limitations on inputs, availability of credit, and declining catches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market segmentation using consumer preferences is important for the marketing strategy. For staple foods, like olive oil in the Mediterranean region, intrinsic attributes of the product lead these preferences and should prevail in determining consumer groups. In this paper, we apply conjoint analysis and clustering methods to identify olive oil consumer segments in the Tunisian market. A survey was carried out among 274 consumers who were required to blind taste of samples and give scores for 12 different samples of Tunisian Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO). Results revealed three differentiated segments of consumers; 43.8% of consumers prefer strongly flavored olive oil with deep green color while 38.9% support light yellow olive oil with lower flavor. These preferences are described by age, income category, and consumption frequency. Our results indicate that in countries where olive oil is a traditional food ingredient, the marketing strategy must focus on the product's intrinsic attributes to better target customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In innovation literature, some view firms' failures as negative to their innovative behaviour, while others argue that failures have a net function – learning from failure. However, we question whether classic linear regression methods constrain understandings of patterns by presenting only one side of the cause-and-effect relationship. This paper complements conventional approaches to literature by characterising the forms of innovation behaviour as mutually exclusive alternatives. Through an empirical approach evaluating mutually exclusive alternatives, we detected that firms' failures simultaneously affect both the probability of choice to increase innovation investment and that to decrease innovation investment. Our results suggest that there is a certain threshold for the degree of failure to trigger innovative behaviour. When this is kept at a low level, innovative behaviour, rather than conservative behaviour, is more likely to be triggered. However, at a high level, companies could choose to increase their innovation investment; but they could also do the exact opposite at any time. Overall, attempts to model the innovation decision-making process as one on choosing the best out of mutually exclusive alternatives allows us to simultaneously compare the probability of innovation behaviour, elucidating the multidimensional aspects of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In one of the most capital-intensive industries in the world, the investment decisions of container shipping companies, especially concerning new ships, are crucial to the success of companies. This study investigates shipowners' ship choice decisions and ship size preference through multinomial logit models using a dataset compiled by Clarkson Research Services Limited. The model incorporates the factors that affect ship size choice from three aspects: the internal traits of companies (company trait), the environment of the shipping market (market-driven strategy) and the performance of rivals (competition strategy). Different factors have different influences on shipping companies' ship choice behaviour and ship size preference in different market situations. From a market-driven perspective, the high new-built ship price makes companies choose small ships. In a prosperous market, when freight rates are high, medium-sized vessels are preferred, and investment in large vessels is less likely. From the company attributes perspective, the empirical estimation shows that larger container ships are preferred by larger shipping companies. When it comes to competitive strategy, shipping companies will be more inclined to choose larger ships when they see capacity expansion among their competitors. These results confirm the nature of an oligopolistic market structure of the container market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wheat is one of the most important cereal crops cultivated in wide range of agro-ecologies in Ethiopia. But, its productivity has remained low. Hence, this study intends to examine the impact of agricultural technology adoption on wheat productivity in north Shewa zone of the Amhara region, Ethiopia. The analysis is based on household level data covering 693 households collected in 2020. Multinomial logit model (MNL) and multinomial endogenous switching regression (MESR) models are used for analysis. The results reveal that agricultural technology adoptions are affected by the education level of the household head, off-farm employment, tropical livestock, access to credit, household saving, extension visit, and distance from the market. In addition, the study shows that the adoption of fertilizer and/or improved seed increases wheat productivity significantly. Furthermore, the adoption of a combined fertilizer and improved seed provides higher productivity than the adoption of single technologies. Therefore, this study recommends that government and other stakeholders should have to work in collaboration with rural farmers to increase rural technology generation; dissemination and adoption interventions to improve wheat productivity in the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates comovement and contagions in the commodities markets. We examine the comovement by analyzing the unconditional correlation coefficients. We document that commodities tend to partially integrate. We perform contagion tests by identifying coexceedances and estimating multinomial logit to explain the joint occurrence of those coexceedances. We document that commodities price changes tend to affect the probability of both positive and negative coexceedances. Overall, we conclude that there are comovement and contagions among commodities. However, the degrees of comovement and contagion are different among commodities and between positive and negative extreme returns. The contagion among commodities is asymmetric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of modern agricultural technologies remains to be a promising strategy to improve agricultural productivity, achieve food security and reduce poverty in Ethiopia. Despite the efforts to promote adoption in the country, the adoption rate has always been very low. So, it is essential to understand the determinants to the adoption of modern agricultural technologies. This study investigates the determinants of agricultural technology adoption decisions in the rural Amhara region of Ethiopia. The study is based on an Ethiopian socio-economic survey of 2015/16 and a sample of 656 farm households is considered. The paper uses a multinomial logit model to assess the factors affecting the adoption decision of agricultural technology. The result shows that farmers with more educational level, family size, off-farm participation, livestock, extension service, credit access, advisory service, and farmers closer to plot, all-weather road, zonal town, and farmers with lower remittance income are more likely to adopt new or improved agricultural technology. Accordingly, the study provides crucial policy implications regarding the technology adoption in the agricultural sector for all regions of Ethiopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies integration between pricing and coordinated inventory decisions for a two-echelon supply chain in a competitive environment. To the best of our knowledge, these problems have traditionally been solved separately. Therefore, we aim to support the decision-making process by following an integrated approach. First, we develop a novel mathematical model that coordinates inventory policies between one warehouse and N retailers and determines the selling price using multinomial logit (MNL) demand functions. Then, given the conditions of high nonlinearity in the resulting discrete-continuous problem, we implement three well-known metaheuristics to solve the integrated problem. Last, to quantify the impact of such integration, 180 instances are randomly generated, and the problem is solved using both sequential and integrated approaches. Computational experiments demonstrate the economic benefits of our approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The carbon footprint of daily travel for an individual household is based on the types of vehicles that the household owns, their fuel efficiency, and the number of miles traveled (Federal Highway Administration, 2009). Therefore, the types and usage of vehicles a household owns are informational to overall sustainable planning. This study develops a multinomial logit model for vehicle type choice and a spatial autoregressive (SAR) model for vehicle use for Ohio households using the most recent Household Travel Survey (HTS) collected in the Cincinnati metropolitan area. The developed vehicle choice model identifies the effects of the built environment characteristics on vehicle type based on vehicle size, controlling for socio-economic attributes. People residing in neighborhoods characterized with higher densities in population, employment, and intersection and with fewer single detached housing are more likely to own smaller vehicles as compared to the ones living in suburban areas. A good transit accessibility would decrease the probability of owning pickup trucks. The SAR model reveals how the vehicle a household owns is used is still slightly positively associated with his/her neighbour's vehicle use after controlling for the effects of the built environment and socio-economics. The models will enable decision makers to estimate potential changes in vehicle fleet composition under changing built environment scenarios and neighborhood culture in using private vehicles. Although the model results and estimated coefficients may be different for different urban areas, the methodology is transferable to other communities, locally and nationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smallholder irrigation schemes are critical in sustaining livelihoods of communities in the drier areas of Zimbabwe. The performance of these schemes as food and incomes safety nets has been questionable over recent times. Using a multinomial logit model, the study examines factors affecting smallholder irrigation farmers' selection of crop enterprises in their crop mix decisions. The paper uses cross-sectional data from 136 small holder irrigation farmers at Nharira irrigation scheme in Bikita district of Zimbabwe. A self-administered questionnaire, which was supported by key informant interviews, was used for collecting primary data on crops produced, sales made and specific household variables such as incomes and age of principal decision makers. Secondary data on contested variables such as sales and incomes were referenced. The data shows that the age of household head, association to membership groups, number of buyers available in the markets and the prices of respective crops significantly (p < 0.05) affects the choice of enterprises. The results also show that small scale irrigation farmers' decision making is constrained by lack of effective information dissemination mechanisms and weak core competencies of market signals interpretation among farmers. Stakeholders suggested the need to strengthen access to rewarding markets through decentralising marketing points. This can be sustained by information centers in their localities so as to harness from beneficial market information, which will in turn have a significant impact on how crop choice decisions are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of the study is to examine the determinants of urban housing choice in Debre Berhan town, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia. For this purpose, the study used both primary and secondary data. The data were obtained from 395 household heads selected from four kebeles. A multinomial logit model was used to examine the determinants of urban housing choice. Accordingly, it is found that age, gender, educational level, the price of the housing, years of residence, income of the head and access to credit are the major the determinants of urban housing choice. This study suggests that town administration, zonal and the regional governments should work together with financial institution to provide housing loans to the households so as to construct or purchase house. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite China's sizeable Muslim population, the demand for halal personal care products by its Muslim population has not been examined and empirical research on Muslim needs in general is rather limited. Filling this gap, this study investigates Chinese Muslims' choices of halal personal care products using the choice modelling method. Experimental data from 435 interviews in five cities in western China were collected. Interviewees were selected randomly, and therefore independent of each other, at mosques, urban squares and gardens, Quran classes, and Muslim shopping areas. We find that the availability of halal products in China is quite limited and consumers who are more faithful to their beliefs and who have experience in purchasing halal personal care products are willing to pay more for halal personal care products. Overall, Chinese Muslims prefer low price to high price products, and favour imported products rather than locally made produce. This study adds to the understanding of Chinese Muslim's halal consumption, an area that has attracted increasing attention due to the rapid expansion of its size. The findings of this study provide valuable implications for both Chinese and overseas producers who intend to benefit from China's fast-growing Muslim market and for governments to improve the availability of halal products for the well-being of the ethnic minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We used data collected from a face-to-face interview survey of 395 randomly selected farm households in Central Nepal's Chitwan district to understand the migration decision-making processes and migration destination choices. This district was chosen because it represents the microcosm of whole Nepal due to the presence of migratory population from all over the country within the tropical and sub-tropical climatic districts. We used probit and multinomial logit regression models to discern the individual and family migration decision-making behaviors and to understand what determines the choice of migration destinations. Results suggested that migration decision-making is based on (a) the presence of a large number of young males in the family; (b) having fewer males with secondary education; (c) having more females with secondary education; and (d) higher household wealth. These 'a–d'factors positively affect migration decision-making. Destination choice is generally dictated by individual characteristics and the economic potential of a destination site. Young, unmarried, male heads of families with a relatively large number of adult males but relatively low land holdings and wealth status choose Malaysia; older people from families with a fewer number of educated females and low land holdings choose India, and relatively less-educated females from families with less-educated heads of households but higher land holdings choose the Gulf Cooperation Council countries as their migration destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We envisage the waste management strategy of the local bodies as one of sharing different responsibilities with households along different stages of the process viz., collection, processing and disposal. This difference arises in terms of the variants of Pay-as-You-Throw scheme, recycling arrangements for non-biodegradable waste and treatment options for organic waste. In this article, we account for this policy heterogeneity by locating the waste management practices adopted by different municipal authorities in an integrated strategic framework. We use information on waste management services from country case studies to identify the variations in the sharing arrangements between households and the municipalities in urban areas of low, middle and high-income countries. Our results suggest that an efficient market in waste management might be associated with the degree of apportionment of cost of waste processing by involving households in the primary disposal and private entities in final disposal in the presence of economic instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to determine what causes the phenomenon of disappearing dividends, which mostly occurs in stock exchanges in developed and emerging countries. This is the phenomenon of the decreasing probability of issuers to choose to pay dividends (cash, stock, and mixed) rather than not to pay. The results of multinomial logit model show, that size and profitability have a significant positive effect on cash, stock, and mixed dividend decisions. The decision not to pay dividends is influenced by low agency costs, high debt, over-liquidity, and excessive investment opportunities. To overcome this phenomenon, all stakeholders must be able to manage the above cause variables in an integrated manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet offers several tools such as shopping bots and search engines that help potential buyers search for lower prices. This paper defines buyers' online search strategy as using one or more of these tools to search for lower prices, and empirically investigates the validity of economics of information search theory in explaining buyers' choice of a particular online search strategy. We find that buyers' attitudes toward the price offered by their preferred online seller, their perception of online price dispersion, and their awareness of shopping agents have a significant effect on their choice of online search strategy. An understanding of buyers' choice of online search strategies can help an online seller to estimate its expected probability of making an online sale, optimize its online pricing, and improve its online promotional and advertising activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study looks at the determinants of household energy consumption and how that relates to general poverty and energy poverty. It extends the Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index (MEPI) by estimating the rural-urban differentials in MEPI. The study employed multinomial logistic regression on household adoption of energy for cooking and lighting. The Ghana Demographic and Health Survey—GDHS 2014 data were used for the regression and three waves (2003, 2008 and 2014) of the data were used to estimate the MEPI as well as the rural-urban contributions to the MEPI over time. The paper provides empirical insights that household energy consumption is affected by socioeconomic variables and rural households are more deprived than urban households in terms of access to and use of modern energy. The most popular energy for cooking is wood and main electricity is the most popular energy for lighting. The wealth status of household, nature of residence (rural or urban) and the size of the household are key socioeconomic variables that affect energy consumption. An estimation of the MEPI showed that it has been declining from a severely deprived energy poverty rate in 2003 to a moderately deprived energy poverty rate in 2014. Also, rural homes (57%) are more energy poor than urban (43%) households. The study includes implications for the provision of clean and better energy sources for household consumption policies. This study fulfills an identified need to look at general poverty in relation to energy poverty and to look at the rural-urban differentials in energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the aim is to model market shares, the marketing literature proposes some regression models which can be qualified as attraction models. They are generally derived from an aggregated version of the multinomial logit model. But aggregated multinomial logit models (MNL) and the so-called generalized multiplicative competitive interaction models (GMCI) present some limitations: in their simpler version they do not specify brand-specific and cross effect parameters. In this paper, we consider alternative models: the Dirichlet model (DIR) and the compositional model (CODA). DIR allows to introduce brand-specific parameters and CODA allows additionally to consider cross effect parameters. We show that these two models can be written in a similar fashion, called attraction form, as the MNL and the GMCI models. As market share models are usually interpreted in terms of elasticities, we also use this notion to interpret the DIR and CODA models. We compare the properties of the models in order to explain why CODA and DIR models can outperform traditional market share models. An application to the automobile market is presented where we model brands market shares as a function of media investments, controlling for the brands price and scrapping incentive. We compare the quality of the models using measures adapted to shares. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers several estimators for estimating the ridge parameter k for multinomial logit model based on the work of Khalaf and Shukur (2005), Alkhamisi et al. (2006), and Muniz et al. (2012). The mean square error (MSE) is considered as the performance criterion. A simulation study has been conducted to compare the performance of the estimators. Based on the simulation study we found that increasing the correlation between the independent variables and the number of regressors has negative effect on the MSE. However, when the sample size increases the MSE decreases even when the correlation between the independent variables is large. Based on the minimum MSE criterion some useful estimators for estimating the ridge parameter k are recommended for the practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fundamental concern of agricultural development is the efficient marketing of goods and services. This paper examines the determinants of market participation and marketing channel choice decisions by small scale sorghum farmers using a case comprising 380 households from five Wards in the mid Zambezi Valley of Zimbabwe. Mixed data collection approaches including a questionnaire, observations and focus group discussions were used. Secondary data triangulated and validated farmers’ responses. A double hurdle based on probit and multinomial logit regression models was applied to the two decision making stages. Ninety six percent of the sampled farmers participated in some market as influenced by payment time, number of buyers in the market, age of principal decision maker and distance to market. Three marketing channels were isolated as local, traders and a combination. The local marketing channel dominates due to its convenience and relatively lower transaction costs. Using the local market option as the referent category, weighted average market price of sorghum, number of buyers in the market, distance to the market, dependency ratio and household income are the most robust determinants of marketing channel selection. Sorghum marketing channel options are limited for small scale farmers in Zimbabwe. Strengthening cooperative based and extension anchored marketing can reduce the risks associated with relating to external traders who usually exploit farmers for price, payment time and quality requirements. Decentralisation of the sorghum markets and promotion of value addition activities in the sorghum value chain is likely to reduce transaction costs and increase the market size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this study is the development of an aggregate air itinerary market share model. In order to achieve this, multinomial logit models are applied to distribute the city-pair passenger demand across the available itineraries. The models are developed at an aggregate level using open-source booking data for a large group of city-pairs within the US air transport system. Although there is a growing trend in the use of discrete choice models in the aviation industry, existing air itinerary share models are mostly focused on supporting carrier decision-making. Consequently, those studies define itineraries at a more disaggregate level using variables describing airlines and time preferences. In this study, we define itineraries at a more aggregate level, i.e. as a combination of flight segments between an origin and destination, without further insight into service preferences. Although results show some potential for this approach, there are challenges associated with prediction performance and computational intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite the benefits of walking as a means of travelling, walking can be quite hazardous. Pedestrian-vehicle crashes remain a major concern in Ghana as they account for the highest percentage of fatalities. The objective of this study is to determine the effect of both natural and built environmental features on pedestrian-vehicle crash severity in Ghana. The study is based on an extensive pedestrian-vehicle crash dataset extracted from the National Road Traffic Accident Database at the Building and Road Research Institute (BRRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Ghana. Using a multinomial logit modelling framework, possible determinants of pedestrian-vehicle crash severity were identified. The study found that fatal crashes are likely to occur during unclear weather conditions, on weekends, at night time where there are no lights, on curved and inclined roads, on untarred roads, at mid-blocks and on wider roads. The developed model and its interpretations will make important contributions to road crash analysis and prevention in Ghana with the possibility of extension to other developing countries. These contributing factors could inform policy makers on road design and operational improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to investigate individuals' perceptions about institutions that should be primarily responsible for reducing or preventing poverty, which is a dramatic phenomenon that became a crucial issue in European countries over recent years. We propose an empirical analysis based on European survey data and investigate some citizens'-level and country-level variables that potentially affect individuals' attitudes. Our results suggest that country-level economic and institutional characteristics do significantly affect individual preferences for the governance of anti-poverty policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing popularity of global positioning systems (GPSs) has prompted transportation researchers to develop methods that can automatically extract and classify episodes from GPS data. This paper presents a transferable and efficient method of extracting and classifying activity episodes from GPS data, without additional information. The proposed method, developed using Python®, introduces the use of the multinomial logit (MNL) model in classifying extracted episodes into different types:stop,car,walk,bus, andother(travel) episodes. The proposed method is demonstrated using a GPS dataset from the Space-Time Activity Research project in Halifax, Canada. The GPS data consisted of 5127 person-days (about 47 million points). With input requirements directly derived from GPS data and the efficiency provided by the MNL model, the proposed method looks promising as a transferable and efficient method of extracting activity and travel episodes from GPS data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labour informality is one of the most serious challenges facing a developing economy like India with large-scale poverty and decent work deficits. This study has inspected possible heterogeneity within informal employment among the non-cultivator workers. Multinomial Logit was applied to find out the determinants of participation in different components of informal employment. Significant heterogeneity within the informal employment on poverty, age, gender, socio-religious communities, educational attainment and industrial classification was observed. There is coexistence of voluntary and involuntary informal employment. Given the diversity of employment, one-size-fits-all policy design may adversely affect sustainable and inclusive growth in India. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article develops a mathematical model for residential location choice in which previous experience is considered via a dynamic learning process and each agent evaluates location decisions according to their utility. Agents’ idiosyncratic behavior is modeled, assuming a stochastic willingness to pay based on dwelling and neighborhood attributes and households’ socioeconomics. Additionally, the willingness to pay is affected by the agent’s experience of the urban context in previous periods. Numerical examples are given, and simulations are conducted using linear bid functions. Additionally, concepts of urban dynamics are used in the long-term, assuming quasi-equilibrium in the bids considering the externalities of urban configurations. The results are compared with a static outcome corresponding to the equilibrium model of land use. The comparison is performed using indices of urban segregation and both short- and long-term configurations. The studied dynamics show that static modeling does not explain all the features associated with such a configuration of the urban system (in both short and long term). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tens of thousands of vehicular collisions occur annually in work zones with nearly double the fatality risk as compared to all collisions (work zone and nonwork zone). Due to this increase in risk, this study's objective is to investigate the possible causes of work zone collisions. After reviewing previous studies, the authors examined behavioral, environmental, and roadway geometric factors to understand their influence on fatal collision type for work zones and nonwork zones. Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Fatality Analysis Reporting System database was used for years 2010 to 2012. To analyze the data, negative binomial regression and multinomial logit models were utilized. A binary probit model directly compares work zone and nonwork zone data. Results demonstrate that rear-end and sideswipe collisions are more likely to cause fatalities in work zones compared to nonwork zones. Clear conditions, daylight, and straight roads increase the likelihood of these two collision types when compared to other types such as single-vehicle collisions. These findings suggest that Intelligent Transportation Systems countermeasures (speed harmonization, vehicle-to-vehicle communications) should be investigated to encourage safer car-following and lane-changing behaviors rather than to mitigate work zone–related infrastructure challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has entered a “new normal” stage, where the returns to capital are continuing to decrease and low-skilled labor intensive industries are growing at a much slower speed. Whether the country can enjoy sustainable growth critically depends on the growth of the new economy sector. However, there is little information about the structure and growth trend of this sector. This article constructs for the first time the New Economy Index to provide a framework for measuring the new economy sector in China. The article defines the scope of the sector and uses a big data approach to identify the new economy sector and enterprises belonging to it. The New Economy Index is used to describe the growth pattern of the new economy sector. The findings show that the sector accounts for about 30 percent of the whole economy, and the New Economy Index is negatively correlated to several traditional economic indices, such as the Purchasing Manager Index of the manufacturing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In estimating individual choice behaviour using multivariate aggregate choice data, the method of data augmentation requires the imputation of individual choices given their partial sums. This article proposes and develops an efficient procedure of simulating multivariate individual choices given their aggregate sums, capitalizing on a sequence of auxiliary distributions. In this framework, a joint distribution of multiple binary vectors given their sums is approximated as a sequence of conditional Bernoulli distributions. The proposed approach is evaluated through a simulation study and is applied to a political science study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article looks into the determinants of occupational choices of working children in Bangladesh. Using data from 6668 Bangladeshi working children aged 5 through 14, the article estimates several binary and multinomial logit regressions, separately for boys and girls. The article confirms that most children work in the informal sector where formal sector’s jurisdiction and regulations are absent. Specifically, the article finds that children are least likely to work in the service occupation and are more likely to work in the textile sector. The findings highlight the diversity in the occupational distribution of child workers by gender and show how their individual and family characteristics influence occupational choices. The service sector, which comprises of mostly maids, is a hidden sector. This sector makes children vulnerable to abuse. Thus, it is suggested that policy makers need to come up with effective legislations that would protect the children who work in the ‘hidden informal’ sector. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

E-commerce has opened up new commercial opportunities for businesses and consumers. In consumer-to-consumer (C2C) online markets, not only can individuals buy from other individuals but also sell. This article investigates the socio-economic factors shaping individuals’ decisions to undertake C2C e-commerce. By means of a multinomial logit model and a unique data set of individuals across the full European Union, C2C purchasing and selling online patterns are analysed. This is an area where empirical evidence has usually focused on consumers’ purchasing behaviour and less is known about sellers. Interestingly enough, results point out that the profile of sellers and buyers differs greatly, except for gender. Hence, certain socio-economic features, social online networks and the breath of internet use show different effects over e-selling and e-buying. Moreover, cross-region differences in incomes appear to be correlated with consumers’ e-commerce use. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

South Africa waived user fees for primary healthcare in 1994 and, again, in 1996. The first waiver focused on young children, elderly adults, pregnant women and nursing mothers, while the 1996 reform waived fees for the remainder of the population, subject to means tests. We take advantage of household survey information to examine the impact of the policy on a subset of the reform-eligible population. Although it was expected that public healthcare facility usage would have increased post reform, no statistically significant evidence supported such a claim. Therefore, our results are consistent with some very recent research examining the 1994 reform, but are generally at odds with the general impression in the literature that user fee abolition matters when it comes to alleviating inequities in access to healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examines the impacts of the built environment measures based on two geographic scales, i.e., traffic analysis zone and one quarter-mile buffer on individual mode choice in the Houston metropolitan area. It is confirmed that they have significant impacts on mode choice in varying degrees. The models including the buffer-based measures are more reasonable than those with conventional zone-based variables for both home-based work and other trips. Finally, the elasticity estimates suggest the built environments are undervalued in the conventional transportation practices. Both land use and transport pricing measures should be considered complementary to control the demand for driving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The behavioral value of travel time is an important factor for evaluating alternative transportation facility or service improvement projects based on road user-benefit approach. This article presents the behavioral value of travel time with reference to home-based school tour in California. Initially a single value of travel time is quantified from multinomial logit and nested logit (NL) model estimate. Later random parameter logit (RPL) model is employed by specifying a random component for the travel time attribute. The values of travel time emanating from RPL model estimate are quantified across student population by assuming different types of tent-shaped random distributions such as triangular and normal. In this study the value of travel time is investigated separately for two types of home-based school tour: grade school and college-university. Overall this study examines the effect of alternative logit model specifications on quantification of value of travel time. The study is demonstrated using household travel diary data of the state of California, which is revealed preference in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

User perceptions of service quality are essential to promote public transport ridership and trigger positive externalities. Therefore, research efforts need to analyze service quality from the point of view of users. This article builds on the stream of works studying perceptions of public transport service quality but shifts the focus towards user heterogeneity. Using a discrete choice experiment this article attempts to disentangle different dimensions of decision heterogeneity for bus services. Among the main findings the article discusses the implications of different types of decision heterogeneity, such as non-linear preferences, and relates this to the formulation of bus service contracts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We examine transport-mode decisions by multinational firms to shed light on the role of freight logistics in multinational activity. Using a firm-level survey in Southeast Asia, we show that foreign ownership has a significantly positive and quantitatively large impact on the likelihood that air/sea transportation is chosen relative to truck shipping. This result is robust to the shipping distance, cross-border freight, and transport infrastructure. Both foreign-owned exporters and importers also tend to use air/sea transportation. Thus, our analysis presents a new distinction between multinational and domestic firms in their decision over transport modes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study investigated the major determinants that influence the choice of edible oils by households across geographical zones in Tamil Nadu state, India. The primary data from 1,000 sample households were collected using a structured pre-tested questionnaire. Multinomial logit model was fitted for determining the factors. The results revealed that education, income, and households with a history of health problems were the important determinants that influenced the choice of low-saturated-fat oils, whereas the larger size households and weaker section households preferred low-priced palm oil. Income and education levels in Tamil Nadu state surged ahead in recent years. In consonance to these changes the nontraditional low-saturated fat containing sunflower oil demand will increase in many folds in coming years. Hence, besides traditional oils, sunflower oil production has to be stepped up on “mission mode” through appropriate production programs to meet the present and future edible oil demand domestically. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The family planning literature considers behavioural family planning methods ‘ineffective’ because their users are not motivated to control their fertility. While this is true for the initial stages of fertility transition, studies report that urban, educated, and affluent women—propelled by a reaction against the medicalisation of the female body by Western technology—mainly use behavioural family planning methods. This elite group has the skill and knowledge to use such methods effectively. The term ‘ultramodern contraception’ has been coined to describe this phenomenon. This paper critically re-examines the ‘ultramodern contraception’ theory, and argues that it has certain limitations. Analysing three rounds of National Family Health Survey data for India, we argue that reliance on such methods may be a transient phase in the reproductive cycle of women, specifically before the desired gender parity of children is attained. Moreover, it may also be a manifestation of son preference. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Consumer confidence in Halal food and logo are shaped by numerous factors that include information on food ingredients, various Halal claims, and warnings on non-Halal products. The study attempted to construct consumer behavior of respondents through 3 approaches: after giving information, before giving information, and without information on Halal food based on the 2006 publication by the Consumer Association of Penang. This was done in order to predict the effect of Halal information on consumers' confidence while purchasing Halal-manufactured foods from 1,560 Muslim respondents residing in Malaysia. The multinomial logit model was used to estimate the parameters and the likelihood of the level of confidence differing among the 3 groups of respondents in this study. The results indicate that consumers are sensitive to the fact that any false information may result in the loss of their confidence level and it would also affect their intended purchasing decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore the impact of quotas on women's political representation, this study estimates a conditional multinomial logit for the probability of voting for men and women, utilizing data that includes all regional candidates in four Italian regions in 1995 and 2000. This regional electoral system allows voters to choose both the party and the specific candidate (open-list proportional system). The results show that the introduction of a 50 percent gender quota in candidate lists leads to a substantial increase in the probability that voters will choose women candidates, from 12 to 36 percent. Nevertheless, the probability of voting for women (36 percent) is lower than the probability for men (64 percent). Voters have a male bias in Italy. Both the district size and the political party have an effect on the probability of voting for women versus men. The more liberal the party is, the higher the probability that women receive votes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employs a database of over 2000 observations of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) projects in UK regions. We analyse this data by means of various multinomial and conditional logit models in order to identify the major determinants of the location choices of these inward investments. Having controlled for the various characteristics of inward investing firms, the projects and the regions, our results suggest that existing regional specialization is the single most important determining feature of where inward FDI locates. In addition, London is seen to benefit primarily by the immigration of new investments, the majority of which are related to service sector activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of urban network safety management, this article presents an alternative approach based on a qualitative response model, namely, the multinomial logit model. The main objective of this article is to compare and analyze the use of ordered and unordered mechanisms (such as the multinomial logit model) and consequently to select the appropriate model. To achieve this objective, urban segment data from Porto, Portugal, for a 5-year period were used. The ordered and the multinomial models were applied to estimate the parameters and marginal effects, considering three responses to reflect degrees of hazard (low, medium, and high). To compare and select the best model, statistical tests were conducted, and performance measures were obtained. Although similar results were obtained, the adjusted likelihood ratio test showed that the multinomial model was preferred. Moreover, to illustrate and compare a safety assessment using both models, the probability of each hazard level occurring was computed for two urban segments and hypothetical planned scenarios were defined. It was interesting to note that despite the slight apparent differences between the two models, great differences were found in the category probability model results, proving the importance of model structure selection. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyses the effect of farmer characteristics, variety attributes and agro-ecological conditions on farmers’ banana variety choice decisions in Uganda. A Multinomial Logit (MNL) model was used to estimate the determinants of variety choice. The results show that M9 was the most preferred hybrid variety, followed by M2 and M14. However, many of the respondents (39.4%) chose Mbwazirume, a local variety, as their most preferred variety. Good taste, large bunch size, soft food and good flavour were the most desirable attributes, while longer maturity period was a notable undesirable attribute. Results from the MNL analysis suggest that small land size, taste and regional location were negatively associated with variety choice, while perceptions that hybrid bananas could reduce food insecurity and tolerance to pests and diseases were positively associated with probabilities of variety choice. Probabilities of choosing hybrids for food security increase in favour of M2 (by 6.13%) and M9 (27.60%), and decrease by 23.05% for M2, 6.89% for M14 and 9.36% for M9 due to taste relative to Mbwazirume. Farmers’ involvement in varietal improvement and development programmes is vital for meeting their preferences. Future breeding efforts should consider attributes such as bunch size, good taste, soft food and agronomic characteristics. Farmers with large land sizes should be targeted for on-farm promotional activities to increase the potential adoption and impact of the hybrids. After the hybrids are popularized and used by farmers, there will be a need for an impact study to evaluate their acceptability in terms of household food security and income. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article proposes a method for multiclass classification problems using ensembles of multinomial logistic regression models. A multinomial logit model is used as a base classifier in ensembles from random partitions of predictors. The multinomial logit model can be applied to each mutually exclusive subset of the feature space without variable selection. By combining multiple models the proposed method can handle a huge database without a constraint needed for analyzing high-dimensional data, and the random partition can improve the prediction accuracy by reducing the correlation among base classifiers. The proposed method is implemented using R, and the performance including overall prediction accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity for each category is evaluated on two real data sets and simulation data sets. To investigate the quality of prediction in terms of sensitivity and specificity, the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) is also examined. The performance of the proposed model is compared to a single multinomial logit model and it shows a substantial improvement in overall prediction accuracy. The proposed method is also compared with other classification methods such as the random forest, support vector machines, and random multinomial logit model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to analyse whether the receipt of public R&D funding determines firm's R&D strategy selection. This issue is crucial, as previous studies have shown that each R&D strategy is associated to a higher, or lower, innovation performance. We consider three R&D strategies –make, buy, make–buy– and three different sources of public funding – regional, state and other (such as EU). The model estimation is performed through a multinomial logit model with random effects with a sample of 457 large firms for the period 1992–2005, taken from the Spanish Survey of Business Strategies. The main finding is that the source of the funding influences whether firms select themake, buyormake–buystrategy. Additionally, because of the panel structure of the sample, we observe that the effect of public funding on the R&D strategy selection lasts longer for state and regional funds than for other funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conjoint analysis and discrete choice experiments, which were developed in fields such as marketing and economics, are useful for understanding the voice of the customer to guide quality-improvement efforts. Unfortunately, these methods have received relatively little attention in the quality area. In this article, we provide some guidelines for the use of conjoint analysis and discrete choice experiments. We discuss what they are, why they are useful methodologies for quality improvement, and how a discrete choice experiment can be carried out. We demonstrate the methodology by discussing a real case study in quality improvement in detail. We then introduce a new class of designs for discrete choice experiments that are robust for a class of possible models. We provide several examples in which an optimal design based on the main-effects only models is shown to have limited capability for estimation of two-factor interactions, whereas the proposed robust designs perform well in the presence of two-factor interactions. We conclude with a summary of key points and directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]