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Essays on Annuities and Their Economic Value for Retirees

Faced with an uncertain time of death, retirees may find annuities useful as they can provide a stable lifestream of income upon retirement. In reality, around the world, the voluntary annuity take-up rate is low. Researchers suggest this may be due to several possible reasons, such as a strong bequest motive, low financial literacy, a security system with generous benefits, or the lack of liquidity to prepare for unexpected medical expenses. In this thesis, three research papers are developed, each contributing to the main goal of the thesis, which is to provide readers with a greater understanding of the economicc value of annuities for retirees.

Faced with an uncertain time of death, retirees may find annuities useful as they can provide a stable lifestream of income upon retirement.

Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services Provided by Forest Ecosystems in Sri Lanka

A Study Based on 2010 Forest Cover Classification and the TEEB Database

Ecosystem service valuation is becoming popular among the economists, ecologists, scientists and policy makers. As a result, various research, publications and programs have arisen and content of literature is developed rapidly. Even though this field of study is developing rapidly, Sri Lankan ecosystems have not yet been valued or evaluated yet in terms of economic returns. Hence, the main purpose of this study is to calculate and define economic value for each forest polygon of 2010 forest cover data base by using the value transferring approach. This data base will be an effective tool to have a fair cost-benefits analyses of development projects which are most likely planned to be implemented on forested landscapes. The value transferring approach was selected for this study considering the free availability of data and expensive and time-consuming nature of primary valuation approaches. This study includes two main analyses: an estimation of total economic value of all ecosystem services provided by forest ecosystems of Sri Lanka and an estimation of economic value of water services provided by the forest ecosystems within the Mahaweli River basin which is known as largest and longest river basin of Sri Lanka. For the first analysis, required reference values of ecosystems services were found from the equivalent biomes of TEEB database. These reference data were processed at three levels and standardized to 2019 US dollar values by following a standard procedure. These processed results regarding water services were used for the second analysis and the watershed boundaries, sub-watershed boundaries, stream network, pour points were created using Arc Map 10.8.1. According to the results of first analysis, the total annual economic value of all considered ecosystem services range from US $ 3.472 billion to US $ 138.818 billion and the estimation can be averaged at US $ 34.5 billion. Results further confirmed that mangrove forests are important and ecologically valuable by reaching to the highest per unit area annual economic value being estimated at US $ 42856 per hectare per year. The water service analysis revealed that the economic value of water services provided by all forest ecosystems within the Mahaweli river basin is US $ 67.9 million. Analysis further indicated that, US $ 11,247,073 worth of water services are produced by the 78,429 ha of forest lands within the Parakrama Samoodraya sub-watershed annually. These results of both analyses are important in future conservation and management decisions making, especially regarding identifying restoration and enrichment priorities, and as a progress monitoring tool.

Ecosystem service valuation is becoming popular among the economists, ecologists, scientists and policy makers. As a result, various research, publications and programs have arisen and content of literature is developed rapidly.

Economic Value of Advanced Transfemoral Prosthetics

"Due to recent advances in technologies, prosthetic knees and feet allow for more-dynamic movements and improve user quality of life, but payers have recently started questioning their value for money. To explore this issue, we simulated the differential clinical outcomes and costs of microprocessor-controlled knees (MPKs) compared with non-MPKs (NMPKs). We conducted a literature review of the clinical and economic impacts of prosthetic knees, convened technical expert panel meetings, and implemented a simulation model over a ten-year time period for unilateral transfemoral Medicare amputees with Medicare Functional Classification Levels of 3 and 4. We found that compared with NMPKs, MPKs are associated with sizeable improvements in physical function and reductions in incidences of falls and osteoarthritis. Our simulation results show that over a ten-year time period, compared with NMPKs, MPKs are associated with an incremental cost of $10,604 per person and an increase of 0.91 quality-adjusted life years per person, resulting in an incremental cost of $11,606 per quality-adjusted life year gained. The results suggest that the economic benefits of MPKs are in line with commonly accepted criteria for good value for money and with those of other medical devices that are currently covered by U.S. payers"--Publisher's description.

"Due to recent advances in technologies, prosthetic knees and feet allow for more-dynamic movements and improve user quality of life, but payers have recently started questioning their value for money.

The Economic Benefits of Enterprise Architecture

How to Quantify and Manage the Economic Value of Enterprise Architecture

Most organisations have problems in explaining and managing the economic benefits of Enterprise Architecture. Managers often asked me what Enterprise Architecture can do for me. At the same time several Governmental organisations are adopting Enterprise Architecture as part of their change and E-Government initiatives. A holistic Enterprise Architecture approach can deliver a lot of benefits to organisations depending on the focus where to find these benefits. Even so Enterprise Architecture delivers the foundation for Enterprise Portfolio Management, the ultimate business driver for Enterprise Architecture. The main purpose of this book is achieving awareness at management level as well as at enterprise architects level about adopting an economic approach when dealing with Enterprise Architecture programs. This book explains the areas of economic benefits of Enterprise Architecture programs, the different views as well as a holistic approach to show the areas of economic benefits. Economic methods, models and approaches are described in short to show, how to quantify and manage the economic benefits of Enterprise Architecture programs as well as how Enterprise Architecture supports Enterprise Portfolio Management. This book has not the intention to be a scientific research document, nor a handbook to deliver solutions for all your EA related economic issues. The intention of the book is showing (board) management, CxO’s, business & IT managers, enterprise architects and students, that they can make progress in the determination of the economic value of Enterprise Architecture programs by adopting some economic methods and defining a process of collecting data of Enterprise Architecture effected activities and programs. With the growing importance of Enterprise Architecture at the same time, the discussion started how to align Business and IT on a natural way, now and in the future and how this fits in the overall Enterprise Portfolio. This book is also showing that alignment of business and technology is hard to do, but there is hope. This book is giving a holistic overview of the areas of economic benefits of Enterprise Architecture as well as the role, position and purpose of Enterprise Architecture programs in organizations as the foundation for change in Business and IT, embraced by Enterprise Portfolio Management. Cost / benefit figures from public sources are added to this book to show the effects of economic measurement. For the in-depth details of the described Enterprise Architecture economic approaches and methods, several references to the original sources of information are added in the chapters Terms & Definitions, References & Bibliography and Interested Links.

This book explains the areas of economic benefits of Enterprise Architecture programs, the different views as well as a holistic approach to show the areas of economic benefits.

Theory of the Firm for Strategic Management

Economic Value Analysis

Strategic decisions deal with the long-term direction of the firm and its main activities, usually the responsibility of the top managers in an organization. Because the firm is the critical unit of analysis in strategy, we need to define what firms are, how they create value, and what their organizational boundaries are in order to understand their overall performance. However, this must be done in a manner that is most useful for strategic analysis and decision making. In other words, we need a theory of the firm for business strategy. Theory of the Firm for Strategic Management integrates and expands key existing theories, like transaction costs economics and the resource-based view, to develop a value-based theory of the firm. This provides a framework to show how firms can create value for customers and, at the same time, capture economic profits for their owners through business, corporate, international, and social strategies.

Theory of the Firm for Strategic Management integrates and expands key existing theories, like transaction costs economics and the resource-based view, to develop a value-based theory of the firm.

Adding Enterprise Value

Mitigating Investment Decision Risks by Assessing the Economic Value of Supply Chain Initiatives

Value creation is no longer achieved through a single company alone, or through a network of local suppliers, but rather through wide ranging, even global supply chains. This reduces the transparency of the benefits and risks of the various supply chain setups and activities used for improving the performance of the supply chain. Such supply chain initiatives usually result in an investment by all supply chain partners involved, including the respective Chief Financial Officer (CFO). The supply chain partners therefore need a tool to show what improvements they can provide in logistics ¿ generally the reduction of inventory and reduction of lead time ¿ in terms of those financial variables that describe the value added to the company.The connection between supply chain management and financial management is currently very important. The integration of the two management levels is extremely important for the success of a supply chain initiative. Showing the possible benefits and risks for all concerned is a pre-requisite for assessing the economic value of the initiative and perceiving the win-win situation.This book and the "Supply Chain Value Contribution (SCVC)" method described therein provide: - An approach to showing the cause and effect of supply chain initiatives on supply chain performance and working capital utilization, on the basis of the wellestablished Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR)-model. - A clear and traceable approach on how to measure and sell the value created by the resulting operational supply chain performance improvements.The application of the SCVC method is described in two use cases. Due to the comprehensive but pragmatic presentation of the content, this book will be of value to both practitioners and academics alike.

Due to the comprehensive but pragmatic presentation of the content, this book will be of value to both practitioners and academics alike.

Assessing the economic viability of alternative water resources in water-scarce regions: Combining economic valuation, cost-benefit analysis and discounting

This paper demonstrates a comprehensive methodology for assessing the viability of an environmental management plan that has long-run economic and ecological impacts. The case study under consideration is the implementation of a water resource management plan in a water-scarce region of the world, namely Cyprus. Specifically, this plan proposes to replenish a depleting aquifer with treated wastewater. The proposed methodology first identifies the key stakeholder groups (farmers and the general public) who are hypothesized to derive economic values (benefits) from implementation of this plan, and then uses stated-preference methods to capture the total economic value of these benefits. Benefits are aggregated over the relevant populations of these stakeholder groups and weighed against the total costs of implementing the plan in a long-run cost-benefit analysis (CBA). An econometrically estimated time-declining trajectory of discount rates is used for the CBA in order to assess the long-run sustainability of the plan. The results reveal that the net benefit trajectory estimated with the time-declining discount rate takes one and a half to three times as long to come to a plateau compared to the constant discount rates of 3.5 and 6 percent, emphasizing the importance of using declining discount rates and capturing the entirety of the benefits generated by such plans. This methodology is particularly recommended for providing much needed information to support the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive, which advocates the use of CBA with consideration of the notion of sustainability for achieving the "good water status" for all European waters.

This paper demonstrates a comprehensive methodology for assessing the viability of an environmental management plan that has long-run economic and ecological impacts.

Capturing Value Increase in Urban Redevelopment

A Study of How the Economic Value Increase in Urban Redevelopment Can Be Used to Finance the Necessary Public Infrastructure and Other Facilities

Everyone would agree that urban development, especially when involving the building of residential areas, should be accompanied by sufficient and good public infrastructure and facilities. We all want neighbourhoods with the necessary roads, green areas, social facilities, affordable housing and public spaces of high quality. At the same time, nowadays, governments are facing severe cuts in public expenditure. So who is going to pay for all that quality? In the Netherlands and in many other countries, achieving these public goals has become a problem, especially in the regeneration of deteriorated inner-city sites. This book offers insight in how the economic value increase that arises from urban development can serve to finance the quality we want, without the need for public subsidies. The findings and recommendations made in this book focus on Western Europe, mainly on successful and alternatively less successful recent experiences in Spain, England and the Netherlands. Public bodies can use the recommendations to create the necessary conditions to improve the involvement of property developers and landowners in the financing of infrastructure and facilities. Property developers and landowners can find formulas for private-public partnership that can lead to lower development costs and risks, allowing them to pay for good infrastructure and facilities while maintaining profitability. Scholars will find here the theoretical backgrounds for this relevant topic. The author has both an academic and a professional background in the practice of urban development.

This book offers insight in how the economic value increase that arises from urban development can serve to finance the quality we want, without the need for public subsidies.