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3669 items in total found

Journal Articles | 2023

Cooperative security against interdependent risks

Sanjith Gopalakrishnan, Sriram Sankaranarayanan

Firms in interorganizational networks are exposed to interdependent risks that are transferable across partner firms, such as contamination in food supply chains or data breaches in technology networks. They can be decomposed into intrinsic risks a firm faces from its own operations and extrinsic risks transferred from its partners. Firms have access to two security strategies: either they can independently eliminate both intrinsic and extrinsic risks by securing their links with partners or, alternatively, firms can cooperate with partners to eliminate sources of intrinsic risk in the network. We develop a graph-theoretic model of interdependent security and demonstrate that the network-optimal security strategy can be computed in polynomial time. Then, we use cooperative game-theoretic tools to examine, under different informational assumptions, whether firms can sustain the network-optimal security strategy via suitable cost-sharing mechanisms. We design a novel cost-sharing mechanism: a restricted variant of the well-known Shapley value, the agreeable allocation, that is easy to compute, bilaterally implementable, ensures stability, and is fair. However, the agreeable allocation need not always exist. Interestingly, we find that in networks with homogeneous cost parameters, the presence of locally dense clusters of connected firms precludes the existence of the agreeable allocation, while the absence of sufficiently dense clusters (formally, k-cores) guarantees its existence. Finally, using the SDC Platinum database, we consider all interfirm alliances formed in the food manufacturing sector from 2006 to 2020. Then, with simulated cost parameters, we examine the practical feasibility of identifying bilaterally implementable security cost-sharing arrangements in these alliances.

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Journal Articles | 2023

Peer influence and IT career choice

Nishtha Langer, Tarun Jain

The productivity of the information technology (IT) industry depends on the supply of high-quality human capital, especially of managers who contribute to operational, finance, sales and marketing, and leadership roles. This study examines the influence of peers on the choice a management student makes to pursue a career in the IT industry. Such a choice may be informed and driven not only by the student’s own motivation and ability but also by information gained through peers. Specifically, we analyze data on student networks at a leading business school in India, where students are exogenously assigned to peer groups, and link these to students’ choices regarding postprogram careers in the IT industry. We find that being part of a group that includes peers who have worked in IT reduces the likelihood of receiving and accepting an offer in the IT industry. If a student has had no IT experience, however, having IT peers ameliorates this effect to a certain degree. We also find differential peer effects for male and female students. Our findings are consistent with the notion that IT peers provide (largely discouraging) information about the IT industry to non-IT peers.

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Journal Articles | 2023

Performance evaluation of Indian electricity distribution companies: An integrated DEA-IRP-TOPSIS approach

Vishal Singh Patyal, Ravi Kumar, Kuldeep Lamba, Sunil Maheshwari

Energy is a fundamental building block of human growth and plays a significant role in developing emerging economies such as India. The Indian electricity sector has a strong generation and transmission system but a weak distribution system. This is considered the weakest link in the electricity sector's value chain, and regulators are primarily concerned with the performance of electricity distribution companies (DISCOMs). Despite numerous reforms introduced to attain financial sustainability, most DISCOMs consistently incur losses and are financially unsustainable. Therefore, evaluating the performance of DISCOMs is essential by measuring their efficiency to ensure competition among them and to make reforms successful. This study aimed to identify and compare the performance efficiencies of 48 electricity DISCOMs from 24 states across India between 2015/16 and 2018/19. This study used the integrated DEA-IRP-TOPSIS technique to segment efficient and inefficient DISCOMs. The study recommends that states provide operational and financial autonomy to power Discoms. The study will be helpful for DISCOMs professionals to understand their performance and design suitable strategies based on efficiency assessments and their position concerning their peers. By comparing Indian DISCOMs with their contemporaries, this study contributes new evidence at the policy level and to the literature on the efficiency analysis of Indian DISCOMs.

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Journal Articles | 2023

An abstract model for branch and cut

Aleksandr M. Kazachkov, Pierre Le Bodic, Sriram Sankaranarayanan

Branch and cut is the dominant paradigm for solving a wide range of mathematical programming problems—linear or nonlinear—combining efficient search (via branch and bound) and relaxation-tightening procedures (via cutting planes, or cuts). While there is a wealth of computational experience behind existing cutting strategies, there is simultaneously a relative lack of theoretical explanations for these choices, and for the tradeoffs involved therein. Recent papers have explored abstract models for branching and for comparing cuts with branch and bound. However, to model practice, it is crucial to understand the impact of jointly considering branching and cutting decisions. In this paper, we provide a framework for analyzing how cuts affect the size of branch-and-cut trees, as well as their impact on solution time. Our abstract model captures some of the key characteristics of real-world phenomena in branch-and-cut experiments, regarding whether to generate cuts only at the root or throughout the tree, how many rounds of cuts to add before starting to branch, and why cuts seem to exhibit nonmonotonic effects on the solution process.

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Working Papers | 2023

‘Scandalous’ and ‘Obscene’ Trademark Law: Determining the scope of morality-based proscriptions in Indian Law

M P Ram Mohan & Aditya Gupta

Morality-based restrictions on trademarks are a ubiquitous element of domestic trademark legislations, appearing in 163 out of 164 WTO member states. In 2019, the United States Supreme Court ruled against the constitutionality of

these provisions in Iancu v. Brunetti, and opined that they run afoul of American free speech jurisprudence. The Court’s discomfort was with the structure of the legislative proscription, and they emphasized the significance of linguistic regulation rooted in moral principles within trademark law. The Indian counterpart of these provisions suffer from a unique problem: despite being a part of the legislative framework for over four decades, no legislative or judicial body has interpreted morality-based proscriptions in India. Examining the administrative practices of the Indian Trade Marks Registrar and reviewing the Indian Trade Marks Register convey an inconsistent application of this provision. The findings highlight a need to develop comprehensive guidelines. This paper underscores the legislative language of Australian law as the closest analogue to Indian law on the subject and proposes an overarching framework for discerning the import and meaning of ‘scandal’ and ‘obscenity’ within the context of Indian law.

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Working Papers | 2023

Conceptualizing Systemically Important Technological Institutions as Too Big to Fail Entities: Moving the Insolvency Goal Post

M P Ram Mohan & Sai Muralidhar K

The concept of Too Big To Fail (TBTF) has, for the longest time, been associated with systemically important banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions. The emergence of Big Tech companies, which permeates global markets, challenges the traditional notions of TBTF. Big Tech companies growing size and interconnectedness to the global economy have led to concerns emerging in the domains of antitrust law, data privacy laws, and financial stability. A key facet of financial stability regulation is the development of robust insolvency resolution frameworks to deal with potential failures of TBTF companies. The paper analyses whether Big Tech companies pose systemic risks to the financial system and the broader economy and, consequently, if they are TBTF, should there be special insolvency resolution frameworks akin to other systemically important institutions. The systemic risks Big Techs pose today may be substantially higher than traditional TBTF firms due to their deep interconnectedness with financial institutions. The paper explores the concept of Systemically Important Technological Institutions and the challenges in designating them as TBTF.

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Journal Articles | 2023

Going the Extra Mile: What Taxi Rides Tell Us About the Long-Hour Culture in Finance

Deniz Okat and Ellapulli V. Vasudevan

We analyze banks’ “protected-weekend” policies that restrict junior bankers from working during weekends. We use taxi rides from bank addresses in New York City to infer bankers’ working hours. We find the policies induced bankers to shift their work to late-night hours on weekdays. We then investigate whether such shifts in working hours affected the quality of work. After the policy, analysts of the policy-implementing banks make more errors in their earnings forecasts. They also herd more toward the consensus in their forecasts. We further provide evidence that junior bankers are the most adversely affected by the policy.

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Journal Articles | 2023

Cooperative Security Against Interdependent Risks

Sanjith Gopalakrishnan, Sriram Sankaranarayanan

Firms in interorganizational networks are exposed to interdependent risks that are transferable across partner firms, such as contamination in food supply chains or data breaches in technology networks. They can be decomposed into intrinsic risks a firm faces from its own operations and extrinsic risks transferred from its partners. Firms have access to two security strategies: either they can independently eliminate both intrinsic and extrinsic risks by securing their links with partners or, alternatively, firms can cooperate with partners to eliminate sources of intrinsic risk in the network. We develop a graph-theoretic model of interdependent security and demonstrate that the network-optimal security strategy can be computed in polynomial time. Then, we use cooperative game-theoretic tools to examine, under different informational assumptions, whether firms can sustain the network-optimal security strategy via suitable cost-sharing mechanisms. We design a novel cost-sharing mechanism: a restricted variant of the well-known Shapley value, the agreeable allocation, that is easy to compute, bilaterally implementable, ensures stability, and is fair. However, the agreeable allocation need not always exist. Interestingly, we find that in networks with homogeneous cost parameters, the presence of locally dense clusters of connected firms precludes the existence of the agreeable allocation, while the absence of sufficiently dense clusters (formally, k-cores) guarantees its existence. Finally, using the SDC Platinum database, we consider all interfirm alliances formed in the food manufacturing sector from 2006 to 2020. Then, with simulated cost parameters, we examine the practical feasibility of identifying bilaterally implementable security cost-sharing arrangements in these alliances.

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Journal Articles | 2023

Infrastructure and Finance: Evidence from India's GQ Highway Network

Abhiman Das, Ejaz Ghani, Arti Grover Goswami, William R. Kerr & Ramana Nanda

We use data from Reserve Bank of India to study the impact of India’s Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) highway project on finance-dependent activity. Loan volumes increase by 20%–30% in districts along GQ and are stronger in industries more dependent upon external finance. Loan growth begins with increases in average branch size and in places with more pre-GQ loan activity. New branch openings come later, consistent with short-run adjustment costs to expanding branch networks. These patterns are not evident in placebo tests using delayed investments in NS-EW highways. Results suggest the depth of initial financial infrastructure shapes how infrastructure investments impact localities.

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Working Papers | 2023

Small Businesses and Digital Platforms

Nishant Chadha, Viswanath Pingali and Daniel Sokol

We investigate strategies of small businesses’ usage of digital platforms for advertising and sales. We rely on primary data from a quantitative survey of small business startups, and a few in-depth interviews of small business owners. We find that small firms prefer digital platforms for advertising and sales over conventional methods. As firms grow, while they continue to rely on digital advertising, their preference for conventional advertising (radio, television, etc.) increases. We find a strong correlation between the geographical spread of small firm sales, including exports, and their propensity to use digital platforms. We also find that small businesses multihome on both advertising and sales platforms. Multihoming occurs across established platforms and between established and nascent platforms. Our results enhance the understanding of how small firms rely on platforms and inform the policy debates on platform regulation.

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