Rational regulation of water-seeking effort in rodents

In the laboratory, animals’ motivation to work tends to be positively correlated with reward magnitude. But in nature, rewards earned by work are essential to survival (e.g., working to find water), and the payoff of that work can vary on long timescales (e.g., seasonally). Under these constraints, the strategy of working less when rewards are small could be fatal. We found that instead, rats in a closed economy did more work for water rewards when the rewards were stably smaller, a phenomenon also observed in human labor supply curves. Like human consumers, rats showed elasticity of demand, consuming far more water per day when its price in effort was lower. The neural mechanisms underlying such “rational” market behaviors remain largely unexplored. We propose a dynamic utility maximization model that can account for the dependence of rat labor supply (trials/day) on the wage rate (milliliter/trial) and also predict the temporal dynamics of when rats work. Based on data from mice, we hypothesize that glutamatergic neurons in the subfornical organ in lamina terminalis continuously compute the instantaneous marginal utility of voluntary work for water reward and causally determine the amount and timing of work.

A Peep into the History and Experiences of the Cooperative Movement in Zambia

This study is a reflection on the history and experiences of cooperative movement in Zambia in three stages (the colonial era, from 1914 to 1963, the post-colonial era from 1964 to 1990 and the cooperative movement in the liberalized economy in Zambia, from 1991 to present). The study used secondary data from various studies. The thrust of this study explored the history and experiences of cooperative movement in Zambia and how the economic and political changes affected the cooperative movement in Zambia. This information is very critical, especially to those who would want to enhance and harness the cooperative movement in Zambia. Emergent from this study is the continued political and econmic influence on cooperatives. Cooperatives were noted to be struggling to cope with the stiff competition, which was due to the liberalization of the economy in the country. The current poor performance by cooperatives was attributed to the failure to swiftly change from the 1964 to 1991 era, where cooperatives were operating as channels for distrusting government resources in a closed economy. Thus, it is recommended among others that, Government should stop the issue of imposing projects on the cooperative communities, business ideas should come from the cooperatives members themselves as a way of entrenching business ownership. In addition, cooperatives societies should start being innovative in order for them to be able stand the stiff competition which is due to the liberalization of the economy.

Trade and Resource Sustainability with Asset Markets

Trade changes incentives to protect an open-access natural resource independently of its effect on the resource price. General equilibrium linkages cause resource policy to affect the price of privately owned assets regardless of whether they are used in the resource sector. In the closed economy, the asset market in our overlapping generations setting creates incentives for currently living agents to protect the natural resource. The interplay of the asset market and general equilibrium effects causes trade to reverse these incentives. Trade liberalization and the establishment of formal property rights are policy complements: the former makes the latter more important.

Application of the Samuelson — Hicks model in the conditions of modern economy Case of Bhutan

In modern conditions, the problem of determining the factors infl uencing such indicators of economic growth as the volume of consumption, the volume of investments in the economy, government spending and GDP can be solved by applying economic, mathematical, econometric modeling. In this article, to solve this problem of determining the key factors, it was decided to use the Samuelson — Hicks econometric model for a closed economy. This allows not only to identify the key factors that have a signifi cant impact on the development of the economy of the country under study, but also to make forecasts of such development. The article discusses the application of the Samuelson — Hicks model in modern conditions on the example of the economic indicators of Bhutan. After conducting this study, we concluded that although this model is not an ideal one for further investigation of the closed economy of Bhutan, the quality of the specifi cation of this model should be recognized as high. In this regard, the Samuelson — Hicks model can be used to make managerial decisions at the macroeconomic level. The conclusions obtained in the course of this study can be used to modernize this econometric model, as well as to make eff ective decisions to stimulate the development of a certain share of a closed economy.

Elderly Labour and Unemployment

Several reasons underlie the increased labour participation of older people in Japan. One reason is the subsidy for the labour supply of elderly people. This article presents an examination of how this subsidisation of the labour supply of elderly people affects the labour participation of young and elderly people and unemployment. Consequently, an aging society brought about by an increase in the survival rate and the subsidy for elderly labour raise the employment rate and labour participation rate of elderly people in a temporary equilibrium model. This result is consistent with the real world. However, considering the steady state in a closed economy under which capital accumulation is considered, the effect of this subsidy on the employment rate and labour participation of elderly people is slight because of a decrease in the wage rate. JEL: J21

The 9Rs Strategies for the Circular Economy 3.0

Circular economy (CE) was first introduced in the 1970s as an alternative economic model for replacing the traditional linear industrial economy, the take-make-use-throw approach. However, transition to a more circular economy can be challenging due to the untenable assumptions. It is viewed as a strategy enabling the ‘decoupling’ of resource use from economic growth, but there are still questions whether the CE can decouple resource use from economic growth. The purpose of this article is to study the evolution of the circular economy and the synthesis of the 10Rs hierarchy, to examine the circular economy roadmap and to review the strategies of 9Rs and the benefits of circular economy. Documentary study and literature review were used for data collection. It is found that the history of circular economy started as early as before World War II, known as closed economy. Then, the concept of circular economy evolved to CE 1.0, CE 2.0, and CE 3.0 since 2010 onward. Although 10R hierarchy (from R0-R9) was proposed to solve confusion around new conceptions of circularity, the waste-to-energy (Recovery) does not promote resource efficiency when considering the loss of value of potentially recyclable materials through combustion. Circular Economy, when successfully implemented, can clearly bring environmental, social and economic benefits. However, a CE roadmap should integrate the key stakeholders’ views on the essential developments and actions required for the transition as well as clarifies their own role in the transition.

Influence of Information Systems and Technology on Hospitality Business Performance in Albania

The transition from a closed economy to an open, market economy created new opportunities for the development of tourism in Albania. Tourism is known as one of the industries with the largest use of information technology (IT), but for various reasons, application of information systems (IS) in Albanian hotels is lower compared to other countries in Balkan region and other countries in Europe. Many processes and operations are handled in old and traditional ways. Most of the entrepreneurs do not know the benefit of using IS in the daily processes of the hotels. However, the demand of hospitality services dictates the need of using contemporary IS to gain competitive advantage and to survive in the market. IS and technology impacts competitiveness, management of information flow, and the decision-making process. They have influenced performance of the hotel sector through changing the nature of tourism services and the target market. This chapter aims to establish the extent of usage of these systems in the overall performance of the hotels in Tirana, the capital of Albania.