Sustainable energy futures: Methodological challenges in combining scenarios and participatory multi-criteria analysis

This paper analyses the combined use of scenario building and participatory multi-criteria analysis (PMCA) in the context of renewable energy from a methodological point of view. Scenarios have been applied increasingly in decision-making about long-term consequences by projecting different possible pathways into the future. Scenario analysis accounts for a higher degree of complexity inherent in systems than the study of individual projects or technologies. MCA is a widely used appraisal method, which assesses options on the basis of a multi-dimensional criteria framework and calculates rankings of options. In our study, five renewable energy scenarios for Austria for 2020 were appraised against 17 sustainability criteria. A similar process was undertaken on the local level, where four renewable energy scenarios were developed and evaluated against 15 criteria. On both levels, the scenario development consisted of two stages: first an exploratory stage with stakeholder engagement and second a modelling stage with forecasting-type scenarios. Thus, the scenarios consist of a narrative part (storyline) and a modeled quantitative part. The preferences of national and local energy stakeholders were included in the form of criteria weights derived from interviews and participatory group processes, respectively. Especially in the case of renewable energy promotion in Austria, the paper systematically analyses the potentials and limitations of the methodology (1) for capturing the complexity of decision-making about the long-term consequences of changes in socio-economic and biophysical systems and (2) for appraising energy futures. The paper concludes that assessing scenarios with PMCA is resource intense, but this methodology captures successfully the context of technology deployment and allows decision-making based on a robust and democratic process, which addresses uncertainties, acknowledges multiple legitimate perspectives and encourages social learning.     

Editorial

The credit crisis is a complex societal problem in which many phenomena and actors are involved. If one wants to analyze the causes of this problem, try to stabilize the situation and prevent new fall backs, a multi-disciplinary approach is prescribed. A careful analysis based on the scientific methodology of societal complexity is needed in order to find how the credit crisis happened and how new crises can be prevented. Theories of multiple disciplines must be used by a multi disciplinary team to analyze the situation and to find sustainable options. This process can be accomplished by following the Compram Methodology of DeTombe. The Compram Methodology provides a framework for policy making which includes many methods and tools. The Compram Methodology is specialized to handle complex interdisciplinary world-wide problems and to offer a step-by-step approach of analyzing the problem, finding and implementing sustainable interventions and evaluating the effects. The Compram Methodology offers a bird’s-eye view on the complexity of the problem and gives directions to policy makers to build their decisions on using a multi-disciplinary, multi-actor approach. In this article the credit crisis is discussed in relation with the Compram Methodology. Aspects of the credit crisis are described with an emphasis on the role of the actors. Based on the Compram Methodology directions can be provided for handling the credit crisis and avoiding future similar problems.     

A Hypergame Approach to Crisis Decision-Making: The 1973 Middle East War

The theory of hypergames is used to retrospectively analyse actions taken during the period of crisis immediately prior to the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. The analysis supports the hypothesis that each player behaved rationally within the framework of his own perceptual game, actions corresponding to stable outcomes in the axis of the game. A proposed methodology is put forward for applying the theory to current crisis problems.     

Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process: A logarithmic fuzzy preference programming methodology

Fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) proves to be a very useful methodology for multiple criteria decision-making in fuzzy environments, which has found substantial applications in recent years. The vast majority of the applications use a crisp point estimate method such as the extent analysis or the fuzzy preference programming (FPP) based nonlinear method for fuzzy AHP priority derivation. The extent analysis has been revealed to be invalid and the weights derived by this method do not represent the relative importance of decision criteria or alternatives. The FPP-based nonlinear priority method also turns out to be subject to significant drawbacks, one of which is that it may produce multiple, even conflict priority vectors for a fuzzy pairwise comparison matrix, leading to entirely different conclusions. To address these drawbacks and provide a valid yet practical priority method for fuzzy AHP, this paper proposes a logarithmic fuzzy preference programming (LFPP) based methodology for fuzzy AHP priority derivation, which formulates the priorities of a fuzzy pairwise comparison matrix as a logarithmic nonlinear programming and derives crisp priorities from fuzzy pairwise comparison matrices. Numerical examples are tested to show the advantages of the proposed methodology and its potential applications in fuzzy AHP decision-making.     

Effective transfer entropy approach to information flow between exchange rates and stock markets

We investigate the strength and direction of information flow between exchange rates and stock prices in several emerging countries by the novel concept of effective transfer entropy (an alternative non-linear causality measure) with symbolic encoding methodology. Analysis shows that before the 2008 crisis, only low level interaction exists between these two variables and exchange rates dominate stock prices in general. During crisis, strong bidirectional interaction arises. In the post-crisis period, the strong interaction continues to exist and in general stock prices dominate exchange rates.     

Markov regime-switching quantile regression models and financial contagion detection

In this paper, we propose a Markov regime-switching quantile regression model, which considers the case where there may exist equilibria jumps in quantile regression. The parameters are estimated by the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method. A simulation study of this new model is conducted covering many scenarios. The simulation results show that the MLE method is efficient in estimating the model parameters. An empirical analysis is also provided, which focuses on the detection of financial crisis contagion between United States and some European Union countries during the period of sub-prime crisis from the angle of financial risk. The degree of financial contagion between markets is subsequently measured by utilizing the quantile regression coefficients. The empirical results show that in a crisis situation, the interdependence between United States and European Union countries dramatically increases.     

The Balassa–Samuelson effect in Romania – The role of regulated prices

Due to the Balassa–Samuelson effect, the candidate countries to the European Monetary Union face a possible conflict between the effects of tradable productivity increase on inflation and on the appreciation of the real exchange rate on one hand, and the Maastricht criteria regarding inflation and exchange rate stability on the other hand. A restrictive monetary policy could succeed in reaching inflation criteria, but only with the cost of slowing down real convergence. This paper deals with the Balassa–Samuelson effect in Romania. The main conclusion of the paper is that in the period 1998–2006 the average annual rate of inflation generated by the Balassa–Samuelson effect in Romania was on average 0.6% in the case of the classical model. Due to the existence of government-regulated prices (mostly non-tradable goods) accounting for as much as 21% of the CPI basket in Romania – the price of non-tradables has increased by less than in the case those prices were market prices. If we include these regulated prices in non-tradable, which is named by us extended model, the impact of Balassa–Samuelson on inflation could have been on average 2.46%. Therefore, the Balassa–Samuelson effect is expected to result into higher inflation with future price liberalization for non-tradables.     

Network design for the spatial estimation of environmental variables

A design methodology is developed for observation networks of several spatially correlated and anisotropic environmental variables such as meteorological, hydrological, mineral, and soil data. Geostatistics and multicriterion decision making are combined in order to find a tradeoff between estimation accuracy and observation effort. In general, the decision analysis consists of two steps. First an unconstraint network is sought under the joint consideration of estimation-accuracy criteria and the observation-effort criterion. Next, the above network is optimally adjusted to the existing stations. The methodology assumes that variograms are available for every environmental variable considered. A gradient method of optimazation is used in both steps. A composite form of compromise programming applies an l₁ metric for the statistical criteria and an l₂ metric for observation effort criteria. Two case examples illustrate the methodology.     

欧元区国家系统风险占比的演化分析

采用Shapley值法,分别从债券市场和股票市场组成的金融体系对欧元区主要成员国进行风险贡献程度的分析,考察各单个市场对相应的金融系统的风险贡献的变化情况.实证发现,两个金融系统均表现出危机程度较严重的国家,其风险贡献占比较大,且它们的风险贡献占比沿着危机前、次贷危机时期、欧债危机时期的演变而逐渐上升,相应地其他国家的风险贡献占比呈下降趋势.特别地,欧债危机爆发后,债券金融系统各国的风险贡献占比出现极端化现象,受危机影响较小的国家则在危机中扮演了稳定市场的角色.     

Extended VIKOR method in comparison with outranking methods

The VIKOR method was developed to solve MCDM problems with conflicting and noncommensurable (different units) criteria, assuming that compromising is acceptable for conflict resolution, the decision maker wants a solution that is the closest to the ideal, and the alternatives are evaluated according to all established criteria. This method focuses on ranking and selecting from a set of alternatives in the presence of conflicting criteria, and on proposing compromise solution (one or more). The VIKOR method is extended with a stability analysis determining the weight stability intervals and with trade-offs analysis. The extended VIKOR method is compared with three multicriteria decision making methods: TOPSIS, PROMETHEE, and ELECTRE. A numerical example illustrates an application of the VIKOR method, and the results by all four considered methods are compared.     

Measuring the national competitiveness of Southeast Asian countries

National competitiveness is a measure of the relative ability of a nation to create and maintain an environment in which enterprises can compete so that the level of prosperity can be improved. This paper proposes a methodology for measuring the national competitiveness and uses the 10 Southeast Asian countries for illustration. The basic idea is to deconstruct the complicated concept of national competitiveness to measurable criteria. The observations (data) on the criteria are then aggregated according to their importance to obtain an index of national competitiveness. For data collected from questionnaire surveys, a calibration technique has been devised to alleviate bias due to personal prejudice. In data aggregation, the importance is expressed by both a priori weights and a posteriori weights. These two types of weights consistently show that Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand have the highest national competitiveness, while Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos are the least competitive countries. The performance of each country in every criteria measured also provides directions for these countries to make improvements and for investors to allocate resources.     

Determining the Impact of Nigeria's Economic Crisis on the Multinational Oil Companies: A Goal Programming Approach

Traditionally, regression analysis has frequently been used in quantitative policy-impact analysis, but this paper utilizes goal programming methodology to examine the impact of Nigeria's economic crisis on the multinational oil companies in Nigeria. The results obtained indicate that, as the multinational oil companies are paid prices far below the world oil market prices, the current economic crisis in the country imposes losses on the companies and discourages large capital investment. In particular, the huge losses call for negotiation between the government and the multinational oil companies for better policy measures, such as a relaxation of the existing pricing policy, to reduce the losses resulting from the current economic crisis.     

Planning under Uncertainty: II. A Methodology for Robustness Analysis

A companion paper found that the principal planning methodologies embody procedures which tend to generate plans which are inflexible; and identified characteristics which a methodology for flexible planning should exhibit. In this paper an integrated methodology incorporating these features is proposed. Centred on robustness analysis it is non-optimising, being based on the establishment of feasible alternative plans; it accepts future uncertainty as a defining characteristic and attempts to keep options open; and it can facilitate participation. The potential advantages and disadvantages of the methodology are discussed; and some technical options in robustness analysis are presented in an Appendix.     

偏好情景应变式冲突分析模型

针对决策者偏好信息随未来潜在发展情景变化的情况,构建了偏好情景应变式冲突分析模型。首先利用情景分析技术生成了影响冲突分析的若干潜在情景,不同潜在情景下的冲突子系统共同构成偏好情景应变式冲突系统。进而将所有潜在情景下冲突子系统稳定的交集定义为情景应变式冲突模型的全局稳定。由于全局稳定条件较为苛刻,交集可能为空集,进一步从集结不同情景下偏好信息角度定义了偏好集结型稳定。具体方法是依据策略优先权法对状态打分,接着利用决策者对不同情景的重视程度集结打分值,获得集结的偏好信息,并定义相应的稳定。最后以某大型客机立项论证阶段研制周期冲突决策为例比较了这两种稳定。     

基于分段策略评分的冲突主体偏好排序方法及其应用

冲突中各利益主体的偏好信息对冲突局势的演变和纠纷调解具有重要影响。现有的冲突偏好排序方法主要基于决策者对冲突局势或状态、策略权重和声明信息的主观判断和理解,缺乏科学的数据来源支撑。为准确获取冲突主体的偏好信息,本文提出了一种基于调查法的分段策略冲突偏好排序方法。首先,根据决策者类别将冲突策略集合进行分段,并通过问卷、调研等方法获取每个冲突主体对所有分段策略的重要度评分信息。在此基础上,计算决策者对各个冲突状态的综合偏好评分,进而得到状态偏好的排序结果。最后以医患纠纷为例,对比分析了传统策略权重法和分段策略评分法的偏好排序和稳定性分析结果,进一步验证了所提方法的有效性。     

Application of multicriterional analysis to the problem of reinforcement improvements in concrete works

The paper present the methodology for selecting the most suitable (optimal) solution out of several possible alternatives for the development of reinforcement works. The selection was performed according to several different technical and nontechnical criteria employing the Electre method. It also presents the procedure for establishing alternative solutions using system analysis.     

Social indicators and policy selection: An experiment in constructing a social objective function

A small scale experiment is described, the main purpose of which is to evaluate methodology for evaluating within group and between group differences in attitude to a range of scenarios constructed from a number of social and economic indicators. Three countries featured in the study, Greece, Holland, and the U.K. The tool employed in the multidimensional analysis of preference judgements was the suite of linear programming techniques (linmap) developed during the 1970's by Srinivasan and Shocker. It is concluded that the methodology is feasible and could have more general application.     

Granting and managing loans for micro-entrepreneurs: New developments and practical experiences

We present a methodology to grant and follow-up credits for micro-entrepreneurs. This segment of grantees is very relevant for many economies, especially in developing countries, but shows a behavior different to that of classical consumers where established credit scoring systems exist. Parts of our methodology follow a proven procedure we have applied successfully in several credit scoring projects. Other parts, such as cut-off point construction and model follow-up, however, had to be developed and constitute original contributions of the present paper. The results from two credit scoring projects we developed in Chile, one for a private bank and one for a governmental credit granting institution, provide interesting insights into micro-entrepreneurs’ repayment behavior which could also be interesting for the respective segment in countries with similar characteristics.     

Assessing performance factors in the UK banking sector: A multicriteria methodology

Further consolidation takes place not only among UK banks but also across borders, since some banks see size as a key factor in remaining competitive in international markets. Therefore, it is interesting to investigate the effectiveness and performance of UK banks. Based on their assets, banks are distinguished into small and large ones and a classification of UK banks in a multivariate environment for the period 1998–2002 takes place. The PAIRCLAS multicriteria methodology is employed to investigate the performance of UK small and large banks over multiple criteria, such as asset quality, capital adequacy, liquidity and efficiency/profitability. A comparison with discriminant analysis (DA) and logistic regression (LR) facilitates the investigation of the relative performance of PAIRCLAS against them. The results of the study determine the key factors that specify the classification of a bank as small or large and provide us with the responsible banking decision makers for future readjustments.