Solar energy is an environmentally sustainable energy source as it is clean and inexhaustible. Solar systems are very common and cost-effective, thus, can be used for many home applications. In this paper, a new method is presented to optimize solar systems economically, regarding to energy cost fluctuations. In spite of conventional analyses, in which the inflation is considered constant, ...

Policy makers rely on a mix of government spending and tax cuts to address the imbalances in the economy during an economic crisis, by promoting price stability and renewed economic growth. However, little discussion appears to focus explicitly on quantifying the cost of economic crises in terms of human lives, especially the lives of the most vulnerable members of society, infants. Using a sta...

In the on-line Explore & Exploit literature, central to Machine Learning, a central planner is faced with a set of alternatives, each yielding some unknown reward. The planner’s goal is to learn the optimal alternative as soon as possible, via experimentation. A typical assumption in this model is that the planner has full control over the experiment design and implementation. When experiments ...

The new comparative economics focuses on individual institutions rather than considering the economic system as an entity. In this essay we argue that economic systems should be defined in terms of clusters of complementary or covarying institutions. A cluster analysis of OECD countries, using data on forty different economic institutions, shows that four economic systems can be used to charact...

The metrology literature neglects a strong empirical measurement tradition in economics, which is different from the traditions as accounted for by the formalist representational theory of measurement. This empirical tradition comes closest to Mari s characterization of measurement in which he describes measurement results as informationally adequate to given goals. In economics, one has to dea...

China has enjoyed high economic growth for three decades since the initiative of economic reform in 1978. This growth has however been driven mainly by labour-intensive, export-oriented manufacturing activities. Has innovation played a role in China’s economic growth? What are the determinants of innovation in the Chinese economy? These are some of the questions which are to be explored in this...