Money-metric utilitarianism

We discuss a method of ranking allocations in economic environments which applies when we do not know the names or preferences of individual agents. We require that two allocations can be ranked with the knowledge only of agents present, their aggregate bundles, and community indifference sets—a condition we refer to as aggregate independence. We also postulate a basic Pareto and continuity property, and a property stating that when two disjoint economies and allocations are put together, the ranking in the large economy should be consistent with the rankings in the two smaller economies (reinforcement). We show that a ranking method satisfies these axioms if and only if there is a probability measure over the strictly positive prices for which the rule ranks allocations on the basis of the random-price money-metric utilitarian rule. This is a rule which computes the money-metric utility for each agent at each price, sums these, and then takes an expectation according to the probability measure.     

Backward capacity-filtering for electronics Fabs

In electronics Fabs such as semiconductor Fabs and liquid crystal display (LCD) Fabs, which are capital-intensive, finite-capacity planning is critical to achieving full-capacity production and on-time production. However, existing finite-capacity planning methods do not adequately reflect the actual capacity profiles of an electronics Fab. In this paper, we propose a new Fab-level capacity-filtering procedure to generate finite-capacity plan: a backward capacity-filtering procedure for generating finite-capacity release plan. When developing the Fab-level filtering procedures, we use stage-level capacity-filtering algorithms as a key building block. In this study, we enhance the previous capacity-filtering algorithms proposed by one of the authors in order to facilitate the practical requirements of electronics Fabs. We apply the proposed capacity-filtering method to a modern LCD–TFT Fab in Korea. Performance analyses demonstrate that the proposed method is superior to existing methods.     

Life Satisfaction Judgments and Item-Order Effects Across Cultures

We conducted two studies to investigate the item-order effect on life satisfaction judgments. In Study 1, Japanese and American participants completed various life-domain satisfaction items either before or after completing general life satisfaction items. American respondents weighed the best life domains more strongly than Japanese respondents, in particular when they answered domain satisfaction items before making life satisfaction judgments. Overall, Japanese tended to weigh the worst life domains more heavily when making life satisfaction judgments than Americans. We hypothesized that the Japanese patterns of life satisfaction judgments come from the chronic attention to others’ perspective. To examine this hypothesis in Study 2, Japanese participants were exposed to either the “other are not watching” or the “other are watching” manipulation. As expected, when Japanese participants were led to believe that “others are not watching,” they judged their overall life satisfaction based more heavily on the best life domains (like Americans in Study 1).     

Intergenerational earnings mobility in Japan among sons and daughters: levels and trends

This paper estimates the extent of intergenerational income mobility in Japan among sons and daughters born between 1935 and 1975. Our estimates rely on a two-sample instrumental variables approach using representative data from the Japanese Social Stratification and Mobility surveys, collected between 1965 and 2005. Father’s income is predicted on the basis of a rich set of variables, and we discuss changes in the Japanese earnings structure for cohorts born between the early 1900s and the 1960s. Our main results indicate that the intergenerational income elasticity (IGE) for both sons and daughters in Japan lies around 0.35, which is an intermediate value, by international standards. We discuss the sensitivity of the IGE to using either personal or family income as the income variable for both fathers and children. We also examine changes across cohorts in the IGE. Results indicate that intergenerational mobility has been roughly stable over the last decades.     

Objective Bayesian analysis based on upper record values from two-parameter Rayleigh distribution with partial information

In the life test, predicting higher failure times than the largest failure time of the observed is an important issue. Although the Rayleigh distribution is a suitable model for analyzing the lifetime of components that age rapidly over time because its failure rate function is an increasing linear function of time, the inference for a two-parameter Rayleigh distribution based on upper record values has not been addressed from the Bayesian perspective. This paper provides Bayesian analysis methods by proposing a noninformative prior distribution to analyze survival data, using a two-parameter Rayleigh distribution based on record values. In addition, we provide a pivotal quantity and an algorithm based on the pivotal quantity to predict the behavior of future survival records. We show that the proposed method is superior to the frequentist counterpart in terms of the mean-squared error and bias through Monte carlo simulations. For illustrative purposes, survival data on lung cancer patients are analyzed, and it is proved that the proposed model can be a good alternative when prior information is not given.     

Asymptotic expaxsioxs for the joint distribution of cirrelated hotellings t2 statlstics under normality

Let T² _i=z′_iS^?1z_i, i==,…k be correlated Hotelling's T² statistics under normality. where z=(z′_i,…,z′_k)′ and nS are independently distributed as N_kp((O,ρ?∑) and Wishart distribution W_p(∑, n), respectively. The purpose of this paper is to study the distribution function F(x₁,…,x_k) of (T² _i,…,T² _k) when n is large. First we derive an asymptotic expansion of the characteristic function of (T² _i,…,T² _k) up to the order n^?2. Next we give asymptotic expansions for (T² _i,…,T² _k) in two cases (i)ρ=I_k and (ii) k=2 by inverting the expanded characteristic function up to the orders n^?2 and n^?1, respectively. Our results can be applied to the distribution function of max (T² _i,…,T² _k) as a special case.     

$${\mathcal{Q}}$$-anonymous social welfare relations on infinite utility streams

This paper studies a class of social welfare relations (SWRs) on the set of infinite utility streams. In particular, we examine the SWRs satisfying -Anonymity, an impartiality axiom stronger than Finite Anonymity, as well as Strong Pareto and a certain equity axiom. First, we characterize the extension of the generalized Lorenz SWR by combining -Anonymity with Strong Pareto and Pigou–Dalton Equity. Second, we replace Pigou–Dalton Equity with Hammond Equity for characterizing the extended leximin SWR. Third, we give an alternative characterization of the extended utilitarian SWR by substituting Incremental Equity for Pigou–Dalton Equity.     

Comment on “Constrained Optimization Approaches to Estimation of Structural Models”

We revisit the comparison of mathematical programming with equilibrium constraints (MPEC) and nested fixed point (NFXP) algorithms for estimating structural dynamic models by Su and Judd (2012). Their implementation of the nested fixed point algorithm used successive approximations to solve the inner fixed point problem (NFXP‐SA). We redo their comparison using the more efficient version of NFXP proposed by Rust (1987), which combines successive approximations and Newton–Kantorovich iterations to solve the fixed point problem (NFXP‐NK). We show that MPEC and NFXP are similar in speed and numerical performance when the more efficient NFXP‐NK variant is used.     

Reduced admissions for acute myocardial infarction associated with a public smoking ban: matched controlled study

There has been no research linking implementation of a public smoking ban and reduced incidence of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) among nonsmoking patients. An ex post facto matched control group study was conducted to determine whether there was a change in hospital admissions for AMI among nonsmoking patients after a public smoking ban was implemented in Monroe County compared with Delaware County, Indiana without such a ban. Poisson analysis was conducted for 44 months of hospital admissions. A significant drop occurred in the number of admissions among nonsmoking patients in Monroe County after the ban whereas a nonsignificant decrease in the number of admissions occurred in Delaware County. The changes in the number of smoking-patient admissions before and after the ban were not significant.