Time preferences and consumer behavior

We investigate the predictive power of survey-elicited time preferences. The discount factor elicited from choice experiments using real payments predicts various health, energy, and financial outcomes, including overall self-reported health, smoking, installing energy-efficient lighting, and credit card balance. Allowing for time-inconsistent preferences, both the long-run and present-bias discount factors (δ and β) are also significantly associated in the expected direction with several outcomes. We consider several hypotheses regarding the strength of the association between discount factors and outcomes, such as salience of the outcome or liquidity constraints.     

Elicitation of preferences under ambiguity

This paper is about behaviour under ambiguity—that is, a situation in which probabilities either do not exist or are not known. Our objective is to find the most empirically valid of the increasingly large number of theories attempting to explain such behaviour. We use experimentally-generated data to compare and contrast the theories. The incentivised experimental task we employed was that of allocation: in a series of problems we gave the subjects an amount of money and asked them to allocate the money over three accounts, the payoffs to them being contingent on a ‘state of the world’ with the occurrence of the states being ambiguous. We reproduced ambiguity in the laboratory using a Bingo Blower. We fitted the most popular and apparently empirically valid preference functionals [Subjective Expected Utility (SEU), MaxMin Expected Utility (MEU) and α-MEU], as well as Mean-Variance (MV) and a heuristic rule, Safety First (SF). We found that SEU fits better than MV and SF and only slightly worse than MEU and α-MEU.     

Identification of a princess under incomplete information: an amarna story

This article presents four analyses of an interaction between the middle-Bronze Age Pharaoh Nibmuarea and the Babylonian king Kadashman-Enlil as described in the Amarna letters (Moran [1992] The Amarna Letters, The Johns Hopkins Universiy Press, Baltimore, Maryland). Intent on denying the Pharaoh his daughter in marriage, the Babylonian king was faced with the choice of sending messengers who could ('dignitaries') or could not identify ('non-dignitaries') his missing sister in the Pharaoh's court. Intent on marrying the king's daughter, the Pharaoh was faced with the choice of showing the sister or showing someone else. Based on the assumption of complete information (game 1), the analysis revealed a dominant-strategy equilibrium: Nibmuarea shows the sister and Kadashman-Enlil sends non-dignitaries. Based on the assumption of one-sided incomplete information (Pharaoh's misperception; game 2), the analysis revealed that the Pharaoh had a dominant strategy of showing the sister irrespective of whether the king is keen or reluctant to learn about his sister's fate. Based on the assumption of one-sided incomplete information (Kadashman-Enlil's misperception; game 3), the analysis revealed that if non-dignitaries are sent, the Pharaoh prefers showing someone other than his sister. Based on the assumption of two-sided incomplete information (game 4), the Pharaoh finds it more beneficial to present the sister irrespective of whether his intentions are genuine or feigned. With incomplete information, it is difficult to judge the other's intentions; the cost of being caught cheating by not showing the sister to knowledgeable messengers was quite high. These analyses highlight the strategic uncertainty that characterized this Bronze-Age interaction.     

Manipulation under majority decision-making when no majority suffers and preferences are strict

Conditions are defined under the majority voting procedure under which manipulation does no harm to a majority, and when a majority benefit. The effect of introducing interpersonal comparability on the desirability of manipulation is discussed under Rawlsian justice and with preference intensities.     

德光律师考略

德光律师是公元六世纪在印度有影响的佛教人物.他最重要的著作<律经>是一部以经体形式概括根本说一切有部律文献的论著.他采用新的分类方式对律文献进行了编排和整理,使该文献成为根本说一切有部律文献的纲领性著作.关于他的生平,汉藏两种文献的记载有很大差异,有待进一步考察;他是那个时代有影响的佛教人物,或许在根本说一切有部兴起的过程中扮演过重要角色;他所传承的律学体系源自马土腊的正统派;他极可能认同迦丹多罗语法体系.     

许茨的主体间性理论初探

许茨是现象学社会学创始人,也是著名的现象学哲学家。他在批判胡塞尔的先验主体间性理论的基础上,对世俗主体间性、特别是主体间的理解进行了独特的系统探讨。许茨的研究虽然有诸多局限,但他在主体间性问题上试图超越意识哲学的努力是值得肯定的,他研究的结论对我们丰富和发展马克思的交往理论也有一定的借鉴意义     

Usury and the problem of exchange under capitalism: a late-nineteenth-century debate on economic rationality

Examining the ambiguous concept of usury, this article retraces political battles over the epistemic framings of the everyday economy in the nineteenth century. It takes a comparative approach to the legal and economic debates on usury in the Habsburg and the German empires in the wake of the economic crisis of the late 1870s, when new laws against usury were introduced. In the respective debates, diverging political interests and class attitudes pitted different conceptualizations of economic exchange against each other. At stake were the diverse forms of commensuration and valuation scales in received credit practices. The new legislation on usury centred on the notion of a usurer’s victim who supposedly was incapable of rational economic action and thus in need of civilization. By way of conclusion, this article relates the story of nineteenth-century usury legislation to current debates among historians on capitalism and the emergence of the economy as a bounded entity. It argues for more analytical attention to historical conflicts over modes of exchange as they came to the fore in the debates on usury, and discusses the implications of this perspective for the history of economic liberalism.     

俄罗斯联邦行政程序制度述评

行政程序制度是俄罗斯联邦行政法学体系中正在形成和完善的一部分内容 ,相对于前苏联的行政程序制度已经有了较大的发展。俄罗斯行政法学者从研究行政程序的基本概念入手 ,从理论上和词语规范上理清了行政程序、行政司法程序、行政诉讼程序等基本问题 ;以 2 0 0 1年制定的《俄罗斯联邦行政违法法典》为范例 ,行政程序的原则经历了由维护国家管理向规范行政权、保障公民权的回归 ;与俄罗斯联邦建设法治国家的目标相统一 ,必将尽快结束行政诉讼与民事诉讼程序合而为一的状况 ,制定独立的行政诉讼法典 ;建立具有特色的行政法院体系或在普通法院体系中建立相对独立的行政法庭 ,是未来俄罗斯联邦行政程序制度的发展趋势。     

Imprecise preferences and the WTP-WTA disparity

This article reports the results of a study designed to elicit willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA) values for changes in the risk of nonfatal road injuries. We examine the possibility that individuals' preferences over combinations of wealth, risk, and safety are imprecise, and that this imprecision might result in the observed disparity between WTP and WTA measures of value. The results confirm that individuals' preferences for safety are significantly imprecise, but that this alone is insufficient to explain more than part of the disparity. Indeed, respondents' estimates of the minimum that they would be prepared to accept for a risk increase frequently exceed the maximum that they would be prepared to pay for an equivalent risk reduction.     

激情燃烧月牙湾——写在2002年第三届"绿色工业园杯"亚洲沙滩排球锦标赛上

激情八月,浪漫、自然、恬静、迷人的营口开发区月牙湾,沉浸在花似海洋、人如潮涌的节日之中.从8月1日开始,营口开发区大街小巷彩旗飞舞,悬挂着各种宣传口号的彩虹门鳞次栉比,整个城市穿上了节日的盛装,以靓丽的身姿拥抱来自亚细亚各国的沙滩排球运动健儿.2002年第三届"绿色工业园杯"亚洲沙滩排球锦标赛如期在营口开发区月牙湾海滨浴场开赛.     

The price of risk with incomplete knowledge on the utility function*

When a risk is exchanged, the exact value for the minimum price (positive or negative) that the purchaser (investor, or insurer) is willing to pay is given by the certainty equivalent wealth level, which in turn depends on his specific utility function. When this utility function is unknown, then only a sufficient condition on the price can ever be found. This paper provides methods for calculating such a sufficient condition, when only limited information on the utility function is known.     

Mean variance preferences and the heat equation

Chipman (1979) proves that for an expected utility maximizer choosing from a domain of normal distributions with mean and variance ² the induced preference functionV(, ) satisfies a differential equation known as the heat equation. The purpose of this note is to provide a generalization and simple proof of this result which does not depend on the normality assumption.     

五四文学革命的历史功过

五四文学革命已经有 85年的历史 ,功过是非 ,理应给予理性的学术评价。对于五四文学革命 ,既有“新儒学派”的根本否定 ,受“新儒学派”影响的传统文化维护派的指责与否定 ,也有“国学派”、“鸳鸯蝴蝶派”、“新鸳蝴派”等的挑战 ,他们的一些批评指出了五四文学革命的缺点与失误 ,往往不无道理 ,但相对于五四文学革命的伟大功绩而言不过是九牛一毛。五四文学革命的主要功绩有 :( 1 )以白话取代文言 ,完成了文学语言由古典向现代的转型 ;( 2 )揭开了中国“人的文学”的新篇章 ;( 3 )彻底扫荡了“鸳鸯蝴蝶派” ;( 4 )取法欧美文学的经验 ,实现了中国文学与世界的首次接轨。     

Common genetic effects on risk-taking preferences and choices

Although prior research has shown that risk-taking preferences and choices are correlated across many domains, there is a dearth of research investigating whether these correlations are primarily the result of genetic or environmental factors. We examine the extent to which common genetic factors account for the association between general risk-taking preferences and domain-specific risk-taking preferences, and between general risk-taking preferences and risk taking choices in financial investments, stock market participation and business formation. Using data from 1898 monozygotic (MZ) and 1344 same-sex dizygotic (DZ) twins, we find that general risk-taking shares a common genetic component with domain-specific risk-taking preferences and risk-taking choices.

     

The classification of parametric choices under uncertainty: analysis of the portfolio choice problem

This paper describes the admissible classes of parametric distribution functions of return portfolios and analyzes their consistency with the maximization of the expected utility. In particular, we present a general theory and a unifying framework with the following aims: (1) studying the implications of the classical market restrictions on the portfolio distributions; (2) establishing general rules of ordering, when the uncertain prospect depends by a finite number of parameters; (3) understanding how a dispersion measure has to be used, in order to obtain the investors' optimal portfolios.