Discriminating between preference functionals: A preliminary Monte Carlo study

This article is connected with recent attempts to estimate EU and Generalised EU preference functionals using (complete ranking) experimental data and maximum likelihood estimation techniques. In particular we explore, using Monte Carlo techniques, the power of such procedures in correctly determining the true preference functional. We conclude that several of the more popular generalisations to EU are very difficult to disentangle, and that the techniques are rather poor at correctly identifying EU when it is the correct functional.     

Testing Theories of Choice Under Risk: Estimation of Individual Functionals

The method introduced here allows us to use a data set with a non-restricted number of outcomes, here 21. Hence, our method complements the other ones developed in the domain of the probability triangle. Individual parameters are estimated for expected utility and various non-expected utility theories. We use CRRA and CARA utility functions, both without and with the assumption of weakly concavity. Rank-dependent utility, prospective reference and cognitive consistency theories emerge from the others.An erratum to this article can be found at     

Preference reversals: Time and again

This paper sheds new light on the preference reversal phenomenon by analyzing decision times in the choice task. In a first experiment, we replicated the standard reversal pattern and found that choices associated with reversals take significantly longer than non-reversals, and non-reversal choices take longer whenever long-shot lotteries are selected. These results can be explained by a combination of noisy lottery evaluations (imprecise preferences) and an overpricing phenomenon associated with the compatibility hypothesis. The first cause explains the existence of reversals, while the second explains the predominance of a particular type thereof. A second experiment showed that the overpricing phenomenon can be shut down, greatly reducing reversals, by using ranking-based, ordinally-framed evaluation tasks. This experiment also disentangled the two determinants of reversals, because imprecise evaluations still deliver testable predictions on decision times even in the absence of the overpricing phenomenon. Strikingly, when unframed ranking tasks were used, decision times in the choice phase were greatly reduced, even though this phase was identical across treatments. This observation is consistent with psychological insights on conflicting decision processes.     

女性婚姻家庭观的国际比较

随着现代化的进程和女性主体意识的新觉醒,“男主外女主内”的传统性别分工已越来越失去其存在的土壤,但观念、意识层面的衍变并非一朝一夕并依然受制于深潜社会心理的男权文化。本研究将运用第二期中国妇女社会地位调查等资料,并通过对不同国家和地区女性的性别角色观的比较分析,来描述上海女性的性别角色观的现状,探讨影响被访者角色分工认知的历史、经济和社会心理因素。     

Association Between Unemployment Duration and Depression in the SouthWest Region of Turkey: A Cross-Sectional Study

ABSTRACT

Unemployment has risen as an effect of globalization in the country of Turkey. To date, no studies have examined the association between the duration of unemployment and perceived mental health. Therefore, the aim of this study is to evaluate the association between the duration of unemployment and the incidenence of depression among citizens in the southwest region of Turkey. A questionnaire was developed and distributed to 908 unemployed individuals. The questionnaire gathered sociodemographic characteristics and employment-related circumstances. To measure mental health, a depression inventory was administered and group-wise t-tests and logistic regressions were conducted. The findings show that long-term unemployed persons had more episodes of depressive moods in the past 12 months when compared with the group of the short-term unemployed. In addition, depression levels were higher among the long-term unemployed compared with the short-term unemployed. It was estimated that the duration of unemployment and the measurement of depression had a positive correlation. Risk factors that increased depression in the short-term unemployed were gender (female), older age, and greater periods of unemployment. However, higher education, income, and having social insurance significantly decreased the risk of developing depression for both the short-term and the long-term unemployed. Future recommendations include supportive counseling to increase motivation levels and developing strategies to handle periods of unemployment.     

中美政府管制体制比较研究

政府管制体制对于政府管制效率具有决定性影响.本文就中美两国政府管制体制进行了深入比较,分析了两国各具特点的政府管制体制模式形成的原因和不同管制体制的优劣,最后就改革以综合性管制机构为主体的我国政府管制体制提出了建议.     

Family Disruption and Support in Later Life: A Comparative Study Between the United Kingdom and Italy

Global population aging has led to considerable disquiet about future support for frail older people; however, the determinants are poorly understood. Moreover, most industrialized societies have witnessed considerable changes in family behavior (e.g., rises in divorce and declining fertility). Such trends may have adversely affected the support systems of older people; nonetheless, only recently has research begun to address this issue. Employing data from the longitudinal British Household Panel Survey (1991–2003) and the 1998 Indagine Multiscopo sulle Famiglie "Famiglia, soggetti sociali e condizione dell'infanzia," we investigated the association between family disruptions due to divorce, separation, or death and three key dimensions of informal support: (i) frequency of contact with unrelated friends (among all respondents aged 65 years and over); (ii) co-residence with children (among unmarried mothers aged 65 years and over); and (iii) regular or frequent help received from children (e.g., household assistance including care) among parents aged 65 years and over. In addition, we conducted a comparative investigation of the relationship between family disruptions and the use of home care services (i.e., health visitor or district nurse; home help; meals-on-wheels) among parents aged 65 years and over. Our findings suggest that in a culture like the U.K.'s, where relations between kin are primarily influenced by individualistic values, support in later life appears to be primarily related to need, whereas in societies with a strong familistic culture (like Italy's), support is received irrespective of the older person's individual characteristics.     

Ethnicity and Clients' Social Worker Preference: The Israeli Experience

Correspondence to Prof. E. D. Jaffe, Paul Baerwald School of Social Work, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel 91905. Summary Israel's society contains three large ethnic subgroups, oneof Western (Ashkenazi) origin, another from Middle-Eastern (Sephardi)background, and an Arab population group. Social stratificationalong ethnic lines is still common, particularly in the socialservices and human services professions. This article describes an empirical research study of how ethnicstereotypes among Ashkenazi and Sephardi Israeli welfare clientsaffect their preference for Ashkenazi or Sephardi social workhelpers, and compares their responses with other Israeli populationgroups. Using a projective test based on passport photos, itwas found that very clear ethnic preferences exist among bothAshkenazi and Sephardi respondents, and that Sephardi respondents,including Sephardi welfare clients, most often prefer to betreated by Ashkenazi social workers. The cross-cultural, cross-nationalimplications of these findings for ethnic relations, the socialservices and the social work profession are discussed.     

偏好与结构——同质婚的形成机制研究

同质婚是指夫妻双方社会人口特征比较相似的婚姻,是社会阶层固化程度的一个反映。使用2013年"社会发展与社会建设"全国抽样调查数据,考察不同社会群体选择教育同质婚、职业阶层同质婚和户口同质婚的影响因素。结果发现,位居教育层级两端的被访者更可能选择教育同质婚;位居职业阶层底端的被访者更可能选择职业阶层同质婚;受教育水平越高的被访者,越可能选择非农户口同质婚;女性比男性更倾向于选择非农户口同质婚。总体而言,婚配模式的选择既体现出了个人偏好与个人理性,同时亦受个人所处社会结构位置的约束。     

Lottery Acquisition versus Information Acquisition: Prices and Preference Reversals

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty - Suppose you must choose between two pieces of information A and B. In the absence of cost, you would prefer to obtain A rather than B, and in fact would be willing...     

A Study of the Relationship Between Innovation and Performance Among NPOs in Pakistan

Abstract

Innovation has become a core driver for the success and survival of organizations regardless of their size and nature. A plethora of literature has discussed the importance of innovation in profit-based organizations, while nonprofit organizations (NPOs) have generally been ignored in research. This study examines the influence of the sub-dimensions of innovation on the performance of NPOs. Data were collected through structured questionnaires using a sample size of 309 NPOs operating in the emerging market Pakistan. The hypotheses were tested through structural equation modeling (SEM) in AMOS.21. The results indicate that process innovation and organization innovation have significant positive influence on the performance of NPOs, while product innovation and marketing innovation have insignificant influence on the performance of NPOs. NPOs are advised to give enough attention to process and organization innovation in order to boost their performance. Future researchers are encouraged to test the model in other environmental settings. Implications for practice were discussed.     

A Small-Scale Study of the Relationship Between Measures of Deprivation and Child-Care Referrals

There now exists an extensive literature on the causes of childabuse. Within the UK, individualistic and inter-personal approacheshave predominated in terms of their influence on social worktheory, research and practice. However, much less emphasis hasbeen given to structuralist explanations. Indeed, of the structuralistwork that currently exists with its emphasis on the relationshipbetween deprivation and child abuse, this relationship has yetto be empirically tested within the UK. This is the focus forthe present article. Drawing upon data relating to all referralsmade to a short-term intake family and child-care team for athree-year period in Northern Ireland (1998–2000), thearticle confirms the strong relationship that exists, at wardlevel, between measures of deprivation and referrals to theteam. In discussing the implications of the findings, it isargued that more use needs to be made of quantitative methodsin social work research in order to identify and understandmore fully the influence of structural factors on issues relatingto family and childcare. The article concludes with a considerationof the implications of the findings for further research andfor social work practice.     

Preference and belief: Ambiguity and competence in choice under uncertainty

We investigate the relation between judgments of probability and preferences between bets. A series of experiments provides support for the competence hypothesis that people prefer betting on their own judgment over an equiprobable chance event when they consider themselves knowledgeable, but not otherwise. They even pay a significant premium to bet on their judgments. These data connot be explained by aversion to ambiguity, because judgmental probabilities are more ambiguous than chance events. We interpret the results in terms of the attribution of credit and blame. The possibility of inferring beliefs from preferences is questioned.¹     

Measuring Intergenerational Time Preference: Are Future Lives Valued Less?

Prior research has estimated intergenerational time preferences by asking respondents to choose between hypothetical life saving programs. From such choices, researchers have concluded that the public heavily discounts the lives of people in future generations. However, using a multiversion survey involving 401 respondents, I show that imputed intergenerational time preferences can be dramatically affected by the specific question that is asked. Different elicitation procedures can yield widely varying results by evoking or suppressing various relevant considerations (such as uncertainty). Many formats revealed no preference for current generations over future generations.     

On Preference for Flexibility and Complexity Aversion: Experimental Evidence1

Desire for flexibility suggests that the value of a choice-menu should increase with the number of options included. Complexity-aversion on the other hand may imply that the value of a menu decreases with its cardinality. We present the results of an experiment where 5 groups of subjects were asked to evaluate saving plans that let the investor choose between alternative indexing-schemes before the saving period ends. The complexity of the different plans was manipulated in two ways: (1) increasing the number of indexing options; (2) reducing the quality of information upon which the choice between different indices is made. We show that an increase in the number of indexing-options produces a negative complexity effect when the quality of information is high. The same change however results in a positive flexibility effect when the quality of information is low. More generally our results suggest a `negative cross interaction of complexity effects' and that the impact of complexity is marginally decreasing. We discuss possible cognitive explanations to the observed evaluation-patterns. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Preference Reversals and Induced Risk Preferences: Evidence for Noisy Maximization

We combine two research lines: preference reversal research (Lichtenstein and Slovic, 1971) and research on lottery-based risk preference induction (Roth and Malouf, 1979). Our results are informative for both research lines. We show that inducing risk preferences in preference reversal experiments has dramatic effects. First, while our subjects still display reversals, they do not display the usual pattern of predicted reversals suggested by the compatibility hypothesis. By inducing risk averse and risk loving preferences, we can dramatically reduce reversal rates and even produce the opposite pattern of reversals. Our results are consistent with the assumption that subjects maximize expected utility with error. This provides evidence that Camerer and Hogarth's (1999) framework for incentive effects can be extended to include the risk preference induction reward scheme.     

中美证券民事案件诉讼方式比较研究

目前关于证券民事案件诉讼方式的研究较多,对于美国证券集团诉讼机制对我国的借鉴意义也有不少讨论,但对于中美证券民事案件诉讼方式进行全面的比较研究却相对较少。文章从诉讼前置程序、集体诉讼机制受案范围、集体诉讼的发起、进行及结束等方面对中美证券民事案件诉讼方式进行全面的比较研究,以期深化我国相应体制的建立与健全。