Whether and How Much to Give: Uncovering the Contrasting Determinants of the Decisions of Whether and How Much to Give to Charity with Two-Stage Alternatives to the Prevailing Tobit Model

Charitable giving involves two seemingly distinct decisions: whether to give and how much to give. However, many researchers methodologically assume that these decisions are one and the same. The present study supports the argument that this is an incorrect assumption that is likely to generate misleading conclusions, in part, since the second decision is much more financial in nature than the first. The argument that charitable giving entails two distinct decisions is validated by empirically dismissing the prevailing Tobit model, which assumes a single decision, in favor of less restrictive two-stage approaches: Cragg’s model and the Heckman model. Most importantly, it is shown that only by adopting a two-stage approach may it be uncovered that common determinants of charitable giving such as income and gender affect the two decisions at hand very differently. Data comes from a high-quality 2012 Danish survey and administrative registers.     

Putting measures of individual well-being to use for ex-ante policy evaluation

Most studies using microsimulation techniques have considered the effect of potential reforms on the income distribution. However, it has become increasingly recognized, both at the academic and political level, that focusing purely on income provides a limited picture of social progress. We illustrate how ex-ante policy evaluation can be performed in terms of richer concepts of individual well-being, such as subjective life satisfaction and equivalent incomes. Our analysis makes use of EUROMOD, the EU-wide tax-benefit microsimulation model, along with 2013 EU-SILC data for Sweden, which for the first time provides information on life satisfaction. Our results show that the effect of potential reforms varies widely depending on the well-being concept used in the evaluation. We discuss the normative questions that are raised by this finding.     

"I'LL DIE WITH THE HAMMER IN MY HAND": JOHN HENRYISM AS A PREDICTOR OF HAPPINESS

This paper examines the association between John Henryism - a behavioral predisposition to cope actively with psycho-social environmental stressors - and happiness. On the basis of previous research on aspiration and goal regulation, we predicted that John Henryism would be negatively associated with happiness when controlling for demographic factors and attainment in various domains of life. We tested the prediction in a sample of hypertensive participants (n = 758) drawn from an inner-city, mainly African-American, safety-net hospital in Jefferson County, Alabama. Bivariate analysis revealed no association between John Henryism and attainment in six domains of life: marriage, children, education, employment, income, and health. However, a significant negative association between John Henryism and happiness was found both in bivariate analysis (Spearman’s ρ = -0.335; p < .001) and when controlling for demographic factors and attainment using ordinal logistic regression analysis. There was a significant interaction effect between John Henryism and gender: being male was positively associated with happiness among participants with low John Henryism, but negatively associated with happiness among participants with high John Henryism. While further study would be required in order to establish the extent to which these findings can be generalized as well as their causal underpinnings, the results support the hypothesis that John Henryism is negatively associated with happiness, especially among men, and underscore the limitations of using self-report measures of happiness as proxies for well-being for purposes of public policy.     

Local linear regression with adaptive orthogonal fitting for the wind power application

Short-term forecasting of wind generation requires a model of the function for the conversion of meteorological variables (mainly wind speed) to power production. Such a power curve is nonlinear and bounded, in addition to being nonstationary. Local linear regression is an appealing nonparametric approach for power curve estimation, for which the model coefficients can be tracked with recursive Least Squares (LS) methods. This may lead to an inaccurate estimate of the true power curve, owing to the assumption that a noise component is present on the response variable axis only. Therefore, this assumption is relaxed here, by describing a local linear regression with orthogonal fit. Local linear coefficients are defined as those which minimize a weighted Total Least Squares (TLS) criterion. An adaptive estimation method is introduced in order to accommodate nonstationarity. This has the additional benefit of lowering the computational costs of updating local coefficients every time new observations become available. The estimation method is based on tracking the left-most eigenvector of the augmented covariance matrix. A robustification of the estimation method is also proposed. Simulations on semi-artificial datasets (for which the true power curve is available) underline the properties of the proposed regression and related estimation methods. An important result is the significantly higher ability of local polynomial regression with orthogonal fit to accurately approximate the target regression, even though it may hardly be visible when calculating error criteria against corrupted data.     

Demographic and Personality Characteristics of Internet Child Pornography Downloaders in Comparison to Other Offenders

This research study was conducted to map out the demographic and psychological aspects of Internet child pornography offenders. The backgrounds, characteristics, and MMPI profiles of 22 Internet child pornography offenders were statistically compared to those of 112 perpetrators of other offenses. In comparison to the other sexual offenders, the Internet child pornography offenders turned out to be significantly younger on average, were single and lived alone in most cases, and more often appeared to have no children of their own. It should be noted that the variables of age, being single, living alone, and not having children are associated to one another. Furthermore, no specific MMPI profile was found for Internet child pornography offenders compared to other sexual offenders.     

Modeling market information processing in new product development: An empirical analysis

This research explores the antecedents and consequences of market information processing during the development process of new high-tech products. To this end, we develop and test a conceptual model for market information processing in three generic stages of the new product development (NPD) process (predevelopment, development and commercialization). In addition, we explore the relationships between market information processing, its antecedents, and product advantage and success. We test our model with responses from 166 NPD-managers in Dutch high-tech firms. The findings show that the market information processing variables are related differentially to new product outcomes, even when controlling for product advantage and product newness to the market. In addition, we found that companies can enhance market information processing for new high-tech products by influencing project priority and flexibility to new products, and by reducing interdepartmental conflict.     

Ordering of Sequentially Sampled Exponential Experiments

Let X ₁, X ₂, ... be a sequence of i.i.d. random variables, X _i∼ F _θ, θ∈Θ. Let N ₁ and N ₂ be two stopping rules. For a class of exponential families { F _θ: θ∈Θ} we show that the experiment Y ₁ = ( X ₁, ..., X _N1) carries more statistical information than Y ₂ = ( X ₁, ..., x _N2) only if N ₁ is stochastically larger then N ₂     

Extension of internationalisation models: drivers and processes for the globalisation of product development – a comparison of Danish and Chinese engineering firms

This paper develops an extension to established production- and supply chain management focused internationalisation models. It applies explorative case studies in Danish and Chinese engineering firms to discover how the globalisation process of product development differs from Danish and Chinese perspectives. The paper uses internationalisation and global product development theory to explain similarities and differences in the approaches. Grounded in case study results, a new model for internationalisation is proposed. The new model expands the internationalisation process model to include steps of product development and collaborative distributed development beyond sourcing, sales and production elements. The paper then provides propositions for how to further develop the suggested model, and how western companies can learn from the Chinese approaches, and globalise their product development activities from the front end of the value chain rather than from the back-end.