The curse of hope

In K?szegi and Rabin’s (Q J Econ 1133–1165, 2006, Am Econ Rev 97:1047–1073, 2007) reference-dependent model of preferences, the chance of obtaining a better outcome can reduce an agent’s expected utility through an increase in the stochastic reference point. This means that individuals may prefer stochastically dominated lotteries. In this sense, hope, understood as a small probability of a better outcome, can be a curse. While K?szegi and Rabin focus on a linear specification of the utility function, we show that this effect occurs more broadly. Using fairly plausible assumptions and parameter values, we specify the conditions under which it occurs, as well as the type of lotteries in which this should be expected. We then show that while a simple subjective transformation of probability into weights of the reference point may in some cases mitigate the issue, in others, it can intensify it or even generate new ones. Finally, we extend the model by adding the individual’s current reference point (status quo) to the stochastic reference point. We show that this modification can reconcile K?szegi and Rabin’s model with the apparent empirical infrequency of stochastically dominated choices while maintaining its main qualitative results.     

Perceived Value of the Mass‐Customized Product and Mass Customization Experience for Individual Consumers

The operations management literature on mass customization mainly focuses on the questions of whether and how manufacturers can efficiently deliver customization. Researchers have analyzed the trade‐offs between customization and dimensions of operational performance such as delivery times, quality, and costs. However, we argue that providing efficient customization is not sufficient per se to assess the value of mass customization. From this perspective, this paper focuses on complementary mechanisms for creating value: the benefits perceived by individual consumers. Two global components of perceived value within the context of mass customization are identified: mass‐customized product, with three dimensions, and mass customization experience, with two dimensions. The Consumer‐Perceived Value Tool (CPVT) is proposed to empirically measure the five perceived benefits related to the mass‐customized product and to the codesign process from the consumer viewpoint. The psychometric properties of the CPVT are assessed using three samples. The implications of this approach are discussed, along with directions for further research.     

Managing to Reinvent Strong Publicness in a Privatized World

How can a specialized public organization, of which the operational sector has been brutally fragmented and privatized, maintain its unity and publicness? The paper looks at how the British Transport Police (BTP) has adapted to the fragmentation and privatization of British Rail since 1993. The fact that the BTP has remained public and national is all the more surprising since a return to the pre-World War II configuration, with each Train Operating Company (TOC) having and running its own police, could be technically envisaged. The answer to the initial question is quite simple. The police organization under examination has intelligently reinvented its publicness, with the negotiated assent of its referring political and economic authorities.     

Stable syndicates of factor owners and distribution of social output: a Shapley value approach

The purpose of this paper is to examine the incentive of a player to join a syndicate in an environment of team production and payoff distribution according to Shapley value. We consider an economy in which a single output is produced by an increasing returns to scale production function using two inputs: labor and capital. By assuming that syndicates of factor owners can form, we are interested in their stability, i.e., the willingness of the members of the syndicate to stay in the syndicate. Our analysis, based on the Shapley value, allows us to find a fair imputation of the gains of cooperation and the conditions under which syndicates are stable.     

Alzheimer’s disease: psychiatric or neurological disorder?

The aim of this contribution is to provide a few historical and conceptual insights on the question of the impact of current developments in the neurosciences on the concept of psychiatric disease. Alzheimer’s disease is a good example when considering this important question. On the one hand, Alzheimer’s disease has a somewhat ambiguous status in terms of disorders affecting the mind or the psyche. This ambiguous status is illustrated by the fact that one commonly qualifies Alzheimer’s disease as a ‘neuropsychiatric’ disorder, because it cannot easily be classified as either a ‘neurological’ or ‘psychiatric’ disorder. On the other hand, the concept of Alzheimer’s disease was created at the beginning of the twentieth century, as the neurosciences were beginning to take shape themselves as scientific disciplines. To compare Alzheimer’s original ideas with current conceptions may thus help us to precisely specify current developments in the neurosciences.     

On the likelihood of Condorcet's profiles

Consider a group of individuals who have to collectively choose an outcome from a finite set of feasible alternatives. A scoring or positional rule is an aggregation procedure where each voter awards a given number of points, w _j, to the alternative she ranks in j ^th position in her preference ordering; The outcome chosen is then the alternative that receives the highest number of points. A Condorcet or majority winner is a candidate who obtains more votes than her opponents in any pairwise comparison. Condorcet [4] showed that all positional rules fail to satisfy the majority criterion. Furthermore, he supplied a famous example where all the positional rules select simultaneously the same winner while the majority rule picks another one. Let P ^* be the probability of such events in three-candidate elections. We apply the techniques of Merlin et al. [17] to evaluate P ^* for a large population under the Impartial Culture condition. With these assumptions, such a paradox occurs in 1.808% of the cases. Received: 30 April 1999/Accepted: 14 September 2000     

Blurring the boundaries of sports public relations: National stereotypes as sport announcers’ public relations tools

Live media coverage is a key element of the relationship between a sport and its publics. The role of television producers, including announcers, is to connect effectively with the public, creating an entertaining and engaging package that keeps viewers watching. In considering this as an aspect of public relations, this paper explores how national stereotypes function to present a consistent and easily interpretable set of messages that capture publics by reinforcing their existing understandings and by providing resources for enhancing the drama and uncertainty that is such a desirable aspect of the sport audience experience. Mapping the elements of the stereotype of Frenchness in rugby union as a case study, our analysis is based on interviews with well-known French and New Zealand rugby union announcers and analyses of a decade of broadcasts of France versus New Zealand tests. We conclude that the use of stereotypes, based on the creation of differences between national teams, can be conceived of as an effective form of public relations which heightens interest and reinforces patriotic subject positions for viewers and therefore mobilises a national public.     

Sojourn time in an M/M/1 processor sharing queue with permanent customers

We explicitly compute the sojourn time distribution of an arbitrary customer in an M/M/1 processor sharing (PS) queue with permanent customers. We notably exhibit the orthogonal structure associated with this queuing system and we show how sieved Pollaczek polynomials and their associated orthogonality measure can be used to obtain an explicit representation for the complementary cumulative distribution function of the sojourn time of a customer. This explicit formula subsequently allows us to compute the two first moments of this random variable and to study the asymptotic behavior of its distribution. The most salient result is that the decay rate depends on the load of the system and the number K of permanent customers. When the load is above a certain threshold depending on K, the decay rate is identical to that of a regular M/M/1 PS queue.     

The Kuznets curve of human capital inequality: 1870–2010

This paper describes the long-term global trends in education inequality since 1870. Inequality in years of schooling is shown to have mechanically decreased along with the decline in the share of illiterate people. In search of a monetary equivalent of years of schooling, we turn to Mincer (1974) human capital ineq uality. Within countries, we find evidence of an inverted U-shape curve for human capital inequality over time, namely a Kuznets curve for human capital. At the global level, the world inequality in human capital has followed a similar trajectory, first increasing from 1870 to 1970, then decreasing.     

How Do Policies Affect the Exit Rate out of Unemployment? Disentangling Job Creation from Labour Market Frictions

This paper assesses the effects of labour market policies on the unemployment outflow rate while disentangling two channels, namely labour market tightness and employer–employee matching efficiency. Using a sample of 11 OECD countries over the period 1985–2007, we treat the endogeneity of market tightness with business cycle shocks and the tax wedge as instruments. We find that the replacement rate of unemployment benefits, Active Labour Market Policies as well as the tax wedge in countries with poorly representative unions, have a significant, robust, and large impact on market tightness. Employment protection has a negative but small impact on matching efficiency. Overall, policy effects appear to be mostly channeled through market tightness and job creation.