Dynamic reasoning and time pressure: Transition from analytical operations to experiential responses

Based upon the Decision Field Theory (Busemeyer and Townsend 1993), we tested a model of dynamic reasoning to predict the effect of time pressure on analytical and experiential processing during decision-making. Forty-six participants were required to make investment decisions under four levels of time pressure. In each decision, participants were presented with experiential cues which were either congruent or incongruent with the analytical information. The congruent/incongruent conditions allowed us to examine how many decisions were based upon the experiential versus the analytical information, and to see if this was affected by the varying degrees of time pressure. As expected, the overall accuracy was reduced with greater time pressure and accuracy was higher when the experiential and analytical cues were congruent than when they were incongruent. Of great interest was the data showing that under high time pressure participants used more experiential cues than at other time pressures. We suggest that the dynamic reasoning paradigm has some future potential for predicting the effects of experiential biases in general, and specifically under time pressure.     

A tighter formulation of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>-median problem

Given a set of clients and a set of potential sites for facilities, the p-median problem consists of opening a set of p sites and assigning each client to the closest open facility to it. It can be viewed as a variation of the uncapacitated facility location problem. We propose a new formulation of this problem by a mixed integer linear problem. We show that this formulation, while it has the same value by LP-relaxation, can be much more efficient than two previous formulations. The computational experiment performed on two sets of benchmark instances has showed that the efficiency of the standard branch-and-cut algorithm has been significantly improved. Finally, we explore the structure of the new formulation in order to derive reduction rules and to accelerate the LP-relaxation resolution.     

Digit ratios (2D:4D) as predictors of risky decision making for both sexes

Many important decisions involve financial risk, and substantial evidence suggests that women tend to be more risk averse than men. We explore a potential biological basis of risk-taking variation within and between the sexes by studying how the ratio between the length of the second and fourth fingers (2D:4D) predicts risk-taking. A smaller 2D:4D ratio has been linked to higher exposure to prenatal testosterone relative to estradiol, with men having lower ratios than women. In financially motivated decision-making tasks, we find that men and women with smaller 2D:4D ratios chose significantly riskier options. We further find that the ratio partially explains the variation in risk-taking between the sexes. Moreover, for men and women at the extremes of the digit-ratio distribution the difference in risk-taking disappears. Thus, the 2D:4D ratio partially explains variation in financial risk-taking behavior within and between sexes and offers evidence of a biological basis for risk-taking behavior.     

中国短期跨境资本流动研究综述——途径、规模和影响因素

短期跨境资本,也可称为热钱或国际游资.在资本项目尚未完全开放的中国,其大规模流动一方面扰乱了我国宏观经济政策的制定与实施,另一方面威胁着我国的金融与经济安全.在东南亚金融危机时期以及当前的人民币升值时期,国内学界掀起了两场对于短期跨境资本流动的大讨论.其争论的焦点主要集中在流动途径、流动规模以及影响短期跨境资本流动的因素等方面.本文拟对诸观点进行深入评述.     

关于建立城乡统一的社会保障体系的浅见

建立城乡统一的社会保障体系不仅是学术界争论的焦点，也是实践部门讨论的热点。各种主张众说纷纭。然而，建立统一的社会保障体系不能凭空设想，应立足于实际，坚持具体问题具体分析。当务之急是根据农村的情况，分地方、分人群、分层次建立安全有效的农村社会保障体系。     

由表及里:地方服务型政府建构向度研究

服务型政府效能化与人本化建构是公共管理发展的基本向度,也是我国政府体制改革的目标.多年来,我国地方政府体制改革林林总总,风生水起.但是,由于受转型背景的复杂性、体制体系的惯性以及传统社会结构的粘性等因素制约,总体仍处于表象层面.为此,需要相应支点结构性的循序移位,由表及里,实现地方政府体制改革的路径创新,从而把技术性、手段性改革转变为真正为人民服务的体制性改革.     

Does product complexity matter for competition in experimental retail markets?

We describe a first experiment on whether product complexity affects competition and consumers in retail markets. We are unable to detect a significant effect of product complexity on prices, except insofar as the demand elasticity for complex products is higher. However, there is qualified evidence that complex products have the potential to induce consumers to buy more than they would otherwise. In this sense, consumer exploitability in quantities cannot be ruled out. We also find evidence for shaping effects: consumers’ preferences are shaped by past experience with prices, and firms may in principle exploit this to sell more.     

A Diamond-Stiglitz approach to the demand for self-protection

The existing research concerning the relationship between risk aversion and prudence and the demand for self-protection assumes that the loss variable follows a Bernoulli distribution, and that changes in the level of self-protection are mean preserving. The analysis here replaces these two very strong conditions with ones which are more general. When doing this, the method of analysis is also significantly modified. This modification includes representing a change in the level of self-protection using the procedure developed by Diamond and Stiglitz (Journal of Economic Theory 8:337-360, 1974) for representing a change in risk. This alternate representation allows the existing findings to be generalized considerably, and also simplifies the analysis.