When risky decisions generate externalities

Many risky decisions generate either positive externalities (e.g., opening a small business, engaging in research and development, vaccinating) or negative externalities (e.g., smoking, reckless driving, unprotected sex). I develop a new experimental framework for evaluating risk tolerance when risky decisions that generate externalities by modifying the allocation task of Gneezy and Potters (1997). In the ‘risk with externalities’ framework, for each unit increase in a risky allocation, an external cost or benefit is imposed upon a group member. I further vary the magnitude of the external effect to investigate the sensitivity of risk taking to the marginal external effect. Results indicate that risky decisions are driven by a combination of social and non-social factors. When individuals both impose and receive externalities, the preferred level of risk taking is lower if the externality is negative, regardless of the magnitude of the marginal external effect. Risk taking is then further affected by the magnitude of the marginal external effect. For individuals who only impose externalities, behavior is consistent with a disutility from imposing harm (but not a sensitivity to the magnitude of the external effect). For those who only receive externalities, individuals increase (decrease) their risky allocation when they are in a decision environment where they receive external benefits (costs). Additional treatments suggest that results are consistent with decreasing relative risk aversion plus an additional disutility from either imposing or receiving harmful externalities.

     

Emotional Climate as Emotion Accessibility: How Countries Prime Emotions

Many everyday collective emotions are shared emotional conventions, that is, social practices with an attributed emotional meaning (e.g., complimenting as a sign of conventional love). Emotional conventions lead to a collective priming of some categories of emotion. For example, New Year Eve's emotional conventions prime words such as "happy." We define emotional atmosphere and emotional climate as emotion accessibility caused by the priming of specific categories of emotion linked to emotional conventions. We report two sets of data in support of this approach: (1) the accessibility of categories of emotion in relation to unusual historical events (the 1992 World Expo in Seville and the March–April 2004 terrorist attacks in Madrid), and (2) the differential priming of specific categories of emotion on the Internet in different countries. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of this approach to "emotional climate."     

人文奥运与奥林匹克的赛场文化

20 0 8年在北京举办奥运会 ,那时将使全世界人民的目光焦点对准北京。奥林匹克的赛场文化一直是奥林匹克的重要组成部分。现代人所要求的社会性格和现代体育 ,特别是现代竞技体育所提倡的观念是一致的。奥林匹克赛场就是这样吸引着全世界不同种族、不同肤色、不同制度、不同信仰、不同贫富的人纷纷涌向它。     

Productivity growth,external shocks,and capital inflows in Chile: A general equilibrium analysis

This paper uses a computable general equilibrium model to analyze the growth path of the Chilean economy during 1977–1981. During that period a comprehensive package of reforms liberalized international trade and removed restrictive labor legislation. As a result of the reforms, there were large changes in relative prices and in the structure of production and demand, and the economy enjoyed unprecedented growth with declining inflation. But large macroeconomic imbalance become evident toward the end of the period and in 1982 Chile experienced an abrupt and severe recession. Taking the real exchange rate as an exogenous policy variable, and using the observed levels of employment growth and foreign capital inflows, this paper compares model-generated growth paths with those of the economy. First, the benchmark simulation path is used to estimate the magnitude and pattern of growth and productivity change during the 1971–1981 period. Next, counter-factual simulations are used to assess how Chile's economic performance would have differed if (a) external events had been different; and (b) foreign capital inflows had been different. The analysis suggests that the macroeconomic imbalances that led to the crisis in 1982 were exacerbated by the large capital inflows and real exchange rate appreciation that resulted from the use of the exchange rate as a stabilization device.     

Analyzing disaster risks and plans: An avian flu example

Narrative approaches to analyzing risks seek to identify the variables critical to creating and controlling a risk, then to instantiate them in terms of coherent themes (e.g., organizational failure, strategic surprise). Computational approaches to analyzing risks seek to identify the same critical variables, then to instantiate them in terms of their probability. Disaster risk analysis faces complex, novel processes that strain the capabilities of both approaches. We propose an approach that integrates elements of each, relying on what we call structured scenarios and computable models. It is illustrated by framing the analysis of plans for a possible avian flu pandemic.     

Homogenizing Responses to Different Survey Questions on the Same Topic: Proposal of a Scale Homogenization Method Using a Reference Distribution

Survey data are often used for comparison purposes, such as comparisons across nations or comparisons over time. To be effective, this would require equivalent questions and equivalent responses options to the questions. Yet there is a lot of variation in the response scales used, which, for example, differ in the number of response options used and the labeling of these options. This is the case in happiness research, and as a result most of the research data in this field is incomparable. Several methods have been proposed to transform ratings on verbal response scales to a common numerical scale, typically ranging from 0 to 10. In this paper we give an overview of the progress made in those Scale Homogenization methods over time. We describe two early methods: Linear Stretch and the Semantic Judgement of Fixed Word Value Method. Next we discuss the Semantic Judgement of Word Value in Context Method in more detail. Based on these discussions we propose a new Reference Distribution Method. We apply the Semantic Judgement of Word Value in Context and the Reference Distribution Methods to data on happiness in The Netherlands for the years 1989–2009. We show that the Reference Distribution Method produces comparable time series on different questions and that it allows discontinuities in data to be corrected.     

Do Values Matter? The Impact of Work Ethic and Traditional Gender Role Values on Female Labour Market Supply

This article aims to gain a better understanding of the explanatory value of work ethic and traditional gender role values with regard to variation in female labour market supply. Although women’s labour market participation has increased dramatically over the past decades, it still lacks behind that of men. A high female participation rate is desirable for several reasons, for instance to cover rising costs due to the ageing of society. The existing literature has mostly focused on micro-economic and macro factors to explain differences between women in participation rate. However, more recently it has been argued that women’s values may also play an important role in women’s labour market decisions. Work ethic, expressing the moral duty to work in terms of paid employment, is argued to positively affect women’s labour supply. However, it is argued that it can have negative implications too if women who hold more traditional gender role values interpret work and work ethic in terms of housework or in terms of paid employment for men only. This exemplifies the need to study both values at the same time. We used longitudinal Dutch data (LISS panel, 2007–2010) and estimated both cross-sectional and longitudinal models. Both types of models revealed a similar pattern: work ethic is positively associated with women’s labour market participation, but only if we take into account women’s gender role values, which negatively relate to women’s labour market supply.     

Mobile devices and their effect on the sociality on Dutch Intercity trains

ABSTRACT

Travelling by train is an activity that many people engage in on a daily basis, which is rarely performed alone. While trains are locations where many different strangers potentially encounter each other, they are also portrayed as non-social transient places of passenger conflict and disharmony. Especially the rapid rise of mobile devices has changed the way people interact on board. This mobile ethnography – based on observations, travel-diaries and diary-interviews with 16 frequent travellers of Dutch Intercity trains – contributes to earlier studies on passenger sociality by specifically focussing on how social interactions are influenced by these mobile devices. The findings illustrate that using a mobile phone is indeed the most reported on-board activity and direct interactions are limited. Nevertheless, people on the train speak a very subtle non-verbal language that enables them to interact without engaging in extensive direct interactions. Mobile devices are thus not just enabling or constraining but have become inherent parts of socialising. Furthermore, most people do watch out for each other and try not to bother others. Discomforts emerge from different interpretations and compliances of codes of conduct.