CATEGORIZE THEN CHOOSE: BOUNDEDLY RATIONAL CHOICE AND WELFARE

We propose a boundedly rational model of choice where agents categorize alternatives before choosing. The model explains some behavioral anomalies, and it is fully characterized by a property of choice data: a categorizer can never exhibit certain patterns of “revealed preference reversals”. This model offers clues on the problem of making welfare judgements in the presence of boundedly rational agents.     

Developing a Public Interest School of Management

This 'think piece' paper contributes to the recent 'business school business' debate by examining whether an alternative form of the business school – specifically, the public interest model – can be created. Current criticisms of conventional business schools are reviewed and alternative models explored. We take some examples from our own field of health management research. We define the public interest school model in more detail than in previous accounts and compare and contrast it with other models of the reformed business school. We identify certain conditions in which this form is more likely to succeed and suggest a future empirical research agenda.     

Too Negative to Take Risks? The Effect of the CEO's Emotional Traits on Firm Risk

Except for some recent survey and experimental studies, strategic management research has tended to neglect the influence of emotions on managers' strategic choices. This paper analyses the influence of the stable, long‐term emotional traits of CEOs on an actual business outcome: risk taking. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of 51 Spanish banks and savings banks. Our results show that CEO affective traits influence banks' risk taking. Specifically, our analyses show that managers' negative affective traits are related to lower risk taking as reflected in a lower variability in performance, a lower level of credit risk and a less risky composition of the loan portfolios of the banks they manage. Positive affective traits do not seem to influence the level of risk. These findings partially support ‘affect congruency and generalization’ arguments, and show the need to consider the role of affects when analysing CEOs' strategic choices.     

LEGAL STANDARDS,ENFORCEMENT, AND CORRUPTION

Stricter laws require more incisive and costlier enforcement. Because enforcement activity depends both on available tax revenue and the honesty of officials, the optimal legal standard of a benevolent government is increasing in per capita income and decreasing in officials' corruption. In contrast to the “tollbooth view” of regulation, the standard chosen by a self‐interested government is a non‐monotonic function of officials' corruption, and can be either lower or higher than that chosen by a benevolent regulator. International evidence on environmental regulation shows that standards correlate positively with per‐capita income, and negatively with corruption, consistent with the model's predictions for benevolent governments. (JEL: D73, K42, L51)     

Sustainable Conservation of Cultural Heritage: A Global Responsibility. Sichuan Towers Case Study

This paper has been developed in the framework of a larger research program, in which the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Tsinghua University and Yangzhou University are jointly involved to study and preserve historic towers. Cultural heritage is the intangible and tangible attributes of a society, including the natural heritage, that are inherited from past generations, preserved in the present and granted for the next generations. Nowadays we consider the cultural heritage as a world heritage belonging to all the people of the world, irrespective on which territory they are located. This paper presents a model and a methodological hypothesis to conserve cultural heritage in a sustainable way throughout the case study of Sichuan Towers (China) that could become an example for other cultural sites around the world, connecting the environmental and socio-economical aspect to the tourism development.      

合川古圣寺保护开发规划的思路

文章叙述了古圣寺的特色 ,开发的可行性和必要性 ,论述了古圣寺开发应注意整体规划 ,联动建设 ,创建清晰的空间结构和合理的功能分区 ,烘托主题 ,强化特色。同时 ,应注意开发与保护相结合 ,有利于教育改革和旅游业的发展。     

Synergies in Recurring Procurement Auctions: An Empirical Investigation

This article examines the impact of synergies on bidder behavior in recurring road construction procurement auctions. The study reveals that projects are spatially correlated. When bidders with potential synergies participate, the results indicate that their probability of bidding and winning increases and they bid more aggressively. Finally, the study shows that a firm that is capacity unconstrained will bid more aggressively than one that is capacity constrained.     

Modern times: an ethnographic study on the quality of life of people with a high support need in a Flemish residential facility

This ethnographic study shows the impact of the care system on clients' and staff's life experiences, with the clear distance between these two groups as one of the core issues. Together with a dominant care approach and a well established but subtile system of control, it makes them function in systems that are characterized by an oppressing care culture. Learned helplessness prevents both groups of acting upon quality of life outcomes. The idea of supporting a life of good quality through merely improving these traditional care systems should therefore be considered with caution, and real alternatives should be considered to open this barrier of the oppressing care culture.