The amount and timing of parent‐adolescent sexual communication as predictors of late adolescent sexual risk‐taking behaviors

This study examined the moderating role of timing of first discussion of sexual intercourse with mothers and fathers on the relationship between the amount of sexual communication and sexual risk‐taking behaviors in late adolescence. Late adolescents (N = 214) completed questionnaire measures regarding the amount and timing of sexual communication with their mothers and fathers. In addition, the participants provided information about their various sexual risk‐taking behaviors. In general, the results suggest that timing of first discussion of sexual intercourse contributes additional variance in several sexually risky behaviors beyond that contributed by the amount of communication with both fathers and mothers. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Housing assessment criteria of rural households

This paper is an assessment of factors which influence a household to make decisions in relation to their residential location involves a complex set of variables. The location is an important aspect of quality of life, therefore, a better understanding of the components of residential decision making is essential. This paper explores factors contributing to the ideal housing situation and compares two measurements: congruence and quality score.     

Recent developments in modeling preferences: Uncertainty and ambiguity

In subjective expected utility (SEU), the decision weights people attach to events are their beliefs about the likelihood of events. Much empirical evidence, inspired by Ellsberg (1961) and others, shows that people prefer to bet on events they know more about, even when their beliefs are held constant. (They are averse to ambiguity, or uncertainty about probability.) We review evidence, recent theoretical explanations, and applications of research on ambiguity and SEU.Thanks to Jonathan Baron, James Dow, Peter Fishburn, Itzhak Gilboa, Gordon Hazen, Howard Kunreuther, Tomas Phillipson, David Schmeidler, Amos Tversky, the editor, and several anonymous referees for corrections and helpful comments. Camerer's contribution to this work was supported by the National Science Foundation, grant no. SES 88-09299. Weber's contribution was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsge-meinschaft, grant no. WE 993/5-1.     

An Evolutionary Analysis of Buyer Insurance and Seller Reputation in Online Markets

Applying an evolutionary framework, we investigate how a reputation mechanism and a buyer insurance (as used on Internet market platforms such as eBay) interact to promote trustworthiness and trust in markets with moral hazard problems. Our analysis suggests that the costs involved in giving reliable feedback determine the gains from trade that can be obtained in equilibrium. Buyer insurance, on the other hand, can affect the trading dynamics and equilibrium selection. We find that, under reasonable conditions, buyer insurance crowds out trust, and trustworthiness. Ockenfels gratefully acknowledges the support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Mengel’s research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (grant SEJ 2004-02172).     

Guaranteed Conditional Performance of Control Charts via Bootstrap Methods

To use control charts in practice, the in‐control state usually has to be estimated. This estimation has a detrimental effect on the performance of control charts, which is often measured by the false alarm probability or the average run length. We suggest an adjustment of the monitoring schemes to overcome these problems. It guarantees, with a certain probability, a conditional performance given the estimated in‐control state. The suggested method is based on bootstrapping the data used to estimate the in‐control state. The method applies to different types of control charts, and also works with charts based on regression models. If a non‐parametric bootstrap is used, the method is robust to model errors. We show large sample properties of the adjustment. The usefulness of our approach is demonstrated through simulation studies.