Efficient Use of Information and Social Value of Information

This paper analyzes equilibrium and welfare for a tractable class of economies (games) that have externalities, strategic complementarity or substitutability, and heterogeneous information. First, we characterize the equilibrium use of information: complementarity heightens the sensitivity of equilibrium actions to public information, raising aggregate volatility, whereas substitutability heightens the sensitivity to private information, raising cross‐sectional dispersion. Next, we define and characterize an efficiency benchmark designed to address whether the equilibrium use of information is optimal from a social perspective; the efficient use of information reflects the social value of aligning choices across agents. Finally, we examine the comparative statics of equilibrium welfare with respect to the information structure; the social value of information is best understood by classifying economies according to the inefficiency, if any, in the equilibrium use of information. We conclude with a few applications, including production externalities, beauty contests, business cycles, and large Cournot and Bertrand games.     

John A. Buzacott and His Pioneering Contributions to Manufacturing and Service Systems

John A. Buzacott is a pioneering and premier contributor to the field of production and operations management. He has been a principal architect of the development of a unified framework and a rigorous engineering foundation for many of the major approaches currently used in the design, planning, and control of manufacturing and service systems. His innovative use of stochastic models to explain many phenomena occurring in manufacturing and service organizations has distinguished him not only as a great researcher but also as a great teacher. His contributions have inspired scholars throughout the world. We provide an overview of John's research works and accomplishments.     

How does paid work affect who does the childcare? An analysis of the time use of Australian couples

This paper analyzes the effect of paid work by coupled parents of young children on the joint decisions to spend time engaged in childcare. We explore this using Australian Time-Use Survey data from 2006. We examine the effect of paid work in terms of the effect that total work time on a given day has on the amount of time spent on childcare; the allocation of time on activities across work and non-work days; and the effect of non-traditional work hours. The results show that mothers perform a large share of childcare, irrespective of their earning power or their partner’s availability to take on some of these tasks. The use of formal and informal childcare by others allows the mother to balance the competing demands of work and her own childcare; an effect that does not hold for fathers. These effects on childcare are also almost solely concentrated in the routine component of childcare (e.g. preparing meals, changing nappies), with each parent ‘protecting’ interactive childcare from the effect of both paid work and the relative availability of their partner to take on some of this childcare.     

Inference for impulse response coefficients from multivariate fractionally integrated processes

This article considers a multivariate system of fractionally integrated time series and investigates the most appropriate way for estimating Impulse Response (IR) coefficients and their associated confidence intervals. The article extends the univariate analysis recently provided by Baillie and Kapetanios (2013 Baillie, R. T., Kapetanios, G. (2013). Estimation and inference for impulse response functions form univariate strongly persistent processes. Econometrics Journal 16:373–399.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and uses a semiparametric, time domain estimator, based on a vector autoregression (VAR) approximation. Results are also derived for the orthogonalized estimated IRs which are generally more practically relevant. Simulation evidence strongly indicates the desirability of applying the Kilian small sample bias correction, which is found to improve the coverage accuracy of confidence intervals for IRs. The most appropriate order of the VAR turns out to be relevant for the lag length of the IR being estimated.     

The Role of Distal Minority Stress and Internalized Transnegativity in Suicidal Ideation and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury Among Transgender Adults

Transgender people are at elevated risk for nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) and suicidal ideation compared to the general population. Transgender (trans) refers to a diverse group of people who experience incongruence between their gender identity and sex assigned at birth. The present study is guided by the minority stress model and the psychological mediation framework, which postulate that sexual minority groups experience elevated stress as a result of anti-minority prejudice, contributing to negative mental health outcomes. This study utilized these theories to investigate the role of internalized transnegativity—internalization of negative societal attitudes about one’s trans identity—in the relationships of distal trans stress to suicidal ideation and NSSI. A U.S. national sample of trans adults (N = 237) completed a battery of online measures. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to compare models with mediation and moderation effects. Results suggested that internalized transnegativity acts as both a mediator and a moderator in the relationship between distal trans stress and suicidal ideation. Log likelihood comparisons suggested moderation models had the superior fit for these data. Results suggest that clinical interventions should directly target individuals’ internalized transnegativity as well as societal-level transnegativity.     

Deconstructing bottleneck shiftiness: the impact of bottleneck position on order release control in pure flow shops

Bottleneck shiftiness is an important managerial problem that negatively affects shop floor manageability. It has therefore received much research attention. Yet research has focused on how protective capacity can be used to influence bottleneck shiftiness rather than on assessing its operational impact. The latter is complex to evaluate since changing the degree of bottleneck shiftiness influences utilization, which makes the results of different experimental settings non-comparable. To overcome this problem, we take a different approach. Bottleneck shiftiness is decomposed by investigating its underlying phenomenon: the impact of the bottleneck position. Using simulation, we demonstrate that tighter control can be exercised, and better performance achieved, the further upstream the bottleneck is positioned. It is consequently important to be aware of the direction of the bottleneck shift. If the bottleneck shifts upstream, performance is likely to improve rather than deteriorate as is implicitly assumed in the literature.     

Structural landscape changes in urban and peri-urban agricultural systems of two West African cities and their relations to ecosystem services provided by woody plant communities

Urban Ecosystems - High urbanization pressure in Sub-Saharan Africa led to changes in the composition and configuration of rural and peri-urban agricultural production systems and to the...     

Emerging from below the social radar: Incipient evaluation in the North West of England

This paper investigates the social meaning of post‐nasal [ɡ]‐presence, a dialectal variant characteristic of North Western varieties of British English that is claimed to have local prestige. Using a matched‐guise approach, this study reveals the absence of a community‐wide norm with respect to how [?ɡ] clusters are evaluated as well as diachronic change in the level of awareness speakers have of this variable. Older subjects are not sensitive to the dialectal status of [?ɡ] and as a result do not evaluate it differently from [?]; the local form is more accessible to evaluation among younger subjects, for whom the northern indexicality is stronger, but at this incipient stage of social meaning there is no agreement on what the content of this evaluation should be. The results speak to questions regarding the development of shared norms, their role in the speech community, and the granularity of social meaning more generally.     

DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS FOR ILL-STRUCTURED PROBLEMS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Decision support systems (DSSs) are more complex than most other traditional decision-aid systems. For what types of problems are they more effective, and what design characteristics make them more effective? The laboratory experiment reported here examined the effect of three design characteristics of these systems in the context of decision makers faced with ill-structured problems. The characteristics were presence or absence of decision-aid heuristics, degree of interaction between the user and the system, and whether or not the system was computerized. The dependent variables were (1) quality of user performance, (2) user productivity of ideas, (3) user confidence in the quality of his/her performance, (4) user satisfaction with the decision aid or support system, (5) changes in user attitude toward the problem addressed, and (6) changes in user attitude toward computers. Use of heuristics and increased interaction had positive effects on decision quality, user productivity, and attitude toward computers; they had negative effects on user confidence, satisfaction, and attitude toward the problem addressed. Whether or not the system was computerized did not have a significant effect on any dependent variable. The findings concerning negative effects, in particular, suggest the need for research on the design of heuristics for addressing ill-structured problems—heuristics that will deliver the positive but not the negative effects observed in this study. The findings also suggest the need for research on how to benefit from computers in the context of solving ill-structured problems.