Learning-by-doing in an ambiguous environment

How well do revealed ambiguity preferences predict how people choose to seek new information about uncertain events? In an economics experiment, we apply a new instrument to measure ambiguity preferences, and in a later session observe to what extent the measure predicts the choice to receive costly information in a learning-by-doing game. Ambiguity averse subjects are more willing to pay to receive information, while risk averse subjects are not. Holding ambiguity preferences constant, risk averse subjects tend to perform worse than risk loving subjects. The returns to experimentation, especially for ambiguity averse subjects, suggest a not-well studied but important role that ambiguity preferences play in decision-making under uncertainty.     

Studying University as Social Systems Using the Viable System Model: mApp and Semantic Web Technologies at the Industrial University of Santander†

The purpose of this paper is to build on Systemic and Organizational Cybernetics (OC) through the Beer's Viable System Model (VSM) in order to study university analyzing them as social systems. A representation of the self-assessment process is provided through a model that allows university decision markers to diagnose or design information systems for self-evaluation process of graduate programs. The developed systemic framework could offer practical guidelines for decision makers in public or private universities in applying the concepts of organizational and systemic cybernetics in order to strengthen the viability of postgraduate programs and to perform processes for self-evaluation in collective decisions. This research also presents a case study carried out at the Industrial University of Santander, in Bucaramanga, Colombia. This article is an original attempt to fill the conceptual and practical gap on Organizational Cybernetics, existing in the design of self-assessment models graduate programs. Another contribution is the introduction of a Viable System Model of the higher education system in Colombia through the Organizational Cybernetics.     

Culture and Household Decision Making. Balance of Power and Labor Supply Choices of US-Born and Foreign-Born Couples

This study investigates how spouses’ cultural backgrounds mediate the role of intra-household bargaining in the labor supply decisions of foreign-born and US-born couples, in a collective-household framework. Using data from the 2000 US Census, I show that the hours worked by US-born couples, and by those foreign-born coming from countries with gender roles similar to the US, are significantly related to common bargaining power forces such as differences between spouses in age and non-labor income, controlling for both spouses’ demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Households whose culture of origin supports strict and unequal gender roles do not exhibit any association of these power factors with their labor supply decisions. This cultural asymmetry suggests that spousal attributes are assessed differently across couples within the US, and that how spouses make use of their outside opportunities and economic and institutional environment may depend on their ethnicities.     

A bayesian predictive approach to sequential search for an optimal dose: Parametric and nonparametric models

Summary This paper looks at a new approach to the problem of finding the maximal tolerated dose (or optimal dose, Eichhorn and Zacks, 1973) of certain drugs which in addition to their therapeutic effects have secondary harmful effects. The problem is investigated in a sequential setting from a Bayesian predictive approach. Search procedures are proposed for parametric and nonparametric models.     

Infantilization as elder mistreatment:evidence from five adult day centers

To prevent maltreatment, aging services must be age appropriate even as consumers suffer from physical and cognitive disabilities. In this paper, it is argued that exposing older persons to childoriented settings, activities and speech patterns in aging service environments represent a form of psychological mistreatment. Ethnographic evidence from 220 hours of field observations in five "social model" adult day centers revealed infantilization of service users in the form of confinement, baby-talk, nicknames, child-oriented decor, teacher-student learning format, reprimands, use of toys, as well as a loss of privacy regulation, autonomy, choice, and adult status. All centers exhibited some mistreatment, but severe examples were present in two of the five centers studied. Negative influences on behavior, well-being, self-identity, relationship formation, and social interaction were detected, which distinguished mistreatment from poor quality of care. Insider interviews (23) revealed resentment and adaptive strategies employed to distance themselves from infantilization.     

Play the white man: the social construction of fairness and competition in equal opportunity policies

This paper discusses the impact of equal opportunity projects on women's employment in two public sector organisations. It examines the limitations of the emerging liberal model and assesses the likely effectiveness of alternative approaches. An Affirmative Action Program in a North American university was examined five years after its initiation. Despite standardised procedures for access to jobs and systematic monitoring, there was very little change in the degree of occupational segregation between men and women. A women's committee project in a UK university examined the present situations of women staff, with the aim of producing a strategy for change which would benefit women currently employed. This resulted in the identification of training provision, flexible working arrangements and the restructuring of job requirements as the central aspects of an alternative approach to equal opportunity policy. It is argued that, particularly in a recessionary economic climate, policies requiring employers to rethink job requirements in ways that do not exclude competent women should provide a more effective challenge to occupational segregation than liberal policies which concentrate on assessing the ‘suitability’ of individual job applicants in terms of conventional criteria.     

Socioeconomic Vulnerability and Adaptation to Environmental Risk: A Case Study of Climate Change and Flooding in Bangladesh

In this article we investigate the complex relationship between environmental risk, poverty, and vulnerability in a case study carried out in one of the poorest and most flood-prone countries in the world, focusing on household and community vulnerability and adaptive coping mechanisms. Based upon the steadily growing amount of literature in this field we develop and test our own analytical model. In a large-scale household survey carried out in southeast Bangladesh, we ask almost 700 floodplain residents living without any flood protection along the River Meghna about their flood risk exposure, flood problems, flood damage, and coping mechanisms. Novel in our study is the explicit testing of the effectiveness of adaptive coping strategies to reduce flood damage costs. We show that, households with lower income and less access to productive natural assets face higher exposure to risk of flooding. Disparity in income and asset distribution at community level furthermore tends to be higher at higher risk exposure levels, implying that individually vulnerable households are also collectively more vulnerable. Regarding the identification of coping mechanisms to deal with flood events, we look at both the ex ante household level preparedness for flood events and the ex post availability of community-level support and disaster relief. We find somewhat paradoxically that the people that face the highest risk of flooding are the least well prepared, both in terms of household-level ex ante preparedness and community-level ex post flood relief.     

On the explosion rate of maximum-bias functions

The maxbias function B_T() contains much information about the robustness properties of the estimate T. This function satisfies B_T(0)=0 and B_T()<for all 0<<whereis the breakdown point of T. Hampel (1974)pioneered the study of the limiting behaviour of B_T(?) where ? → 0. He computed and optimized the rate γ at which B_T(?) approaches 0 when ? → 0. This rate is now called the contamination sensitivity of T, and constitutes one of the cornerstones of the theory of robustness. We show that much can also be learned from the study of the limiting behaviour of B_T(?) when ? → ?*. A new robustness measure, called the relative explosion rate, can be obtained by studying the limiting relative maxbias behaviour of two extimates when approaches their common breakdown point ?*. Like the contamination sensitivity, the relative explosion rate can be readily derived from the estimate's score function. General formulae are given for M-estimates of scale and S-, MM- and τ-estimates of regression. We also show that the maxbias behaviour for large ? is largely determined by the curvature of the estimate's score function near zero. This motivates our definition and study of the local order of a score function.     

Risky businesses: economic crisis in Argentina and the generative power of generations

Theory and Society - How are risk orientations shaped in the sphere of work beyond proximate structuring institutions? In the absence of clear organizational imperatives or institutional supports,...