“I don’t want to be selling my soul”: Two experiments in environmental economics

We conducted two experiments in the context of environmental protection. We found that profit considerations and personality traits are among the essential determinants of individual contributions to the solution of environmental problems. The results show that environmental considerations are powerful motivators and subjects are willing to forgo pecuniary profits for the sake of “doing-the-right-thing”. The study shows that the environmental groups can purchase carbon offsets directly from the providers at a lower-than market price and still obtain a relatively large market share.     

Constructing Copulas with Given Diagonal and Opposite Diagonal Sections

A method for constructing copulas with given diagonal and opposite diagonal sections is presented. It makes use of a recently developed method for constructing cross-copulas with given horizontal and vertical sections. Conditions guaranteeing the existence of a cross-copula with the given diagonal and opposite diagonal sections are derived. It is shown how the new method facilitates the construction of families of copulas that simultaneously model tail dependences of upper-upper, upper-lower, lower-lower and lower-upper type.     

On construction of exact experimental designs from discrete ones

In the paper we try to evaluate approximately optimum exact designs of required goodness from a known approximately optimum discrete design. In dependence on this discrete design we define some subsets of the set of all considered exact designs.

Then we look for sufficiency conditions, on which elements of these subsets are approximately optimum (exact) designs of the required goodness. Moreover we offer a method to find such elements, if they exist at all. Finally we prove some statements concerning the existence of such elements for two classes of (optimum) criteria.     

Characterization of th estandard normal probability density within the class of self–adjoint (self–reciprocal) densities

We consider symmetric densities p statisfying the well–known integral equation[ULM0001] The solution proves to be standard normal provided that[ILM0001] for some integer     

Standard Distance in Univariate and Multivariate Analysis

We propose to use the term standard distance for the quantity in univariate analysis and show that it can be easily generalized to the multivariate situation, where it coincides with the square root of the Mahalanobis distance between two samples.     

Testing nested and non-nested periodically integrated autoregressive models

Periodically integrated time series require a periodic differencing filter to remove the stochastic trend. A non-periodic integrated time series needs the first-difference filter for similar reasons. When the changing sea- sonal fluctuations for the non-periodic integrated series can be described by seasonal dummy variables for which the corresponding parameters are not constant within the sampie, such a series may not be easily & stinguished from a periodically integrated time series. In this paper, nested and non-nested testing procedures are proposed to distinguish between these two alternative stochastic and non-stochastic seasonal processes, When it is assumed there is a single unknown structural break in the seasonal dummy parameters. Several empirical examples using quarterly real macroeconomic time series for the United Kingdom illustrate the nested and non-nested approaches.     

European Federation of Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry's position on access to clinical trial data

The European Federation of Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry (EFSPI) believes access to clinical trial data should be implemented in a way that supports good research, avoids misuse of such data, lies within the scope of the original informed consent and fully protects patient confidentiality. In principle, EFSPI supports responsible data sharing. EFSPI acknowledges it is in the interest of patients that their data are handled in a strictly confidential manner to avoid misuse under all possible circumstances. It is also in the interest of the altruistic nature of patients participating in trials that such data will be used for further development of science as much as possible applying good statistical principles. This paper summarises EFSPI's position on access to clinical trial data. The position was developed during the European Medicines Agency (EMA) advisory process and before the draft EMA policy on publication and access to clinical trial data was released for consultation; however, the EFSPI's position remains unchanged following the release of the draft policy. Finally, EFSPI supports a need for further guidance to be provided on important technical aspects relating to re‐analyses and additional analyses of clinical trial data, for example, multiplicity, meta‐analysis, subgroup analyses and publication bias. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Durable‐Goods Monopoly with Privately Known Impatience: A Theoretical and Experimental Study

We analyze a durable‐goods monopoly selling a single unit of a good to a buyer whose value of the good is private information. The discount factors of the buyer and the seller may differ and are also privately known. We derive the closed‐form solution of a two‐period game and compare it to the behavior observed in experiments. The data are to a large extent consistent with the predictions.