Opportunism in Capital Budget Recommendations: The Effects of Past Performance and Its Attributions*

This study uses an experiment to examine the separate and combined effects of managers' loss aversion and their causal attributions about their divisions' performance on tendencies to make goal‐incongruent capital budget recommendations. We find that managers' recommendations are biased by their loss aversion. In particular, managers of high‐performing divisions are more likely than managers of low‐performing divisions to propose investments that maximize their division's short‐term profits at the expense of the firm's long‐term value. We also find that managers' recommendations are biased by their causal attributions. In particular, managers are more likely to propose investments that maximize their division's short‐term profits at the expense of the firm's long‐term value when they attribute their division's performance to external causes (e.g., task difficulty or luck) rather than to internal causes (e.g., managerial ability or effort). Further, the effects of causal attributions are greater for managers of high‐performing divisions than for managers of low‐performing divisions. The study's findings are important because loss aversion and causal attributions are often manifested in firms. Thus, they may bias managers' decisions, which in turn may be detrimental to the firms' long‐term value.     

Sartre for the twenty-first century?

By virtually dominating French intellectual life (literature, philosophy, culture) during the early post-World War II period, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) embodied what Pierre Bourdieu calls a “total intellectual” – one who responds to and helps frame public debate on all the intellectual and political issues of the day. During his lifetime and even after his death in 1980, Sartre’s thinking and political engagements provoked sharp reactions, both positive and negative, in France and abroad. Marxism, decolonization struggles, and violence are three key themes on which Sartre’s public positions continue to generate considerable debate – a debate that remains relevant today.

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On the equivalence of coalitional and individual strategy-proofness properties

In this paper, we introduce a sufficient condition on the domain of admissible preferences of a social choice mechanism under which the properties of individual and coalitional strategyproofness are equivalent. Then, we illustrate the usefulness of this general result in the case where a fixed budget has to be allocated among several pure public goods. We would like to express our deepest gratitude to our referee for an extremely careful and detailed report. His/her challenging questions did force us to be more acute on the scope of validity and the limits of our result. We would like also to thank Bernardo Moreno for pointing out a mistake in the statement of Theorem 1 as it was formulated in an earlier version and for sending a copy of his joint work with Barbera et al. (2008). This is the only one paper we know of, offering an alternative systematic analysis of the question explored in our paper.     

Romaphobia and the media: mechanisms of power and the politics of representations

ABSTRACT

This special issue of Identities, entitled ‘Romaphobia and the media’, examines entrenched and ongoing media coverage of Roma, Gypsy and Traveller people across Europe. The focus is on how the media problematises the Roma, how it constructs a ‘conceptual map’ about Roma people and what this tells us about the societies we live in. This special issue includes five academic articles all examining the constructions and stereotypes used in the media in various formats and European countries. After these academic articles, this special issue then deviates from the normal journal structure by including three commentary pieces from professionals from varying Roma backgrounds to give their views and experiences on how they tackle Romaphobia and the media. The inclusion of these commentary pieces are very powerful in offering a perspective of active interventions and resistance that we should not forget amidst the depressing continued circulation of racialised stereotypes.     

Frailty models power variance function with cure fraction and latent risk factors negative binomial

In this article, we propose a flexible cure rate model, which is an extension of Cancho et al. (2011 Cancho, V.G., Rodrigues, J., de Castro, M. (2011). A flexible model for survival data with a cure rate: A Bayesian approach. J. Appl. Stat. 38:57–70.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) model, by incorporating a power variance function (PVF) frailty term in latent risk. The model is more flexible in terms of dispersion and it also quantifies the unobservable heterogeneity. The parameter estimation is reached by maximum likelihood estimation procedure and Monte Carlo simulation studies are considered to evaluate the proposed model performance. The practical relevance of the model is illustrated in a real data set of preventing cancer recurrence.     

The Practice of Puxa-Puxa among Mozambican Women: A Systematic Inventory of Motives

Puxa-puxa is the elongation of the labia minora of the genital organs. It is one of the most widespread genital practices among women in Mozambique, and the practice seems to be specific to this country. The motives underlying this practice and its abandonment were examined in a theory-driven way. A total of 616 women currently living in the provinces of Maputo, Zambezia, and Nampula, aged 18 to 62, were presented with one of two questionnaires that contained items about possible motives for practicing puxa-puxa or possible motives for not practicing it. Seven separable motives for practicing puxa-puxa were found, and the most highly rated were “Having a satisfying sexual life”; “Satisfying my sexual partner”; and “Gaining self-control.” Five separable motives for not practicing puxa-puxa were found, and the most highly rated were “Disliking a painful practice”; “Affirming one's value as a person”; and “Avoiding contamination.” The main findings of the study are that the practice of puxa-puxa is associated with deep psychological motives common to most women in most cultures, namely having a satisfying sexual life with a reliable partner, creating the conditions for having children, and being able to care for them. The abandonment of this practice is largely the result of personal decisions, which are not taken under constraint and which are not exclusively taken from fear of illness.     

Accessibility for all: going from theory to practice

The present work demonstrates, through a case study, the importance of theoretical knowledge in practical application of spatial accessibility in order to guarantee equal conditions for all people in the movement and use of space. Initially there was a literature review on the accessibility of space and how design in a accessible way. Next, we show one makeover proposal in one public school that wants to provide access to people with disabilities. This makeover was done and so we could evaluate the buildings changes through the method of accompanied walk with two people. Finally we present the main results and discussions.