Discount Rates in Risk Versus Money and Money Versus Money Tradeoffs

We use data from a survey of residents of five Italian cities conducted in late spring 2004 to estimate the discount rates implicit in (1) money versus future risk reductions and (2) money versus money tradeoffs. We find that the mean personal discount rate is 0.3-1.7% in (1) and 8.7% in (2). The latter is lower than the discount rates estimated in comparable situations in many recent studies, greater than market interest rates in Italy at the time, and exhibits modest variation with age and gender. The discount rate implicit in money versus risk tradeoffs is within the range of estimates from studies in the United States and Europe, and does not depend on observable individual characteristics. We use split samples to investigate whether a completely abstract risk reduction - one where the risk reduction delivery has been stripped of all specifics, so that respondents should focus on the risks without being distracted by details - results in WTP and discount figures comparable to those from an identified delivery mechanism (a medical test). We find that while WTP for an immediate risk reduction is 42-73% higher with the abstract risk reduction, the discount rate in the money versus risk tradeoffs and the variance of the error term in the WTP equation are the same across the two variants of the questionnaire.     

马克思三大社会形态理论中的资本逻辑探析

在资本的逐利本性推动下,商业、奢侈、货币、交换价值得到了迅猛发展,进一步破坏了前资本主义那种在狭小的范围和孤立的地点进行的生产方式,以人的依赖关系为根本特征的社会形式被打破了。资本主义产权制度推动了资本主义的迅猛发展,资本主义产权制度把生产和收益结合起来,它是保护私人的、排他性的财产权,资本主义产权制度的确立使得大规模的雇佣劳动成为现实。雇佣劳动使得资产阶级能够持续不断地从无产阶级身上获取剩余价值,以物的依赖性为基础的社会形式得以确立。资本逻辑会把资本主义推向不可避免的深渊,由于私有财产在对自身的肯定同时,使得否定自身的致命因素--无产阶级得以产生,重建个人所有制能够化解私有财产和无产阶级之间不可化解的矛盾,从而确立基于社会财富基础之上的自由个性的社会形式。     

Perceived technological turbulence and individual ambidexterity – The moderating role of formalization

Today's turbulent environment, with fast and unpredictable technological changes, requires employees to increasingly act ambidextrously, i.e., to simultaneously incorporate exploitative and explorative tasks in their work roles. To improve our understanding of how to foster individual ambidexterity in technologically turbulent environments, we draw on organizational management theories by arguing (1) that perceived technological turbulence directly affects individual ambidexterity in a positive way and (2) that organizations can strengthen this effect by providing employees with internal stability in these times of external changes through high degrees of formalization. Using data collected in a three-wave online survey of 739 German employees, this study demonstrates that employees who perceive high degrees of technological turbulence in their organization's environment show high degrees of ambidexterity in their work. In addition, we show that formalization in the form of written rules, procedures, and instructions positively moderates this relationship so that employees' ambidexterity is highest when both perceptions of technological turbulence and formalization are high. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the ambidexterity literature, for future research and managerial practice.     

Pre-employment antecedents of health resources, job factors and health risk behaviour in men and women

The role of individual factors in youth as predictors of adult health resources, job factors and health risk behaviour was studied in men and women. The studied health risk behaviours were smoking, use of alcohol and sedentary behaviour. Sense of coherence (SOC) was the used measure of adult health resources. The pre-employment data had been collected from a sample of 1084 subjects representative of Finnish youth at the mean age of 12 years. For this follow-up study, 345 women and 361 men, working in Finland, responded to a questionnaire at the mean age of 36 years. In the analyses of structural relationships, individual factors in youth were related to adult variables for both sexes, although only two consistent relationships were found for women: outgoing, social activities in youth predicted adult smoking and use of alcohol. Of the job factors, low job demands were related to smoking and lack of support at work was related to sedentary behaviour in women. The strong relationships of SOC with perceptions of social support and influence at work for both sexes characterized its role in health-promoting experiences at work, and supported its importance as a general health resource.     

个体与情境因素激活农户绿色生产的路径

基于组态视角构建了个体与情境两个层面6个因素的分析框架,利用陕西和山东樱桃种植区的278份农户实地调查数据,结合必要条件分析和模糊集定性比较分析方法探究影响农户绿色生产行为的多重并发因素和作用机制,识别出促进农户绿色生产行为的影响机理和驱动路径。研究发现:单个前因要素并不构成高绿色生产行为的必要条件,但提升农户能力在促进农户绿色生产上发挥着较为普适的作用;个体和情境6个因素多重并发,形成驱动农户高绿色生产行为的多样化条件组态,可以分为个体自我驱动型、政府规制干预下机会驱动型、市场激励支持下能力驱动型、社会规范引导下机会和能力驱动型等4种类型,且与低绿色生产行为的驱动机制存在非对称性关系。     

A re-analysis of the occupational stress indicator

Abstract

This paper investigates the reliability of the Occupational Stress Indicator (OSI). Data from a sample of university staff, drawn from all areas of an urban university, are used to reassess the apparently low reliabilities of many of the OSI subscales reported by Cooper et al. (1988). In addition, factor analysis results are reported for the first time for the sources of pressure data. The reliability data reported here, while higher reliabilities than originally obtained, remain unacceptably low. A lack of stability in the device as it is currently formulated seems apparent. The paper also presents for the first time a detailed analysis of the sources of pressure scale, indicating a solution different from that proposed by Cooper et al. (1988). Certain areas of the OSI clearly need refinement; the inclusion of locus of control and type A behaviour as personality variables in particular is called into question. Observations regarding the particular strengths and weaknesses of this device, and suggestions for future refinements, are offered.     

美国次贷危机对我国住房抵押贷款风险防范的启示

2007年,美国次级抵押贷款危机恶化,次贷风波中首当其冲遭遇打击的就是银行业,住房抵押贷款背后隐藏的风险是当前中国商业银行特别应该关注的问题,这场风波为我们敲响了居安思危的警钟。目前中国银行住房信贷也存在着一定风险,美国次贷危机无疑给我国商业银行住房抵押贷款提供了启示和前车之鉴。     

Why don’t we care more about carelessness? Understanding the causes and consequences of careless participants

ABSTRACT

Although careless respondents have wreaked havoc on research for decades, the prevalence and implications of these participants has likely increased due to many new methodological techniques currently in use. Across three studies, we examined the prevalence of careless responding in participants, several means of predicting careless respondents, and the implications of careless respondents on data quality and recruitment attempts. At the same time, we sought to examine the geographic differences of careless responding and provide psychometric evidence for using embedded questions to detect these participants. In Study 1, we found over 1/3^rd of participants showed some evidence of careless responding and that careless respondents exhibited certain personality and demographic characteristics. In particular, carelessness seemed more prevalent in Asian samples than in North American samples. In Study 2, we found nearly 1/4^th of participants showed evidence of careless responding and that conclusions based on data including versus excluding these participants differed in significant yet unpredictable ways. Finally, in Study 3, we found that nearly 2/3^rd of participants who signed up for the study did not meet advertised study requirements for participation and including these participants changed the structure of the data obtained.     

Mining periodic patterns and cascading bursts phenomenon in individual e-mail communication

ABSTRACT

Quantitative understanding of human activity is very important as many social and economic trends are driven by human actions. We propose a novel stochastic process, the Multi-state Markov Cascading Non-homogeneous Poisson Process (M2CNPP), to analyze human e-mail communication involving both periodic patterns and bursts phenomenon. The model parameters are estimated using the Generalized Expectation Maximization (GEM) algorithm while the hidden states are treated as missing values. The empirical results demonstrate that the proposed model adequately captures the major temporal cascading features as well as the periodic patterns in e-mail communication.     

我国本科院校校长个人特征分析

大学是人才成长的摇篮,是人力资源开发的基地,肩负着向社会源源不断供应人才的重担。大学校长是大学的领航者、掌舵人,一位好的校长能成就一所好的学校。通过对我国本科大学校长个人特征的分析,探寻一些颇有价值的结论,对促进高水平大学校长的涌现和更好地成长有重要意义。