Personality and wealth accumulation among older couples: Do dispositional characteristics pay dividends?

This paper explores whether the ‘Big 5’ personality characteristics: Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Openness to Experience, contribute to net household wealth accumulation among 1172 couple pairs (n = 2344) participating in The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing, independent of other socio-demographic and human capital variables. We employ quantile regression to determine whether the effects of personality vary at different levels of the conditional distribution of wealth. Results reveal that the personality characteristics of the financial respondent to the survey are more strongly associated with wealth than those of the non-financial respondent. Specifically, we find that emotional stability and extraversion are positively associated with wealth at the household level among spousal pairs. We also find that conscientiousness is positively associated with wealth, but the relationship is only significant at the lower end of the wealth continuum. In general, agreeableness and openness are negatively associated with wealth although the relationships are non-significant. These findings indicate that personality is an important factor shaping individuals’ consumption preferences and financial decision-making behaviour over the life-course.     

Personality traits and bidding behavior in competing auctions

We study strategic behavior in an “alternating recognition” model of English auctions with competing sellers, which mimics a structure that is common in online marketplaces such as eBay. To relate decision making in our experimental setting to individual differences, we measure subjects’ personality with the Big-Five Trait Taxonomy. Our results suggest that personality has meaningful predictive power in explaining bidding behavior but only for female subjects. Further, females also earn more than males and the gender gap in earnings is large and significant. Finally, personality indirectly affects earnings through the choice of strategies but has no direct effect on earnings, controlling for strategies. This is an important result in that it demonstrates the mechanism through which personality matters in our setting.     

The Big Five personality traits and earnings: A meta-analysis

The past two decades have witnessed increased interest in the relationship between personality and labor market outcomes, as well as the emergence of the Five-Factor Model as the key reference framework for the study of personality. In this paper, we provide the first meta-analytical review of the empirical literature on the association between personal earnings and the Big Five personality traits. The analysis combines the results of 62 peer-reviewed articles published from 2001–2020, from which we retrieved 896 partial effect sizes. Overall, the primary literature provides robust support for a positive association between personal earnings and the traits of Openness, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion, while simultaneously revealing a negative and significant association between earnings and the traits of Agreeableness and Neuroticism. We find no evidence of a substantial publication bias. Meta-regression estimates suggest that Openness and Conscientiousness are positively associated with earnings even when primary researchers control for individual cognitive abilities and educational attainments. Similarly, the studies that include labor market control variables exhibit weaker associations between earnings and Extraversion and Agreeableness. The results of the primary studies seem unaffected by the time at which the Big Five are measured, as well as by the scale and number of inventory items. Meta-regression estimates suggest that the results of the primary literature are not stable across cultures and gender, and that the ranking and academic field of the journal matter.     

The damage done by big data-driven public relations

Over the last two decades it has been argued that public relations contributes to hegemony by corporate organizations over stakeholder groups who have less power and resources. In its original formulation, the concept of hegemony had two defining features: firstly, it was conceived of as a society-wide, macroscopic formation and second as self-reinforcing i.e. self-replicating. This article argues that the rise of big-data in public relations is a hegemonic development that further re-enforces the current institutional logics and power in the three main spheres of society: corporate, governance and civic. Using the economic notion of externalities, the authors argue that loss of agency over personal data is the unpriced, unrecognized externality that drives the big-data market. This externality is dependent on those who are the losers of agency not having the requisite information, power or resources to negotiate alternatives that might re-dress the balance. As users and proponents of the use of big data, the public relations profession has a number of key questions to answer if it is not to re-inforce arguments that it is a hegemonizing force in organizations and society. Normal economic remedies to address externalities are not adequate to a case that is both ethical as well as economic in nature. The article therefore concludes with five arguments that the public relations profession should debate to provide leadership within organisations and society.     

异质性大数据的分布式估计

随着物联网技术的进步,大数据给网络带宽和计算机存储能力带来巨大挑战,传统的集中式数据处理难以实现,客观上促进了分布式统计学习的发展。在无迭代算法研究中,Zhang等(2013)证明了当数据集个数s=O(N) 时,基于局部经验风险最小化的分治(DC)简单平均估计量具有O(N-1)均方误差收敛速度,Huang和Huo(2019)在M估计框架下进一步提出分布式一步估计量,但上述方法均未考虑海量数据可能存在的异质性对分治估计效果的影响。本文在线性模型框架下提出海量异质数据的分治一步加权估计,证明了估计量的渐近性质并考虑了异质性检验问题。将本文提出的方法应用于美国医疗保险实际数据分析,结果表明该方法能更好地拟合数据的线性趋势且显著提高了计算效率。     

大数据中的管理问题: 基于大数据的资源观

作为重要的战略资源,大数据中包含诸多关键的管理问题． 文章首先评述了基于不同视角对大数据的认识． 然后,从管理的视角看大数据,指出大数据是一类重要的战略性信息资源,并从复杂性、决策有用性、高速增长性、价值稀疏性、可重复开采性和功能多样性等6 个方面探究了大数据资源的管理特征． 最后,提炼并探讨了大数据资源的获取问题、加工问题、应用问题、产权问题、产业问题和法规问题等6 个方面的关键管理问题     

以立法规范促进城市商业生态圈的可持续发展——关于制定《商业大店法》的思考

实例和数据表明,目前我国商品流通业中存在大店盲目发展的现象,造成了资源浪费等一系列问题。而我国现有法律法规又缺乏对商业规划和大店布局等方面的内容。这就给我们留下了思考的空间。本文针对现实情况,结合国外经验,进行了一些探索。     

读《上海博物馆藏战国楚竹书(二)》札记

《鲁邦大旱》中的"说"是雩祭的一部分。《昔者君老》讲述太子应遵守的各种"礼",是儒家的礼学著作。     

Taking social policy personally: How does neuroticism affect welfare state attitudes?

The role of the “Big Five” personality traits in driving welfare state attitudes has received scant attention in social policy research. Yet neuroticism in particular—a disposition to stress, worry, and get nervous easily—is theoretically likely to be an important driver of welfare attitudes precisely because welfare states deliver social “security” and “safety” nets. Using cross-sectional data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we study three distinct attitude types (dissatisfaction with the social security system, feelings of personal financial insecurity, and preferences for state provision) and multiple social need contexts (including unemployment, ill health, old age, and nursing care). Controlling for established explanations such as self-interest, partisanship, and socialization, neuroticism does not systematically affect support for state provision. But it robustly increases general dissatisfaction with social security, as well as financial insecurity across various need contexts. Neurotic people are thus less happy with welfare state programmes across the board, yet they also appear to need these programmes more. This trait may be an important deeper layer driving other social attitudes.