The boomerang effect of psychological interventions

Research has found that teaching people about psychological biases can help counteract biased behavior. On the other hand, due to the innate need for preservation of a positive self-image, it is likely that teaching people about biases they hold, may cause a boomerang effect in cases where being associated with a specific bias implies negative social connotations. In the three studies below we examine situations in which psychological bias implies negatively associated behavior, and show that teaching people about bias in those contexts can be counterproductive.     

Spatial Distribution of Flood Risk and Quality of Spatial Management: Case Study in Odra Valley,Poland

This article presents methodological solutions aimed at presenting the spatial distribution of flood risk and quality of spatial management (land use), indicating both those areas used reasonably and those requiring modification. The purpose was to identify key risk areas and risk‐free areas from the point of view of human security and activity on the floodplains, based on the examples of the vicinities of Wroclaw and Raciborz in the Odra Valley, Poland. Due to recent climate change, Poland has suffered the effects of severe flooding (e.g., 1997, 2001, 2010). The analyses conducted were motivated by the European Parliament and Council's recently implemented Directive 2007/60/WE, as well as by the demand for studies for local spatial planning. The analysis indicates that reasonably developed areas do not account for the majority of those studied, making up 36% of the Wroclaw area and 15% of the Raciborz area.     

Pricing arithmetic Asian option under a two-factor stochastic volatility model with jumps

This paper presents an efficient Monte Carlo simulation scheme based on the variance reduction methods to evaluate arithmetic average Asian options in the context of the double Heston's stochastic volatility model with jumps. This paper consists of two essential parts. The first part presents a new flexible stochastic volatility model, namely, the double Heston model with jumps. In the second part, by combining two variance reduction procedures via Monte Carlo simulation, we propose an efficient Monte Carlo simulation scheme for pricing arithmetic average Asian options under the double Heston model with jumps. Numerical results illustrate the efficiency of our method.     

Asset Accumulation: An Alternative Approach to Achieving the Millennium Development Goals

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are unlikely to be achieved by 2015, owing to conceptual flaws in their design as well as the structural and political constraints faced during implementation at the country level. While criticism of the MDGs is widespread, innovative ideas on addressing these operational challenges are still scanty. By reviewing a number of experiences, including those of the Foundation for the Promotion of Local Development (PRODEL) in Nicaragua and the Ministry of Cities in Brazil, this article highlights the importance of incorporating an asset‐accumulation perspective into MDG‐related policies and programmes as a way of generating an enabling environment that opens up new opportunities for poverty reduction in the cities of low‐ and middle‐low‐income countries.     

Application of the Bootstrap Approach to the Choice of Dimension and the α Parameter in the SIRα Method

To reduce the dimensionality of regression problems, sliced inverse regression approaches make it possible to determine linear combinations of a set of explanatory variables X related to the response variable Y in general semiparametric regression context. From a practical point of view, the determination of a suitable dimension (number of the linear combination of X) is important. In the literature, statistical tests based on the nullity of some eigenvalues have been proposed. Another approach is to consider the quality of the estimation of the effective dimension reduction (EDR) space. The square trace correlation between the true EDR space and its estimate can be used as goodness of estimation. In this article, we focus on the SIR_α method and propose a naïve bootstrap estimation of the square trace correlation criterion. Moreover, this criterion could also select the α parameter in the SIR_α method. We indicate how it can be used in practice. A simulation study is performed to illustrate the behavior of this approach.     

Composite quantile regression for varying-coefficient single-index models

ABSTRACT

The varying-coefficient single-index model (VCSIM) is a very general and flexible tool for exploring the relationship between a response variable and a set of predictors. Popular special cases include single-index models and varying-coefficient models. In order to estimate the index-coefficient and the non parametric varying-coefficients in the VCSIM, we propose a two-stage composite quantile regression estimation procedure, which integrates the local linear smoothing method and the information of quantile regressions at a number of conditional quantiles of the response variable. We establish the asymptotic properties of the proposed estimators for the index-coefficient and varying-coefficients when the error is heterogeneous. When compared with the existing mean-regression-based estimation method, our simulation results indicate that our proposed method has comparable performance for normal error and is more robust for error with outliers or heavy tail. We illustrate our methodologies with a real example.     

小额信贷经理人愿意扶贫吗？——基于西北地区贫困县152位信贷经理人的经验分析

基于西北5省15个国家级贫困县152位信贷经理人的问卷调查,分析了小额信贷经理人的扶贫意愿、行为以及影响因素。经验研究结果表明：在调研的国家级贫困县中,尽管近六成小额信贷经理人向贫困户发放过贷款,但业务量总体较少,具有信贷扶贫意愿的不到2成;性别、教育背景、收入满意度、信贷决策自主性、放贷任务以及是否完成任务对信贷扶贫业务有显著影响;性别和信贷自主权对扶贫意愿具有显著影响。由此,在信贷扶贫项目选择信贷经理人时,采取差异化策略,有序放松信贷自主权,加强扶贫效果考核,对提高金融扶贫绩效会起到积极的作用。     

民间组织参与我国贫困治理的角色及行动策略

民间组织是参与贫困治理的重要社会力量。在我国扶贫开发进程中,民间组织在贫困治理中扮演了扶贫资源有益补充、践行微观贫困治理理念/技术、专业扶贫服务供给等多种角色。民间组织的贫困治理行动是民间组织汲取各类资源并将其传递到扶贫对象的过程。在大扶贫格局中,民间组织扶贫资源汲取已由传统的社会领域延伸至政府部门和市场领域,形成了慈善捐助、政府购买扶贫服务、市场化运作（社会企业）等多种扶贫资源汲取策略。相应的,主要形成了项目机制、市场机制两种扶贫资源传递策略。项目机制的运用表明了民间组织在分化发展的过程中扶贫资源传递的整合,以及民间组织与政府部门协同推进贫困治理的制度化和规范化。市场机制（社会企业）是民间组织扶贫行动的策略创新,对民间组织独立实施贫困治理具有重要意义。     

竞争市场中生产与碳交易策略

在碳排放约束下,利用动态古诺模型,分析厂商如何优化产量、交易碳排放权的规模、净化节约额以实现利润最大化的问题,得到相应的均衡量和各阶段最优量,并给出竞争市场中的企业减排策略以及政府的行为和碳排放权价格对企业减排策略的影响,阐述在竞争市场中减排和碳排放权交易的运行机制。研究发现: 双寡头竞争市场中存在均衡状态;在减排率较低时,制造上获得最高利润,而企业追求过高的减排率将会导致过分依赖碳减排市场而获得较低的利润;制造商应该适时低价购入过量碳排放权,而在高价时卖出多余的碳排放权,以充分利用碳排放权市场以增加利润降低成本;制造商的利润会随着政府碳排放权分配系数的增加而增加。     

减排约束下中国天然气供需安全评价:2006-2014年

为准确把握中国天然气供需安全状态,以2006-2014年的数据为样本,在模糊隶属度函数量化指标值的基础上,运用层次分析法(AHP)和熵值法确定指标权重,基于线性加权和函数计算均方根进行综合评价。结果表明:(1)中国天然气供需安全指数呈现"N形"波动,2006-2007年天然气供需安全指数上升。2007-2013年天然气供需安全指数年均下降1.7979。2013年以来天然气供需安全指数开始回升,天然气供需安全压力有所缓解。(2)天然气供应安全指数从2006年的17.5914下降到2013年的0.1556,峰谷差17.4359。天然气需求安全指数呈现"W形"波动。天然气市场安全指数相对稳定,2013年以来略有上升,天然气市场风险逐年下降。(3)天然气供需安全很大程度上取决于天然气供应是否安全。因此,建议从确保天然气稳定供应、提高天然气使用效率和降低市场风险方面采取措施,维护天然气供需安全。