历史传统、核武认知与官僚政治——印度军方被置身于核问题决策之外的动因探析

作为核武使用者的军方长期被排除在核问题决策之外,是印度核政策制定最鲜明的特色,这一独特的历史悖论背后有其自身演进的逻辑与动因。并非军方长期对于印度的核武开发无动于衷,国际战略格局的急剧变化与各自的军种利益促使印度三军领导人于20世纪80年代中后期积极鼓吹核计划的军事化。但由于政治领导人不信任军方的历史传统、长时期基于象征性威慑而非实战运用的核武认知、国防科学家垄断核事务的强烈企图等多重合力的作用,使得印度的核开发长期停留在象征性威慑层面,不仅制约了印度核武开发走向实战化的力度与强度,而且必然导致作为核战略重要谋划者的军方无法深入参与事关核武开发的重大决策。     

An experimental investigation of violations of transitivity in choice under uncertainty

Several models of decision-making imply systematic violations of transitivity of preference. Our experiments explored whether people show patterns of intransitivity predicted by regret theory and majority rule. To distinguish “true” violations from those produced by “error,” a model was fit in which each choice can have a different error rate and each person can have a different pattern of true preferences that need not be transitive. Error rate for a choice is estimated from preference reversals between repeated presentations of that same choice. Our results showed that very few people repeated intransitive patterns. We can retain the hypothesis that transitivity best describes the data of the vast majority of participants.

Myopic risk-seeking: The impact of narrow decision bracketing on lottery play

In two experiments conducted with low-income participants, we find that individuals are more likely to buy state lottery tickets when they make several purchase decisions one-at-a-time, i.e. myopically, than when they make one decision about how many tickets to purchase. These results extend earlier findings showing that “broad bracketing” of decisions encourages behavior consistent with expected value maximization. Additionally, the results suggest that the combination of myopic decision making and the “peanuts effect”—greater risk seeking for low stakes than high stakes gambles—can help explain the popularity of state lotteries.

Dancing with the Devil: Partnering with Industry but Publishing in Academia*

We believe that partnering with industry can lead to research that is relevant, rigorous, and refreshing. Our experiences show that the potential benefits of partnering with industry are enormous, but that this is not an easy route for academics interested in operations research modeling or empirical methods. The need for grounded business research is greater now than ever, and, while academics have made great progress, there are still numerous opportunities to demonstrate the relevance of our research. We discuss how to establish industry contacts, identify fruitful academic—industry projects, and publish the resulting research.     

THE RELEVANCE OF STATE-UNIVERSITY RETIREMENT PLANS IN JOB SELECTION

Documents provided newly hired faculty members were requested from the major statesupported university in each of the fifty states. Those documents revealed two basic types of retirement plans: (1) state-controlled, defined-benefit plans in which retirement benefits are a function of a formula rather than the contributions by the employee and employer, if any; and (2) third-party, defined-contribution, input-based plans in which the funds are controlled by a third party and the benefits depend upon the amount of contributions and the return earned by them. The analysis focused upon the defined-benefit formula plans and a standard was developed to facilitate analysis. The simulations undertaken reveal significant, decision-relevant biases—especially against faculty who elect to change employers as infrequently as once every ten years when different pension plans are involved! The risks attendant to each type of plan and possible career strategies are discussed.     

Responding to Inconsistent Performance Feedback on Multiple Goals: The Contingency Role of Decision Maker's Status in Introducing Changes

We advance performance feedback theory by showing how decision makers respond to inconsistent performance feedback on multiple goals, and how status shapes these responses for introducing behavioral changes. We argue that inconsistent performance feedback on primary and secondary goals decrease decision makers' propensity to initiate changes, while their high status operates both as a critical asset that motivates solution search for fixing a performance shortfall on a primary goal and as a resource buffer against self-enhancement beliefs when addressing inconsistent feedback on multiple goals. We test our arguments using a dataset of 107,791 Airbnb properties and find support for our hypotheses. We discuss the contributions of our findings to the performance feedback theory.     

Physical–cyber–human framework-based resilience evaluation toward urban power system: Case study from China

Because the increased frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme weather events have significantly challenged power systems, there has been an increased interest in resilient power systems. This article establishes a multicriteria resilience evaluation framework for urban power systems from a physical–cyber–human system perspective, in which the two principal elements responsible for power system function degradation are described, the three major domains comprising urban power systems are explained, four core capacities that positively contribute to power system resilience are proposed, and 15 (11 objective and four subjective) power system resilience evaluation indicators are identified. Fuzzy hesitant judgment and a Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) aggregation method are employed to minimize the expert divergence and maximize the group consensus. A validation method is designed and a comparison with commonly applied performance-based and attributes-based evaluation methods is conducted. The applicability of the evaluation framework is verified using data from four Chinese municipalities: Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, and Tianjin. It was found that Shanghai's resilience was the best, and Chongqing's physical resistance disadvantages would result in the greatest difficulties in coping with extreme event disturbances. Physical, cyber, and human domain resilience enhancement strategies are given for different cities separately. This study provides a practical tool to evaluate, compare, and enhance power system resilience for governments and public utilities.     

Overconfident health workers provide lower quality healthcare

While a growing body of evidence suggests that healthcare workers in low and middle-income countries often provide poor quality of care, the reasons behind such low performance remain unclear. The literature on medical decision-making suggests that cognitive biases, or failures related to the way healthcare providers think, explain many diagnostic errors. This study investigates whether one cognitive bias, overconfidence, defined as the tendency to overestimate one’s performance relative to others, is associated with the low quality of care provided in Senegal. We link survey data on the overconfidence of health workers to objective measures of the quality of care they provide to standardised patients – enumerators who pose as real patients and record details of the consultation. We find that about a third of providers are overconfident – meaning that they overestimate their own abilities relative to their peers. We then show that overconfident providers are 26% less likely to manage patients correctly and exert less effort in clinical practice. These results suggest that the low levels of quality of care observed in some settings could be partly explained by the cognitive biases of providers, such as overconfidence. Policies that encourage adequate supervision and feedback to healthcare workers might reduce such failures in clinical decision-making.     

Own‐Choice Marriage and Fertility in Turkey

Goode's foundational work on the fertility transition identified own‐choice marriage as a factor driving fertility decline, part of a widening repertoire of choice pertaining to marriage and childbearing. Yet research supporting this connection in today's transitional societies is scarce and somewhat contradictory, and it is unclear how other marital traditions, such as consanguineous marriage, shape this relationship. This study evaluates Goode's theorized connection using pooled Demographic and Health Survey data from Turkey, comparing children ever born, use of contraception, and parity progression across four types of marriage: own‐choice and arranged marriage and marriage to a cousin versus an unrelated spouse. Results are largely consistent with the idea that a move toward own‐choice marriage reflects a widening repertoire of choice that also leads to fertility decline. However, they also show that hybrid models like own‐choice marriage to a cousin tempers these effects.