Identifying Jewish names in Russia

SOVIET SAGA OF A JEWISH FAMILY

TYAZHELY PESOK (Heavy Sand),* by Anatoly Rybakov, in Oktyabr, nos. 7, 8, 9, 1978.

JEWS, DETENTE AND DISSENT

EXIT VISA. DETENTE, HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE JEWISH EMIGRATION MOVEMENT IN THE USSR, by Colin Shindler. London, Bachman &; Turner, 1978. 291 pp. Illus. Appendices. Bibl. Index. £7.50.

AN INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT

NASTOLNY IUDEYSKY KALENDAR NA 5739 god (Jewish Religious Calendar for 5739/1978–79), edited by S. L. Kleynman. Moscow Religious Society, 1978. 200 pp.

MINORITY NATIONALITIES IN THE USSR

L'EMPIRE ECLATE: LA REVOLTE DES NATIONS EN URSS, by Helene Carrere d'Encausse. Paris. Flammarion, 1978. 314 pp. Graphs and Tables.     

On complexity and lotteries' evaluation – three experimental observations

We present experimental evidence suggesting that human subjects penalize lotteries for complexity. Our results contradict the assumption that human agents follow the discounted expected utility model in multi-period choice with uncertainty. In particular, we show that the buying price offered for an inferior, simple multi-period lottery may sometimes significantly exceed the buying price offered for a better, yet more complicated, alternative, when the lotteries are sold to a group of subjects in a first-price auction. We discuss the possibility to modify the existing models of choice to this “complexity effect”.     

A Numerical Study of Small Parameter Behavior of Some Families of Distributions

Limiting distributions play an important role in approximating the exact distributions, especially when they have a rather cumbersome analytic form, or simply when they do not have a closed from. The question that naturally arises is how good the approximation is. In this article, we propose a procedure for the numerical assessment of the “goodness” of some easy-to-calculate limiting distributions, originally proposed in Bar-Lev and Enis, in various cases of the underlying distributions, some of which are inherently computationally challenging. The details of the procedure are provided in three examples. The first example deals with the gamma distributions; the second deals with Bessel distributions related to a symmetric random walk, and the third example deals with positive stable distributions. The details of two additional variations of these examples are also discussed. These examples illustrate the ease with which the limiting approximations could be applied in the various cases, well-demonstrating their computational simplicity and attractiveness.     

Subjective time discount rates among teenagers and adults: Evidence from Israel

This study is an empirical examination of the personal discount rates used by teenagers and adults. The participants answered a time-preference questionnaire and were asked about the bank interest paid for deposits. The results demonstrate that teenagers have a very high personal discount rate in comparison to adults. In addition, we found that receiving a regular allowance increases the teenagers’ willingness to wait. Our results indicate that the influence of teenagers’ poor financial knowledge, which ought to increase the personal discount rate, is stronger than the effect of their safety net that should reduce the personal discount rate.     

On a ump and curtailed double sampling test for proportions

The test on proportions as prescribed in the double sampling plan of Dodge and Roming (1929) for inspection by attributes is revisited. A noticeable deficiency of this plan is that it may require more observations than could have been required by an 'equivalent1 fixed-sample testing procedure having the same Type I and Type II error probabilities. Here, we propose a curtailed version of this sampling plan which assures the experimenter that the actual number of observations required to arrive at a terminal decision will never exceed that of the comparable fixed-size testing procedure while keeping the error probabilities at desired levels. In fact, we show that the entire power function of the proposed testing procedure matches that of the 'best' (UMP in its size) fixed-size-sample testing procedure. Other proper- ties of this curtailed double sampling testing procedure, such as its Average Sample Number and its operational characteristics, are also discussed and illustrated.     

Subjective discount rates among Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews

In this study, we compare the subjective discount rate for Israeli Jews and Arabs. All the subjects were bank customers, who were asked to bid and ask prices for delayed fixed amounts and for lotteries. The two populations live in the same country under the same laws. Nevertheless, according to the literature, Israeli Arabs seem to be a discriminated minority, who exhibit traits of a traditional collectivist culture, while Israeli Jews are a majority, who exhibit traits of an individualistic culture. As a discriminated minority, Israeli Arab may suffer from lower trust and as a result, according to the “trust” hypothesis, exhibit higher subjective discount rates and higher risk aversion. On the other hand, according to the “cushion” hypothesis, a collectivist society such as Israeli Arabs, provides a safety net for the individual and as a result, he will exhibit lower subjective discount rates and lower risk-aversion. The experimental findings show that the subjective discount rate and risk aversion of Israeli Arabs are significantly higher than that of Israeli Jews. Moreover, higher percent of Israeli Jews are at the low range of the discount rates (below 10%) and lower percent of Israeli Jews are at the high range of discount rate (above 20%) compared to Israeli Arabs. This is consistent with the “trust” hypothesis. For Israeli Jews, the discount rates are closer to the bank interest rate, while Israeli Arabs rates are much higher particularly for receipt. The dispersion of the distribution of discount rate is much larger for Arabs than for Jews.     

Economic and behavioral factors in an individual's decision to take the influenza vaccination in Japan

In this paper, we investigate what people in Japan consider when deciding to take the influenza vaccination. We develop an economic model to explain the mechanism by which people decide to take the influenza vaccination. Using our model and the data obtained from a large-scale survey we conducted in Japan, we demonstrated that people make rational decisions about vaccinations after considering its cost and benefits. People consider the probability of infection, severity of the disease, and the vaccination's effectiveness and side effects. The time discount rate is another consideration because the timing of costs and benefits of the vaccination differ. Risk aversion (fearing the contraction of the flu and vaccination's side effects) also affects the decision. People also deviate from rationality—altruism and status quo bias play important roles in the decision-making. Overconfidence indirectly affects the decision via perception variables such as the subjective probability of infection and assessment of influenza's severity. The decision also depends on attributes such as gender, age, and marital status. If the general perception of flu and vaccination is inaccurate, supplying accurate information regarding those may increase or decrease the vaccination rate, depending on whether this perception is, respectively, higher or lower than the objective rates. Thus, we examine whether the general perception is biased. Our survey suggests that disseminating information on the vaccination's effectiveness may increase the rate of vaccination, whereas that on the probability of infection may have the opposite effect.     

A characterization of the exponential distribution by means of coincidence of location and truncated densities

In this note we provide a characterization of the exponential distribution by means of the coincidence of location and truncated densities. We provide two proofs. The first is obtained directly via simple calculus while the second hinges on the characterization of the exponential distribution by its constant hazard rate.