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Background Persons with HIV and tuberculosis (TB) co-infection require transaminase monitoring while on hepatotoxic medications. A novel paper-based, point-of-care transaminase test is in development at an anticipated cost of $1 per test. Methods To project long-term clinical outcomes and estimate the cost-effectiveness of using a paper-based fingerstick test to monitor for drug-induced liver injury (DILI), as compared with automated testing and with no laboratory monitoring. The design was a decision analytic model, including deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses. Data sources were observational cohorts and a validation study of the paper-based test. The target population was HIV/TB co-infected persons in South Africa on antiretroviral therapy who were initiating TB therapy. Interventions: (1) clinical (no laboratory) monitoring; (2) monitoring using the paper-based test with a ≥120 IU/mL threshold for positivity; (3) monitoring using the paper-based test with a ≥200 IU/mL threshold for positivity; (4) monitoring using the paper-based test using 1 of 3 categories: <120 IU/mL, 120 to 200 IU/mL, and >200 IU/mL (“bin placement”); (5) monitoring using automated ALT testing using the same 3 categories (“automated testing”). The outcome measures were discounted quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), costs, and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs). Results The ICER of automated testing was $5180/QALY. Use of the paper-based test with the bin placement strategy was cost-effective compared with clinical monitoring alone. Conclusion At its current performance, monthly DILI monitoring by bin placement using the paper-based test was cost-effective, compared with clinical monitoring, in HIV/TB co-infected persons in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been known for some time that consumers' identities influence purchasing decisions and people form strong identity connections, or "links," with products and brands. However, research has yet to determine whether identity-linked products are differentially treated at disposal in comparison to products that are not identity linked. Across seven studies, the current research shows that when an everyday product (e.g., paper, cups, aluminum cans) is linked to a consumer's identity, it is less likely to be trashed and more likely to be recycled. Further, the tendency to recycle an identity-linked product increases with the strength and positivity of the connection between the consumer and product (or brand). Finally, the disposal behavior can be explained by consumers' motivation to avoid trashing a product that is linked to the self because it is viewed as an identity threat. In sum, consumers will be more likely to recycle (rather than trash) a product if the product is linked to a consumer's identity. This occurs because placing an identitylinked product in the trash is symbolically similar to trashing a part of the self, a situation consumers are motivated to avoid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older people in England who pay for social care from their own funds ('self-funders') receive little help in seeking and arranging care compared to older people funded by their local council. This suggests an implicit assumption that people funded by local councils need help to manage their care whereas self-funders do not. This article reports findings from a scoping review of published evidence from England, Scotland and Wales on the skills that older people need, and the help they get, to seek, arrange or manage use of social care, and how this help affects outcomes. Searches undertaken in October 2018 resulted in the inclusion of thirty-six empirical papers and seven reviews. Thematic analysis identified the importance of everyday life and specific business skills, and personal attributes including objectivity when evaluating options. The review identified two significant gaps in the evidence: first, how help in seeking and arranging care compensated for lack of, or complemented existing, skills; and secondly, how outcomes for people receiving help in arranging care compared with those not receiving help. The article concludes that a tailored approach to supporting older people arrange and manage care, irrespective of funding, should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to limited resources and constant, ever-changing healthcare challenges, health economics is essential to support healthcare decisions while improving health outcomes. Economic evaluation methodology facilitates informed decision-making related to the efficient allocation of resources while positively impacting clinical practice. In this paper, we provide an overview of economic evaluation methods and a real-world example applying one method of economic evaluation (cost-utility analysis) in nursing research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health management information systems (HMIS) produce large amounts of data about health service provision and population health, and provide opportunities for data-based decision-making in decentralized health systems. Yet the data are little-used locally. A well-defined approach to district-level decision-making using health data would help better meet the needs of the local population. In this second of four papers on district decision-making for health in low-income settings, our aim was to explore ways in which district administrators and health managers in low- and lower-middle-income countries use health data to make decisions, to describe the decision-making tools they used and identify challenges encountered when using these tools. A systematic literature review, following PRISMA guidelines, was undertaken. Experts were consulted about key sources of information. A search strategy was developed for 14 online databases of peer reviewed and grey literature. The resources were screened independently by two reviewers using pre-defined inclusion criteria. The 14 papers included were assessed for the quality of reported evidence and a descriptive evidence synthesis of the review findings was undertaken. We found 12 examples of tools to assist district-level decision-making, all of which included two key stages-identification of priorities, and development of an action plan to address them. Of those tools with more steps, four included steps to review or monitor the action plan agreed, suggesting the use of HMIS data. In eight papers HMIS data were used for prioritization. Challenges to decision-making processes fell into three main categories: the availability and quality of health and health facility data; human dynamics and financial constraints. Our findings suggest that evidence is available about a limited range of processes that include the use of data for decision-making at district level. Standardization and pre-testing in diverse settings would increase the potential that these tools could be used more widely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the process of decision-making within the Bank of England and the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC): specifically, the extent of triangulation in the process. Triangulation is the mixing of two or more methods, investigators, theories, or data in a single investigation. Extensive evidence of limited triangulation is found within the MPC process. It is suggested that to enhance the logical consistency of their recommendations, the Bank engages in greater method triangulation. Further, in keeping with the moves towards transparency in the MPC process, it is proposed that procedures for employing the existing triangulation be codified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-resource settings often have limited use of local data for health system planning and decision-making. To promote local data use for decision-making and priority setting, we propose an adapted framework: a data-informed platform for health (DIPH) aimed at guiding coordination, bringing together key data from the public and private sectors on inputs and processes. In working to transform this framework from a concept to a health systems initiative, we undertook a series of implementation research activities including background assessment, testing and scaling up of the intervention. This first paper of four reports the feasibility of the approach in a district health systems context in five districts of India, Nigeria and Ethiopia. We selected five districts using predefined criteria and in collaboration with governments. After scoping visits, an in-depth field visit included interviews with key health stakeholders, focus group discussions with service-delivery staff and record review. For analysis, we used five dimensions of feasibility research based on the TELOS framework: technology and systems, economic, legal and political, operational and scheduling feasibility. We found no standardized process for data-based district level decision-making, and substantial obstacles in all three countries. Compared with study areas in Ethiopia and Nigeria, the health system in Uttar Pradesh is relatively amenable to the DIPH, having relative strengths in infrastructure, technological and technical expertise, and financial resources, as well as a district-level stakeholder forum. However, a key challenge is the absence of an effective legal framework for engagement with India's extensive private health sector. While priority-setting may depend on factors beyond better use of local data, we conclude that a formative phase of intervention development and pilot-testing is warranted as a next step. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a theoretical account of the reconstruction of workforce downsizing as a shareholder-value strategy since the 1980s. This account has two components. First, building on resource-dependence theory, I suggest that growing corporate dependence on institutional investors makes firms susceptible to their demand for greater returns, especially when these institutional investors are blockholders and resistant to counter-pressure from managers. Second, building on Fligstein's theory of conceptions of control, I suggest that the rise of shareholder value reorients managerial behavior, by changing the decision context in a way that induces managers to maximize shareholder value. Crucial to constructing this new decision context are a set of agency-theory prescriptions for reforming corporate governance. My analysis of downsizing announcements, drawing on a sample of 714 US firms between 1981 and 2006, shows that both the pressure from institutional investors and the new decision context encourage firms to downsize more frequently. By demonstrating how both pressure from investors and changed managerial decision contexts have contributed to the prevalence of workforce downsizing, this paper makes a strong case for the financialization of the American corporation, and contributes to the sociological research on growing job insecurity and income inequality over the past three decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lionel Robbins is mainly known for An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, where he allegedly illustrated the neoclassical epistemology of economics, based on mechanistic maximizing behaviours of atomistic individuals whose aggregation results in the social order. Despite Robbins’s attempts to make it clear that this was not his concept of how the society works, this misrepresentation of his thought perpetuated in the methodological debates of the 1960s and is still dominant today. The aim of the paper is to challenge this caricature and illustrate the complex idea of social order held by Robbins, based on individual and collective processes of choices and a multilayer system of public institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A decision-maker is said to have an ambiguous belief if it is not precise enough to be represented by a single probability distribution. The pervasive assumption in game theoretic models in economics is that players' beliefs are unambiguous. This paper argues, drawing on examples from economics and politics, that it may be illuminating, in instances, to model players as having ambiguous beliefs. Optimistic and pessimistic responses to ambiguity are formally modelled. We show that pessimism has the effect of increasing (decreasing) equilibrium prices under Cournot (Bertrand) competition. In addition the effects of ambiguity on peace-making are examined, It is shown that ambiguity may select equilibria in coordination games with multiple equilibria. Some comparative Statics results are derived for the impact of ambiguity in games with strategic complements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contains a generalization of the General Possibility Theorem to situations where choice over two-element (more generally, "small") sets is not possible. The analysis is developed in terms of the social choice function formulation rather than the social welfare function approach. In this formulation, assumptions concerning the size of sets of feasible alternatives are explicit, allowing the role of these assumptions in inducing impossibility results to be explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defines and characterizes axiomatically two rational voting procedures which are variants of simple majority rule. The rules are closely related and coincide when individual indifference is excluded. Some of the conditions used are then discussed and related to similar properties that have been studied in the social choice literature. It has long been known that a majority winner in a field of three or more candidates need not exist in general unless the preferences of the electorate display some degree of similarity. Sen and Pattanaik (1969) derived a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for a majority preference relation to be well behaved. Kramer (1973) studied these conditions in the context of quasi-concave differentiable preferences over a multidimensional Euclidean choice space, the natural setting for most economic decision models, and showed that they were extremely restrictive. Even the most modest diversity in preferences causes a violation of all the Sen-Pattanaik conditions in Rn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, much biodiversity is found on private land. Acting to conserve such biodiversity thus requires the design of policies which influence the decision-making of farmers and foresters. In this paper, we outline the economic characteristics of this problem, before reviewing a number of policy options, such as conservation auctions and conservation easements. We then discuss a number of policy design problems, such as the need for spatial coordination and the choice between paying for outcomes rather than actions, before summarizing what the evidence and theory developed to date tell us about those aspects of biodiversity policy design which need careful attention from policy-makers and environmental regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This review provides a classification of public policies to promote healthier eating as well as a structured mapping of existing measures in Europe. Complete coverage of alternative policy types was ensured by complementing the review with a selection of major interventions from outside Europe. Under the auspices of the Seventh Framework Programme's Eatwell Project, funded by the European Commission, researchers from five countries reviewed a representative selection of policy actions based on scientific papers, policy documents, grey literature, government websites, other policy reviews, and interviews with policy-makers. This work resulted in a list of 129 policy interventions, 121 of which were in Europe. For each type of policy, a critical review of its effectiveness was conducted, based on the evidence currently available. The results of this review indicate a need exists for a more systematic and accurate evaluation of government-level interventions as well as for a stronger focus on actual behavioral change rather than changes in attitude or intentions alone. The currently available evidence is very heterogeneous across policy types and is often incomplete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present review was to examine the existing literature on the effectiveness of economic incentives for producing sound nutritional behavior in schools. Studies published in the English-language literature that included baseline and/or outcome data regarding food and beverage intake of schoolchildren were eligible for inclusion. A systematic search of the literature was conducted to identify relevant primary studies and relevant systematic reviews of primary studies. Altogether, 3,472 research publications were identified in the systematic search, of which 50 papers were retrieved. Of these, 30 publications representing 28 studies fulfilled the criteria for inclusion. The studies addressing price incentives suggest that such incentives are effective for altering consumption in the school setting. Other types of economic incentives have been included in combined intervention schemes, but the inclusion of other intervention elements makes it difficult to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the economic incentive instruments per se in these studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postcolonial theory has not yet made an impact in economics. This may be explained by the different treatment of culture in each field. In postcolonial theory, culture serves as a central analytical category. In economics, despite increased attention in recent history, general approaches to culture continue to underestimate its role in economic behaviour and decision making. Borrowing some insights from postcolonial theory, this paper calls for further attention to culture in economics. It is argued that such a turn improves current understanding of contemporary economic phenomena, and allows subaltern cultures (currently theorised as less developed) to equally participate in the global construction of social meaning and economic well being. It is further argued that incorporating the postcolonial idea of hybridity into the institutional economic approach holds the most promise for theorising contemporary postcolonial economies. This argument is illustrated by examining some hybrid economic patterns within Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Cobb-Douglas production function with Abel's (1983, Am. Econ. Rev., 173, 228-233) model is extended herein, and real options analysis (ROA) for entry-exit decision-making established utilizing Dixit's (1989b) decision model under exchange rate uncertainty. This work considers the effects of real exchange rates on strategies that determine the locations of production by firms that are entering markets in two countries. The ROA is also adopted to evaluate the switching location between two countries. A continuous-time model optimization problem is solved in closed-form. This provides a useful beginning to an important analysis of the effects on industry of exchange rate fluctuations when the optimal entry (exit) trigger for transferring locations is important for a basic global logistics model. Furthermore, a myopic solution of the optimal entry (exit) trigger, sensitivity analysis and some characteristics of the optimal production strategy are sought. This paper contributes to the problem of choice of foreign production strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the selection of information collecting agents by policy makers in the light of two agency problems. First, it is often hard to ascertain how much effort agents have put in acquiring information. Second, when agents have an interest in the policy outcome, they may manipulate information. We show that unbiased advisers put highest effort in collecting information. Eliminating manipulation of information, however, requires that the preferences of the policy maker and the adviser be aligned. Therefore, policy makers appoint advisers with preferences that are less extreme than their own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sample selection models provide an important way of accounting for economic decisions that combine discrete and continuous choices and of correcting for nonrandom sampling. Nonparametric estimators for these models are developed in this paper. These can be used for estimating shapes and important economic quantities, as in standard nonparametric regression. Endogeneity of regressors of interest is allowed for. Series estimators for these models are developed, which are useful for imposing additivity restrictions that arise from selection corrections. Convergence rates and asymptotic normality results are derived. An application to returns to schooling among Australian young females is given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than half a century after the first experiment on the finitely repeated prisoner's dilemma, evidence on whether cooperation decreases with experience—as suggested by backward induction—remains inconclusive. This article provides a meta-analysis of prior experimental research and reports the results of a new experiment to elucidate how cooperation varies with the environment in this canonical game. We describe forces that affect initial play (formation of cooperation) and unraveling (breakdown of cooperation). First, contrary to the backward induction prediction, the parameters of the repeated game have a significant effect on initial cooperation. We identify how these parameters impact the value of cooperation—as captured by the size of the basin of attraction of always defect—to account for an important part of this effect. Second, despite these initial differences, the evolution of behavior is consistent with the unraveling logic of backward induction for all parameter combinations. Importantly, despite the seemingly contradictory results across studies, this article establishes a systematic pattern of behavior: subjects converge to use threshold strategies that conditionally cooperate until a threshold round; conditional on establishing cooperation, the first defection round moves earlier with experience. Simulation results generated from a learning model estimated at the subject level provide insights into the long-term dynamics and the forces that slow down the unraveling of cooperation. JEL Codes: C72, C73, C92. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of placing natural restrictions on the mechanisms considered for implementation problems. It is shown that if all mechanisms are considered and preferences satisfy a basic condition, then any social choice correspondence can be implemented in undominated strategies. An example points out that the strength of this result derives from the use of mechanisms with questionable features. In part of the message space the agent who announces the highest integer is rewarded. This sort of "tail-chasing" construction, common in the constructive proofs of the literature, is used to assure that undesired strategy combinations do not form an equilibrium. If such mechanisms are ruled out, then the social choice correspondences which can be implemented in undominated strategies satisfy an incentive compatibility type condition called strategy-resistance. For social choice functions this is equivalent to strategy-proofness. This contrast suggests that this issue should be examined as it applies to other solution concepts used in implementation theory. The last portion of the paper begins to explore the issue as it relates to Nash implementation and undominated Nash implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the design of non-cooperative game forms for economic decision problems. A decision problem is presented which admits non-dictatorial game forms with the following properties: (a) Nash equilibria exist and all Nash equilibrium outcomes are Pareto optimal; or (b) dominant strategies exist and all dominant strategy equilibria are Pareto optimal; but not both. This is, any (non-dictatorial) game form whose Nash equilibria are well behaved does not have dominant strategies, and any game form with well behaved dominant strategy equilibria must have at least one non-optimal non-dominant strategy Nash equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will justify simple majority rule as a computational device which may be used to implement any social choice function which satisfies some plausible admissibility criteria. We take our cue from one of the author's previous papers (1976). The argument below improves upon Campbell (1976)—and, we would like to claim, upon rival procedures for generating non-empty choice sets—in several respects. First, the social choice functions are structured, not by an appeal to rationality desiderata, which are especially difficult to evaluate in the context of social choice, but by recognizing the value of the time taken to locate a member of the choice set. Second, majority rule is not assumed as the base relation used to generate choice sets; it is derived and the normative conditions employed are rather mild, certainly when compared to May (1952). Third, we investigate the decisiveness of the admissible social choice functions. Fourth, we give an argument very similar to the one of Kalai et al. (1976) defending our social choice functions in terms of incentive compatibility. Section 1 lays out the basic definitions and notation. Sections 2 and 3 consider the normative and computational aspects of social choice. The results are stated and discussed in Section 4; the proofs are relegated to an appendix. Section 5 addresses the question of incentive compatibility and Section 6 summarizes the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends several of these results. In particular, we examine here at length the relationship between these Arrow conditions and the requirement of strategy-proofness, using notions of strategy-proofness which are considerably weaker than the one used in the earlier contributions. The notion of strategy-proofness underlying these contributions is that of Nash equilibrium: that for any configuration of individual preferences, there is no one who can profitably misrepresent his preferences, so long as the way he votes does not affect the way others vote. In an important paper, Pattanaik (1976a)has suggested several weaker versions of this notion, which incorporate the possibility of counter-coalitions in the concept of Nash equilibrium, i.e. which take into account the possibility that if a voter misrepresents his preferences, it may induce others to vote in a way disadvantageous to him. Using these weaker concepts of strategy-proofness, we prove several results under two alternative assumptions regarding individual preferences: that individual preferences are strong orderings (preferences do not involve ties between distinct pairs of alternatives) and that they are orderings (two or more alternatives may be tied up in individual preferences). With strong individual preferences, we show that even for a very weak requirement of strategy-proofness, it remains true that an SDF must satisfy weaker versions of both monotonicity and independence of irrelevant alternatives, which we call "limited monotonicity" and "limited independence of irrelevant alternatives" respectively, following the terminology introduced by Pattanaik (1978). The result generalizes corresponding results by Barberá (1977) and extends conceptually, though not formally, results by Karni and Schmeidler (1976) and Pattanaik ((1973), (1978)). Further, if an SDF satisfies limited independence of irrelevant alternatives, then it must satisfy limited monotonicity for an even weaker notion of strategy-proofness. However, we provide counter-examples to show that, in general, neither limited monotonicity nor limited independence of irrelevant alternatives are necessary conditions for this very weak requirement of strategy-proofness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I define two wide classes of decision schemes—supporting size and point voting decision schemes—which can be viewed as natural adaptations to the probabilistic framework of two basic principles used in making deterministic choices: majority and positional voting. It is noted that these two principles, which are in general incompatible within a deterministic framework, can be jointly satisfied within the setting of decision schemes by what I call simple decision schemes, a third class which is the intersection of the two above. The theorems in the paper characterize these three classes in terms of the properties they satisfy. Some of these properties are, in turn. adaptations to the new framework of standard conditions in social choice theory: anonymity, neutrality and strategyproofness. Two other new properties are introduced, which I call alternative independence and individual independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose a resource allocation mechanism which is "market like" as consumers use prices to guide decision making. Arrow-Debreu markets have the feature that ex-ante marginal rates of substitution are equated as all consumers face the same set of prices. When a state of the world is realized, however, the actual intertemporal marginal rates of substitution will differ across individuals unless all individuals have the same ex-ante beliefs. The resource allocation mechanism proposed in this paper corrects for these ex-post divergences among marginal rates of substitution by quoting to each individual ex ante a different set of prices, it turns out that each individual's personal prices for delivery of contingent commodities in any one state are proportional to a common price system, and the factor of proportionality is precisely equal to the subjective probability that the individual attaches to that state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Nash has contributed to game theory and economics two solution concepts for nonconstant sum games. One, the non-cooperative solution [9] is a generalization of the minimax theorem for two person zero sum games and of the Cournot solution; and the other, the cooperative solution [10], is completely new. It is the purpose of this paper to present a non-cooperative equilibrium concept, applicable to supergames, which fits the Nash (non-cooperative) definition and also has some features resembling the Nash cooperative solution. "Supergame" describes the playing of an infinite sequence of "ordinary games" over time. Oligopoly may profitably be viewed as a supergame. In each time period the players are in a game, and they know they will be in similar games with the same other players in future periods. The most novel element of the present paper is in thc introduction of a completely new concept of solution for non-cooperative supergames. In addition to proposing this solution, a proof of its existence is given. It is also argued that the usual notions of "threat" which are found in the literature of game theory make no sense in non-cooperative supergames. There is something analogous to threat, called "temptation", which does have an intuitive appeal and is related to the solution which is proposed. In section II the ordinary game will be described, the non-cooperative equilibrium defined and its existence established. Section HI contains a description of supergames and supergame strategies. In section IV a definition and discussion of a non-cooperative equilibrium for supergames is given. This equilibrium shares some of the attributes of the Nash-Harsanyi [10, 6] cooperative solution, and is very much in the spirit of the solution proposed several years ago by Professor Robert L. Bishop in the American Economic Review [2]. In section V existence will be proved, in section VI some assumptions will be relaxed, and in section VII economic applications will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts pertaining to consumer research. They include "Consumer Research Allocation Models at the Individual Level," by Richard R. Batsell, "Situational Variables and Consumer Behavior, 2," by Russell W. Belk, and "Information Format and Choice Task Effects in Decision Making," by James R. Bettman and Michel A. Zins.

Background The approach currently used to appraise public health interventions is close to that of health technology appraisal for drugs. This approach is not appropriate for many public health interventions, however, when extremely small individual level benefits are delivered to extremely large populations. In many such situations, randomized controlled trials with sufficient size and power to determine individual level effects are impractical. Such interventions may be cost-effective, even in the absence of traditional evidence to demonstrate this. Methods We outline an alternative approach based on decision theory. We apply it to cases where prior beliefs are sufficiently strong and well grounded to allow decision-makers to assume the direction of change of the intervention's outcome, within the context of a transparent and deliberative decision-making process. Decision theory also assumes that decision-makers are risk neutral, implying that they should make decisions based on an intervention's mean cost-effectiveness, and should therefore disregard variance except when deciding to wait for more information. However, they must allow for biases. Results A framework is presented which has the potential to achieve large health gains at no additional cost. Conclusions This analysis provides a rigorous theoretical framework for decision-makers in public health. The implied paradigm shift also applies to some clinically based areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the empirical predictions of ambiguity aversion in intertemporal heterogenous agents economies. We examine equilibria for two tractable wealth-homothetic settings of ambiguity aversion in continuous time. Each setting is motivated by a different robust control optimization problem. We show that ambiguity aversion affects optimal portfolios in a way that is similar to an increase in risk aversion. A distinct property of our second setting of ambiguity aversion is that this increase is state dependent, highly pronounced at moderate portfolio exposures and reduces equity-market participation. In general equilibrium, ambiguity aversion raises the equity premium and lowers interest rates. A distinct feature of our second setting of ambiguity aversion is that the equity premium part due to ambiguity aversion dominates when volatility is low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a long normative 'Social Contract' tradition that attempts to characterize ex-post income inequalities that are agreeable to all 'behind a veil of ignorance.' This paper takes a similar normative approach to characterize social decision-making procedures. It is shown that quite generally some form of majority-voting is preferred to unanimity 'behind a veil of ignorance' whenever society faces deadweight costs in making compensating transfers. Deviations from unanimity (or ex-post Pareto optimality) are ex-ante efficient to the extent that they economize on costly compensating transfers. Put another way, the optimal decision rule trades off the benefits of minority protection and those from greater flexibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research documents "the friendly taking effect" in choosing consumption packages for the self and others, interpersonal closeness leads to a preference for a self-benefiting package when this package also offers greater total benefit to the self-other collective (studies 1 and 2). We propose that a friendly intention (i.e., concern for the total benefit) underlies the friendly taking effect; therefore, people both take more from and give more to a close (vs. distant) other when doing so offers greater benefits in total (study 3), and people are cognitively tuned in to (e.g., acquire, remember) information about the total benefit more when choosing a package for themselves and a close (vs. distant) other (study 4). Moreover, the importance people place on the total benefit mediates the impact of closeness on people's preference for self-benefiting packages (study 5). We explore boundary conditions (study 6) and implications for marketers of consumption packages (study 7). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Identifying costs and values in healthcare interventions as well as the ability to measure and consider costs relative to value for patients are pivotal in clinical decision-making and medical education. This study explores residents' preferences in educating value-based healthcare (VBHC) during postgraduate medical education. Exploring residents' preferences in VBHC education, in order to understand what shapes their choices, might contribute to improved medical residency education and healthcare as a whole.Methods: A discrete choice experiment (DCE) examined which conditions for educating VBHC are preferred by residents. DCE gives more insight into the trade-off's residents make when choosing alternatives, and which conditions for educating VBHC have the most influence on residents' preference.Results: This DCE shows that residents prefer knowledge on both medical practice as well as the process of care-to be educated by an expert on VBHC together with a clinician. They prefer limited protected time to conduct VBHC initiatives (thus while at work) and desire the inclusion of VBHC in formal educational plans.Conclusion: When optimising graduate and postgraduate medical education curricula, these preferences should be considered to create necessary conditions for the facilitation and participation of residents in VBHC education and the set-up of VBHC initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores an approach to social choice which is an alternative to Arrow's social welfare function. We consider' best fit' social rankings for any individual preferences through the definition of levels of agreement between preferences and rankings. We thereby avoid the pairwise approach of Arrow's independence and Pareto conditions, and we demonstrate the possibility of non-dictatorial social choice. We consider the rationality implications of a non-unique outcome, and determine additional properties, including majority-consistency, of the Condorcet process for determining the rankings. The approach also allows an interpretation of Sen's 'impossibility of a Paretian liberal' in terms of individual agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic trade-offs in decision making which our analysis has emphasised are: (i) The trade-off between the errors of rejecting good projects (or ideas) versus the errors of accepting bad projects; and (ii) the trade-off between the resource costs of extra evaluation of projects versus the gains from an improved selection. The organisational forms we have analysed are committees (where evaluation of projects is simultaneous, and those projects are accepted which are approved by at least the minimum consensus), hierarchies (which accepts only those projects which all levels of the hierarchy approve, and where a higher level bureau evaluates only the projects approved by the lower bureaus), and polyarchies (where the evaluation of projects is also sequential, but a project is undertaken by the organisation as soon as it is approved by any one member). The last two organisations respectively capture certain features of centralised versus decentralised systems. We have been concerned both with the optimal design of each of these organisational forms, and with the comparison of performance across organisational forms. For committees, our paper provides a framework for ascertaining the optimal committee size as well as the optimal degree of consensus. We have shown, for instance, that the optimal increase in the level of consensus, in response to an increased committee size, is larger (smaller) than the marginal majority rule - the rule where the level of consensus is increased by one whenever the committee size increases by two- if an individual is less (more) likely to reject a good project than to accept a bad project. This result does not depend on the quality of the project portfolio; that is, on what the proportions of good and bad projects are in the set of projects from which the organisation has to choose, and on how good the good projects are compared to how bad the bad projects are. If, in addition, the project portfolio is of bad (good) quality t... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the way that word-of-mouth communication aggregates the information of individual agents. We find that the structure of the communication process determines whether all agents end up making identical choices, with less communication making this conformity more likely. Despite the players' naive decision rules and the stochastic decision environment, word-of-mouth communication may lead all players to adopt the action that is on average superior. These socially efficient outcomes tend to occur when each agent samples only a few others.

In this paper a party with private information can verifiably disclose some, hut not all, of his information. The optimal amount of discretion to allow the informed party is studied. That is, should the informed party be allowed unlimited discretion in choosing which elements of his information set to disclose, or should restrictions be imposed that limit this discretion? The model is formulated in the spirit of a ‘persuasion game.’ It is demonstrated that under certain circumstances, rules that limit discretion increase the informativeness of disclosures and thus improve economic decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies a class of information transmission processes which we call rumours. The distinctive features of these processes are that the information transmission takes place in such a way that the recipient does not quite know whether or not to believe the information, and that the probability that someone receives the information depends on how many people already have it. Specifically, we study an example in which there is an investment project with returns only known to a few people. These people have a cost of undertaking the project and this cost is private information. The only information the other agents receive is that someone else has invested. They are not told whether that person actually knew the returns, or whether he too was just acting on the basis of his observation of others. They use their optimal Bayesian decision rule to decide whether to invest. We show that, for a wide class of alternative specifications, this decision rule has the property that a positive fraction of those who observe the rumour will not invest. In this sense a rumour cannot mislead everybody. Counter-intuitive comparative statics results are obtained. For example, more information and higher productivity may reduce welfare, while changing the speed with which the rumour spreads has no welfare effect [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns the pattern of contributions to a joint project when commitments and enforceable contracts are not available. We analyse a game in which partners alternate in making contributions to the project until the project is completed. Contributions are sunk when they are made. The game has a unique subgame perfect equilibrium path, which is inefficient in the sense that socially desirable projects may not be completed. By contrast, in a "subscription game" in which the cost of the contribution is borne only if and when the contributions committed to the project cover its cost, the outcome is efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns a decision problem of an agent, searching to find a low price, whose memory is represented by a partition of the set of possible past prices. The number of elements in the partition is limited I characterize the optimal partition for the case of a single decision, and then consider memory allocation among several decisions. I consider a case in which a consumer who must allocate a single bit of memory among two decision problems would do better to allocate it exclusively to one of the problems than to use it to convey joint information about both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows that if a social choice rule can be implemented in dominant strategies by an indirect mechanism, but there does not exist a direct mechanism that implements it in dominant strategies, then it must be the case that the original indirect mechanism does not implement the social choice rule in Nash strategies (under complete information) or in Bayesian strategies (under incomplete information). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we prove some versions of the Arrow Impossibility Theorem, with the collective rationality condition weakened from transitivity to acyclicity, and the Pareto condition replaced by weaker conditions. Thus this result has weaker assumptions than versions of the Arrow Theorem which have previously appeared in the literature. Consequently it is one of the strongest impossibility theorems. Our result is an extension of a recent theorem of Blair and Pollak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Bergson-Samuelson social welfare function maps each in tuple of continuous individual preference orderings into a continuous, transitive binary relation over alternative states of an economy. Arrow and his successors dropped the continuity requirement and demanded instead that the social ordering vary in a natural way with individual preferences. These requirements, the independence of irrelevant alternatives and citizen sovereignty axioms, together with the requirement that the social preference relation satisfy transitivity or some weaker rationality condition, imply either that power is concentrated to an extreme extent or that the social choice process is indecisive. In this paper we eliminate the transitivity assumption employed in the Bergson Samuelson formulation and instead concentrate on the axiom that the social preference relation be continuous. Specifically, we examine the nature of a function that maps each n-tuple of individual preferences into a continuous binary relation that does not necessarily satisfy any rationality condition. When this function depends in a "natural" way on individual preferences, we show that power, although not necessarily concentrated, is distributed in a dichotomous fashion among individuals; each coalition can either determine the social preference relation on every pair of alternatives or on no pair of alternatives. Furthermore, any alternative x will be socially preferred to an alternative y only if those who prefer x to y constitute one of the powerful coalitions. Thus, such procedures have the form of a simple game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the second class of problems mentioned above. First, we show that if all individuals' sincere preferences are linear orderings, then a situation constitutes an equilibrium only if the choice set is a subset of the choice set corresponding to the sincere preference profile. This constitutes an important motivation for consistency. The result guarantees that under a wide class of consistent decision procedures, the set of outcomes corresponding to any equilibrium situation will not contain any outcome which is judged non-optimal according to the sincere preference profile. At most, some outcome which is optimal according to the sincere preference profile is now judged non-optimal. Secondly, we establish a connection between the number of alternatives in the issue, the size of winning coalitions and consistency. It turns out that acyclicity is a necessary condition for consistency. We also prove the existence of a class of consistent decision procedures. Lastly, we show that a necessary and sufficient condition for consistent voting schemes, is that individuals' sincere preferences be Value-Restricted. An example is given to show that Value-Restriction is not sufficient for the sincere-preference profile to be an equilibrium. These results establish the fact that consistency constitutes more than a formal weakening of sincere preference equilibrium. The results also suggest that consistency may be viewed as an "ethically" suitable substitute for true preference revelation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The classic problem of social choice is that of using individual preferences among social alternatives to obtain social preferences, e.g. Arrow, or at least a social choice, e.g. Pattanaik, among these alternatives. The purpose of this paper is to propose a reorientation of the problem of social choice not as the determination of a social ranking of alternatives nor even as the social choice of one alternative but rather as the determination of social probabilities of choosing among the various alternatives. These social probabilities, determined on the basis of individual probabilities so as to satisfy certain axioms, imply a social ranking of the alternatives, and the ultimate determination of a single alternative is accomplished by a random mechanism, such as a table of random numbers, using these probabilities. The idea of probabilistic social choice is mentioned, but not developed, in May, Luce and Raiffa and Coleman. The probabilistic approach has the advantage of using the impersonal mechanism of a random device to adjudicate differences in individual preferences. Furthermore, all individual preferences count, including those of a minority, and weight is given to the intensity of individual preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents definitions of rational choice that are modeled closely upon the actual decision processes pertaining to the behavior of organisms. Traditional economic theory postulates an "economic man," who, in the course of being "economic" is also "rational." This man is assumed to have knowledge of the relevant aspects of his environment which, if not absolutely complete, is at least impressively clear and voluminous. Recent developments in economics, and particularly in the theory of the business firm, have raised great doubts as to whether this schematized model of economic man provides a suitable foundation on which to erect a theory -- whether it be a theory of how firms do behave, or of how they "should" rationally behave. Broadly stated, the task is to replace the global rationality of economic man with a kind of rational behavior that is compatible with the access to information and the computational capacities that are actually possessed by organisms, including man, in the kinds of environments in which such organisms exist.

The article presents information on several books related to economics. Some of the books are "With Malice Toward None," by S.G. Barve, "Canadian Agriculture in War and Peace, 1935-50," by G.E. Britnell and V.C. Fowke, "Development of the Emerging Countries," by Robert E. Asher and others, "Antitrust and the Changing Corporation," by William Lee Baldwin and "Economic Analysis for Engineering and Managerial Decision-Making," by Norman N. Barish.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the efficient set of consumption vectors when the problem is the maximization of U(c1, c2, …, Cn), where ci is consumption in period i, and U is some general utility function. We assume nothing about the specific form of the utility function. The only assumption we make is that more consumption is preferred to less. Our method attempts to determine how far analysis can take us toward isolating the set of efficient consumption possibilities. To this end we first derive an alternative representation for the set of feasible consumption plans. This new representation tells us the precise nature of the set of efficient consumption points. Our solution to the problem is a general one and might be applied to the individual or the corporation. For after studying the set of efficient consumption patterns, the firm can choose that optimal pattern which maximizes the value of its equity. However, the solution is not a simple one, and for a planning horizon exceeding two periods, it is relatively difficult to portray the efficient set. In order to make the solution more applicable, we suggest solving for vectors of possible discount factors. Each of these discount factor vectors will correspond to a segment or facet of the efficient set. The investor is then asked to select that vector or combination of vectors appropriate to his time preference. The final step is the presentation to the individual of a facet of the efficient set. From this reduced efficient set the investor is asked to choose his optimal consumption point. The investment strategy selected is any one that satisfies all capital and technological constraints, given the chosen consumption vector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A plan for an intertemporal consumer (or society) is a (constrained optimum) specification of consumption behaviour from the present to the end of his life (or time horizon). If an individual cannot dictate his future behaviour, he may be inconsistent (Strotz); that is, he may, as time passes, revise his specified future behaviour. Among the many unpleasant features of inconsistent planning is that if an individual behaves myopically ("naively", cf. Pollak) by continually executing the present portion of his plan, his behaviour, ex post, makes no sense from any point of view. This paper presents alternative ways of looking at intertemporal behaviour, and examines the conditions under which such behaviour is consistent. In Section III, we show that naive intertemporal optimization is consistent only if intertemporal preferences are structured so that the future is functionally separable from the present. In Section IV, we discuss "sophisticated solutions", which have been suggested, as a planning strategy when the intertemporal preference ordering does not satisfy the necessary condition for consistent naive planning. We prove an existence and uniqueness theorem for sophisticated solutions and find the necessary and sufficient conditions for the "sophisticated" choice functions to be generated by conventional utility maximization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the literature on social choice a number of conditions have been formulated in terms of restricted individual preferences for the transitivity of social decisions and also for the existence of a socially best alternative under the method of majority decision. Following the lead given by Murakami [7], recently Sen and Pattanaik [12] have explored similar sufficient conditions in the context of group decision rules which are more general than the method of majority decision. However, in discussing these group decision rules Sen and Pattanaik [12] have concentrated on the problem of the existence of a socially best alternative as distinguished from the problem of transitivity. It is the latter problem which we discuss in this paper. In particular, we establish sufficient conditions for the transitivity of binary group decision rules satisfying the well-known May [6] properties of "decisiveness", "neutrality", and "positive responsiveness". By the theorem of May [6], the method of majority decision belongs to this class of group decision rules. We also establish sufficient conditions for the transitivity of a still wider class of binary group decision rules which we call the multi-stage majority decision Rules. Section I lays down the notation and the definitions used. Section II establishes a sufficient condition for the transitivity of binary group decision rules satisfying decisiveness, neutrality and positive responsiveness. Section III gives a sufficient condition for the transitivity of multi-stage majority decision Rules. The main conclusions are summed up in Section IV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]