Collective Choices Under Ambiguity

We investigate experimentally whether collective choice environments matter for individual attitudes to ambiguity. In a simple two-urn Ellsberg experiment, one urn offers a 45 % chance of winning a fixed monetary prize while the other offers an ambiguous chance. Participants choose either individually or in groups of three. Group decision rules vary in the level of individual responsibility for the others’ payoffs: the collective choice is taken by majority, randomly delegated to two group members, or randomly delegated to a single group member. Although most participants display consistent ambiguity attitudes across their decisions, taking responsibility for the others tends to foster ambiguity aversion.     

Using robots to reduce personnel radiation exposure at the savannah river plant

The Savannah River Laboratory is using robots to improve safety and reduce personnel radiation exposure in the nuclear process environment. This paper reviews several successful applications at this site. A detailed discussion is presented on an application to transfer materials in a line of shielded radiation work cells.     

Examining the success of women of color-owned small and medium-sized enterprises in the United States: A system dynamics perspective

The objective of this study was to unravel the challenges confronting women of color (WoC)-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the United States. This is based on findings that most WoC-owned SMEs fail within the first few years of establishment. The impact of the global financial crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic on WoC-owned SMEs was also explored. System Dynamics (SD) is a computational modeling approach useful for understanding changes in a system over time and is applied in this study to illustrate WoC entrepreneurs' navigation through the startup and maturation of SMEs. The authors calibrated and validated the model with publicly available data. Findings revealed that more emphasis should be placed on failure reduction in the early years of establishment of these businesses. Also, there is the need for early intervention rather than focusing on the improvement of the successful business exit from the system. Results indicated that the creation of new businesses by WoC after the failure of existing businesses produced an increase in the number of failed enterprises. The authors assert that attention must be paid at the individual level through support to the entrepreneur. This study contributes to the extant literature by providing the first known SD model useful in depicting the SME system for WoC entrepreneurs in the US. The model serves as a potentially useful tool for informing effective policy making, education, and programmatic approaches to support the success of WoC entrepreneurs in the US.

     

The productivity growth of euro area banks

Journal of Productivity Analysis - We study the performance of the banking system in the Eurozone over the period 2006–2017 as measured by total factor productivity growth (TFPG) and its...     

The socio-economic impact of certification schemes in conflict-affected regions: The case of arabica coffee in the Eastern DRC

The paper investigates the benefits of certification of cooperatives in conflict-affected areas. We study whether and how certification may contribute to attenuate the impact of conflicts on the members of coffee cooperatives in the Eastern DRC. We use an inverse probability weighted difference-in-difference approach to study data collected between December 2017 and October 2019 from four NGO-supported cooperatives. Two of these cooperatives got organic certification in 2018, of which one got an additional Small Producers Symbol (SPP) certification in 2018. Certified cooperatives allow Arabica coffee producers to access markets and buffer against drops in market prices. Results indicate that certified cooperatives were better able to resist the international price drop than non-certified cooperatives and the alternative informal markets. The results also suggest that certified cooperative members increased their sales to the cooperative instead of turning to informal side-selling. We find a decrease in reported food deficits by the members of certified cooperatives and an increase in the importance of coffee in their household's income. We conclude that certification is an effective way forward for smallholder coffee producers and cooperatives in unstable regions.