Consistency vs Flexibility: The Impact of Employee Voice in Rule-Based and Discretionary Decision Procedures

Consistency and flexibility are desirable, but incompatible, features of decision-making procedures. A comparison of a rule-based decision procedure (maximizing consistency) with a discretionary decision procedure (maximizing flexibility) was conducted. Employee voice was predicted to interact with decision procedure in impacting fairness perceptions. Student participants (N = 128) in a 2 × 2 laboratory simulation viewed videotaped depictions of a supervisor discussing a positive drug test result with an employee. The employee was given, or not given, an opportunity to explain; the supervisor was permitted discretion in determining the consequence or was completely bound by company policy. The proposed advantages of each decision procedure were obtained under contrasting levels of employee voice. Voice was desirable when the supervisor had discretionary authority; voice was unnecessary or even detrimental when a rule-based procedure was used. No overall preference between these two decision procedures was evident.     

HEATH–JARROW–MORTON INTEREST RATE DYNAMICS AND APPROXIMATELY CONSISTENT FORWARD RATE CURVES

We study a finite-dimensional approach to the Heath–Jarrow–Morton model for interest rate and introduce a notion of approximate consistency for a family of functions in a deterministic and stochastic framework. This amounts to asking the decrease of the minimum distance in least squares sense. We start from a general linearly parameterized set of functions and extend the theory to a nonlinear Nelson–Siegel family. Necessary and sufficient condition to have approximately consistency are given as well as a criterion of stability for the approximation.     

Reduced game and converse consistency

The initiating points of the current paper are the axiomatic characterizations, in terms of consistency, of the equal allocation of nonseparable cost value (by Moulin), the Shapley value (by Hart and Mas-Colell), and the prenucleolus (by Orshan). The basic axioms are the same, but three different reduced games can be used to distinguish these three solutions. The main purpose of the paper is to illustrate that besides the definitions of reduced games are different, the axiom converse consistency also plays an important role to distinguish these three solutions.     

Time-consistent investment policies in Markovian markets: A case of mean–variance analysis

The optimal investment policy for a standard multi-period mean–variance model is not time-consistent because the variance operator is not separable in the sense of the dynamic programming principle. With a nested conditional expectation mapping, we develop an investment model with time consistency in Markovian markets. Furthermore, we examine the differences of the investment policies with a riskless asset from those without a riskless asset. Analytical solutions for time-consistent optimal investment policies and the resulting mean–variance efficient frontier are obtained. Finally, using numerical examples, we show that the optimal investment policy derived from our model is more efficient than that of the standard mean–variance model in which the trade-off is determined between the mean and variance of the terminal wealth.     

THE IMPACT OF FEATURE SELECTION: A DATA‐MINING APPLICATION IN DIRECT MARKETING

The capability of identifying customers who are more likely to respond to a product is an important issue in direct marketing. This paper investigates the impact of feature selection on predictive models which predict reordering demand of small and medium‐sized enterprise customers in a large online job‐advertising company. Three well‐known feature subset selection techniques in data mining, namely correlation‐based feature selection (CFS), subset consistency (SC) and symmetrical uncertainty (SU), are applied in this study. The results show that the predictive models using SU outperform those without feature selection and those with the CFS and SC feature subset evaluators. This study has examined and demonstrated the significance of applying the feature‐selection approach to enhance the accuracy of predictive modelling in a direct‐marketing context. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On Some alternative estimates of the adjustment coefficient in risk theory

Abstract

Recently, Csörgö and Steinebach proposed to estimate the adjustment coefficient in risk theory via a quantile type estimate based upon a sequence of intermediate order statistics. In the present paper, further alternative estimators are discussed which may be viewed as convex combinations of a Hill type and a quantile type estimate. Consistency is proved and rates of convergence are studied. Some simulation results are presented to illustrate the finite sample behavior of the proposed estimators.     

Certain nonlinear models of population and epidenmic theory

Summary

Certain properties are considered of those models describing the distribution with time of persons or things among different states (e. g. in an epidemio· model we have the states of susceptibility, infection, death and immunity) for which the transition probabilities depend only upon the numbers in the different states. Special attention is paid to Feller's logistic population model and Bartlett's infection moqeI as being representative of the nonlinear type of scheme. The main results are the different series solutions for the moments given by equations (2.8), (3.9) and (3.12).     

Poverty Lines as Context Deflators: A Method to Account for Regional Diversity with Application to the Democratic Republic of Congo

This paper proposes a particular methodology to render budget data more comparable over highly diverse regions. More specifically, a set of regional poverty lines will be derived and employed as deflators to correct household expenditures for spatial differences in prices and needs. The quality of these deflators depends on the extent to which the underlying poverty lines adhere to the principles of consistency and specificity. Central to reconciling both principles in practice is our pursuit for austerity in setting poverty thresholds as well as the view that differences in social norms mainly reflect differences in social inclusion needs. The particularity of the proposed method compared to standard practice lies in the combination of: (i) the pronounced subdivision in socio‐economic strata; (ii) the use of a differential calorie threshold per sector; (iii) the introduction of protein intake; (iv) the derivation of a minimal house rent; and (v) the use of an austere non‐food/non‐housing allowance. The impact of this method is illustrated using a budget survey of the Democratic Republic of Congo.     

论人的全面发展与经济社会发展的关系

马克思主义哲学认为,经济社会发展和人的全面发展在根本上是相一致的,它们互为前提和基础。这种一致性不仅表现在两者发展过程上,而且表现在两者内容实质上;这种一致性只能通过推动和促进经济社会的发展来实现,这对于实现人的全面自由发展具有重要的现实意义。     

Fair allocation in a general model with indivisible goods

In this paper we study the problem of fair allocation in economies with indivisible goods, dropping the usual restriction that one agent receives at most one indivisible good. We show that most of the results obtained in the literature do not hold when the aforementioned restriction is dropped. Received: 13 July 1995 / Accepted: 2 December 1997