Relative uncertainty aversion and additively representable set rankings

This paper proposes a definition of relative uncertainty aversion for decision models under complete uncertainty. It is shown that, for a large class of decision rules characterized by a set of plausible axioms, the new criterion yields a complete ranking of those rules with respect to the relative degree of uncertainty aversion they represent. In addition, we address a combinatorial question that arises in this context, and we examine conditions for the additive representability of our rules.     

Extended social ordering functions for rationalizing fair allocation rules as game forms in the sense of Rawls and Sen

We examine the possibility of constructing social ordering functions, each of which associates a social ordering over the feasible pairs of allocations and allocation rules with each simple production economy. Three axioms on the admissible class of social ordering functions are introduced, which embody the values of procedural fairness, non-welfaristic egalitarianism, and welfaristic consequentialism, respectively. The logical compatibility of these axioms and their lexicographic combinations subject to constraints are examined. Two social ordering functions that give priority to procedural values rather than to consequential values are identified. These two can uniformly rationalize a nice allocation rule in terms of the values of procedural fairness, non-welfaristic egalitarianism, and Pareto efficiency.     

Uncertainty and Compensation Design in Strategic Interfirm Contracts

In strategic outsourcing contracts, a substantial portion of implementation occurs at the client's premises and requires integration of effort between the vendor and the client. Compensation design in such contracts involves trade-offs between the higher (lower) incentive properties of fixed-price (cost-plus) contracts and their higher (lower) ex ante contracting and ex post adaptation costs. Uncertainty influences these trade-offs and affects compensation design. We explore the compensation implications of two types of uncertainty—volatility and ambiguity—which are reflected in the client's accounting measures. Volatility reflects the unpredictability of changes in the future environment, which makes it difficult to contractually specify future contingencies. Ambiguity reflects lack of consensus about the nature, drivers, and value effects of uncertainty, which makes it difficult to contractually specify responses to contingencies if and when they occur. Volatility increases the likelihood of ex post adaptation costs, while ambiguity increases ex ante contracting costs; therefore, volatility and ambiguity decrease the attractiveness of fixed-price contracts. We use accounting and market measures to calibrate volatility and ambiguity and examine their implications for compensation design and ex post renegotiation. Analysis of archival data for 455 strategic outsourcing contracts valued over $15 million indicates that volatility and ambiguity influence contract compensation design and renegotiation likelihood. These results hold even after controlling for asset specificity, task complexity, and relational factors. We conclude that accounting measures can provide signals of volatility and ambiguity and thereby influence compensation design in strategic interfirm contracts.     

Estimating the Associations between SNAP and Food Insecurity,Obesity, and Food Purchases with Imperfect Administrative Measures of Participation

Administrative data are considered the “gold standard” when measuring program participation, but little evidence exists on their potential problems or implications for econometric estimates. We explore these issues using the FoodAPS, a unique data set containing two different administrative measures of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation and a survey‐based measure. We document substantial ambiguity in the two administrative measures and show that they disagree with each other almost as often as they disagree with self‐reported participation. Estimated participation and misreporting rates can be meaningfully sensitive to choices made to resolve this ambiguity and disagreement. We explore sensitivity in regression estimates of the associations between SNAP and food insecurity, obesity, and the healthy eating index. The signs are unchanged across the three measures, and the estimates are mostly not statistically different from each other. However, there are some meaningful differences in the magnitudes and levels of statistical significance of the estimates.     

Interpretation of uncertainty expressions*

Abstract. The accounting and auditing profession makes extensive use of words to communicate levels of uncertainty in both formal and informal situations ranging from Handbook pronouncements to working papers to everyday communications. Yet the accounting literature does not present research on the level of ambiguity in interpretations of such communications or the factors that could potentially influence this ambiguity. This paper provides an extensive and detailed examination of the ambiguity of interpretations in the communication of uncertainty using a vocabulary familiar to accountants and auditors. Average probability levels were computed from responses to various commonly used words. Further analyses of interpretations were undertaken by comparing different methods of responding to the communications, using a variety of ways of assessing the impact on interpretations and comparing the responses of various subject groups. The studies used various experimental designs in order to provide the internal validity necessary to interpret research results. The external validity was obtained by using common words, reasonably sophisticated subjects, observations at various times and by comparing with the results of experiments in other settings. This paper demonstrates that ambiguity exists and that this ambiguity is reasonably stable for the vocabulary of the accountant. Also ambiguity can be increased by the use of difficult response modes by the interpreter but it cannot easily be reduced.     

组织双元性视角下危机驱动数字创新模式研究——基于新冠危机组织数字创新案例分析

危机作为一种外源性冲击，显著改变了组织运作的基本前提。数字技术应用不仅有助于应对危机，还催生出新的创新类型。基于危机管理和组织双元性理论视角，分析和确立数字创新的两个维度：创新驱动（紧迫感与雄心感）与创新焦点（开发与探索）。在此基础上构建数字创新模式分类框架。阐释并讨论4种创新模式及其特征，结合新冠危机期间的组织数字创新案例说明它们如何以及为何在危机背景下导致数字创新。     

“空巢老人”问题分析及对策初探

随着社会老龄化和家庭结构的演变,空巢老人问题日益凸显。保障老人生活无忧的晚年和丰富多彩的精神世界,是建设社会主义和谐社会的重要内容。剖析空巢老人产生的经济、社会根源和生活现状,借鉴国外养老模式中的可取因素,对我们结合中国实际提出相应对策,建立健全科学的社会保障制度,尽快形成适应城乡不同特点的养老服务体系,都将起到积极的作用。     

On the General Deviation Measure and the Gini coefficient

The General Deviation Measure introduces a progressive definition for financial risk measurement, which presents an alternative to the Coherent Risk Measure. This definition replaces the Translation Invariance and Monotonicity axioms with the Shift Invariance and Nonnegativity axioms, and it includes the Mean Absolute Deviation measure and other variations of the Value-at-Risk measurements. This research shows that Coherent Risk Measure holds an intrinsic contradiction regarding riskless assets, and it proves that the Gini coefficient is also a General Deviation Measure. These contributions improve the efficiency of risk measurement and asset pricing in the financial markets.     

Nash equilibria of games when players’ preferences are quasi‐transitive

Much of game theory is founded on the assumption that individual players are endowed with preferences that can be represented by a real‐valued utility function. However, in reality human preferences are often not transitive. This is especially true for the indifference relation, which can lead an individual to make a series of choices which in their totality would be viewed by the same individual as erroneous. There is a substantial literature that raises intricate questions about individual liberty and the role of government intervention in such contexts. The aim of this paper is not to go into these ethical matters but to provide a formal structure for such analysis by characterizing games where individual preferences are quasi‐transitive. The paper identifies a set of axioms which are sufficient for the existence of Nash equilibria in such “games.”     

It Goes without Saying: The Effects of Intrinsic Motivational Orientation,Leadership Emphasis of Intrinsic Goals,and Audit Issue Ambiguity on Speaking Up

Regulation requires auditors to raise significant audit issues and concerns to the attention of audit engagement leadership and requires leadership to encourage such communication. This research demonstrates, using an experiment and a survey, that audit team members' willingness to speak up about such issues is associated with their intrinsic motivational orientation. Based on this result, we test whether audit leadership can leverage this relationship to increase speaking up, particularly when audit issues are more ambiguous, by emphasizing intrinsic goals. Results across three additional experiments indicate that auditors whose leaders emphasize intrinsic goals, whether directly or through tone at the top and firm culture, are more likely to speak up than are other auditors. We also find that auditors are more likely to speak up when an audit issue is less versus more ambiguous. We conclude that leadership can fulfill their obligation to encourage upward communication by emphasizing intrinsic versus extrinsic goals, regardless of the level of ambiguity surrounding the audit issue.     

With or without siblings: Sorting into competition in the experimental labor market

We employ a well-controlled laboratory experiment to examine whether only children and those with siblings differ in their willingness to compete. We find that only children are more likely to undervalue the chance of winning and shy away from competition, but they become to embrace competition as their self-assessed winning probability increases. Alternatively, once uncertainty of relative performance is removed, the gap in willingness to compete between the two groups disappears. Utilizing a two-stage model of decision weights under uncertainty, we find that such a gap is predominantly caused by their heterogeneous attitudes toward ambiguity.     

保定市南市区“城中村”改造模式及其优化

目前,保定市南市区城中村改造的模式主要有村里自主开发和开发商主导开发两种模式,村民对各种模式的改造效果有不同的评价。南市区“城中村”改造中出现了农民的利益难以得到保护、改造后的新小区设施不完善、只重视硬环境忽视软环境等问题。南市区“城中村”改造的模式、原则等都需要进一步优化调整。     

English and Chinese language ambiguity

This article from the Voice of Ambiguity, Lexical Ambiguity and Ambiguity in the three aspects of the grammatical structure of English and Chinese languages are compared ambiguity And analysis. Ambiguity in English and Chinese language through the comparison, resulted in two languages to explore the reasons for ambiguity; analysis of the characteristics of English language ambiguities; Research Should not be some ambiguity on how to avoid the emergence of the phenomenon.     

基于艾尔斯伯格悖论的确定性品牌诉求策略选择

艾尔斯伯格悖论认为，人们是模糊厌恶的，即，人们更加倾向于选择确定性的事物，而对不确定的事物天生排斥。文章引用该结论于品牌诉求的策略中，并通过实验法进行假设检验，结果显示在文章所研究的若干产品品类的领域内，人们更加青睐于选择由确定性的品牌诉求策略所推介的品牌及其产品。最后，提出了基于该结论的营销策略建议，并总结了本研究的结论在外部效度方面所存在的不足，以及对未来研究的展望。     

Ready to stop: socioeconomic status and the fertility transition in Stockholm, 1878–1926

The western fertility decline is arguably the most significant demographic change to have occurred in the past 200 years, yet its causes and processes are still shrouded in ambiguity due to a lack of individual‐level longitudinal data. A growing body of research has helped improve our understanding of the decline's causes by examining the development of socioeconomic differences in fertility using historical micro‐data, but these have largely only considered rural areas where fertility was generally slower to decline. This article contributes to the literature by utilizing individual‐level data from the Roteman Database for Stockholm, Sweden between 1878 and 1926 to examine the association of socioeconomic status and fertility and the adoption of stopping behaviour during the city's transition. Using piecewise constant hazard models and logistic regression, we find that a clear class pattern arises in which the elite were early practitioners of fertility control, followed by the working classes. As the transition unfolded, socioeconomic differences in stopping behaviour disappeared and overall fertility differentials were also minimized, both of them being consistent with patterns observed in rural populations. The implications of these findings for major explanations of the decline are discussed in the concluding section.     

角色管理对服务质量影响的实证研究

文章从员工角色理论出发,提出从角色冲突,角色模糊,角色负荷三个维度来衡量角色管理对员工服务质量的影响作用,并提出相关假设及验证假设的理论模型。最后采用规范的研究方法与结构方程模型对样本数据和运行结果进行了分析和评价,最终得出至少在电力服务企业,缓解角色冲突、角色模糊、角色负荷的角色管理对其所提供的服务质量有不同程度正向的推动的作用,其中缓解角色模糊问题对服务质量影响最大。从而为服务企业的服务质量的改进和企业形象提升提供理论依据与实践模型。     

Choice via grouping procedures

In this paper, we consider a natural procedure of decision‐making, the grouping choice methods, which leads to a kind of bounded rational choice. In this procedure a decision‐maker first divides the set of available alternatives into some groups and in each group she chooses the best element (winner) for her preference relation. Then, among the winners in the first round, she selects the best one as her final choice. We characterize grouping choice methods in three different ways. First, we show that a choice function is a grouping choice method if and only if it is a rational shortlist method (Manzini and Mariotti 2007 ) in which the first rationale is transitive. Second, grouping choice methods are axiomatically characterized by means of a new axiom called elimination, in addition to two well‐known axioms, expansion and weak WARP (Manzini and Mariotti 2007 ). Third, grouping choice methods are also characterized by a weak version of path independence.     

Opinions on the Tax Deductibility of Mortgages and the Consensus Effect

Summary We present the results of a survey-experiment – using a representative sample of the Dutch population – in which we relate respondents’ opinion about a restriction of the tax deductibility of mortgages to their estimates about other people’s opinions. We find a strong consensus effect; meaning that respondents’ estimates of others’ opinions are related to their own opinion. Furthermore, we find that the size of the effect is not affected by the ambiguity of the question posed. The provision of arguments pro and contra the tax provision and monetary incentives for accuracy reduce the consensus effect, but only so in conjunction. Finally, we find that house owners display a significantly stronger consensus effect. Our results suggest that both cognitive and motivational factors are responsible for the consensus effect. Aside from the consensus effect, our survey gives interesting insights into people’s opinion on tax deductibility of mortgages. A majority consider a general restriction to be unfair, but a proposal to restrict only mortgages as of a certain size meets with much more approval. We thank Marcel Das and Corrie Vis of CentERdata for their excellent support in conducting the survey-experiment and two referees of this journal and Dirk Engelmann for helpful comments. Financial support from the Faculty of Economics and Business administration is gratefully acknowledged.     

以“读者为中心”的新型图书馆服务质量承诺

图书馆服务的服务对象是读者,在新型数字化图书馆理念下,图书馆已不是传统意义上的借还图书的功能,读者对利用图书馆有了新的要求,图书馆应以读者为中心,提高服务满意度,作好服务质量承诺,具体应从增强服务能力、更新服务观念、个性化服务、提高服务艺术等方面切实落实服务承诺,保障承诺的实施。     

Trade,imitative ability and intellectual property rights

Economic theory suggests some ambiguity concerning the effects of strengthening intellectual property rights (IPRs) on international trade. Here we extend the empirical literature that attempts to resolve this ambiguity. We use panel data to estimate a gravity equation for manufacturing exports, in aggregate and by industry, from five advanced countries to 69 developed and developing countries over the period 1970–1999. In particular, we use threshold regression techniques to determine whether the impact of IPR protection on trade depends upon the level of development, imitative ability and market size of the importing country. We confirm the importance of the importers’ imitative ability, and also find some evidence of a role for market size in this relationship. The individual industries present different patterns of thresholds and coefficients, with Total Manufacturing closely reflecting that of Fabricated Metal Products.