Simultaneous versus sequential information processing

Subjects update prior information simultaneously versus sequentially. The mean prediction is remarkably close to the correct Bayesian estimate with simultaneous information, but differs significantly conditional on whether good news precedes bad news or vice versa.     

Can experimental measures of sensitivity to social pressure predict public good contribution?

Public good contributions may be affected by the social demand to contribute that is implicit in them. Sensitivity to social pressure predicts behavior in paired dictator and money burning games; the evidence for effects on public good contribution is mixed.     

The condition of the Turking class: Are online employers fair and honest?

Critics of online labor markets claim that employer abuses are endemic in these markets. Surveying a sample of workers, I find that, on average, workers perceive online employers to be slightly fairer and more honest than offline employers.     

Allocative efficiency measurement with endogenous prices

In the nonparametric measurement of allocative efficiency, output prices are fixed. If prices are endogenous, the overall output in the market determines the allocative efficient point. We develop an alternative semi-nonparametric model that allows prices to be endogenously determined.     

Measuring caring--the next frontier in understanding workforce performance and patient outcomes

Caring is not generally considered in structured and scientific analysis of situations. But this may be a mistake. Caring likely has a return on investment that surpasses all other technology, pharmacotherapy, or system that has been developed to date for health care. As the puzzle of caring as an intervention of healing continues to come together, the outcomes of care for self and others will become clear. It is apparent by the number of studies generated by just one group, the Caring International Research Collaborative, there is a shared belief caring is healing and has a potential for return on investment that has yet to be realized.     

Trust, reputation and relationships in grazing rights markets: An experimental economic study

Trust is frequently a requirement for economic exchanges and the management of natural resources. Providing public information on past actions can promote trust through the formation of reputations. We developed an economic experiment to test whether a formal reputation mechanism could facilitate trusting relationships in the tradable grazing rights markets. Providing information to create formal public reputations for market participants did not increase the overall efficiency of the market. However, it did result in greater equality of income between partners, suggesting that participants showed more concern for their partners when they knew they would be rated. Even with public reputation information, bilateral relationships remained central to the market. Market failures in existing grazing rights markets may be better addressed by measures to increase communication between partners rather than simply relying on a formal reputation mechanism.     

Using spatial microsimulation to account for demographic and spatial factors in environmental benefit transfer

This paper presents a simulation-based modelling approach for estimating total visitor numbers and amenity values for prospective non-priced open-access outdoor recreation sites. To begin, the geographic extent of the market for recreation at a policy site is estimated using data from a similar study site. The population residing within this geographic area is simulated using a spatial microsimulation model and GIS techniques and an individual-level ‘visitor arrival function’ is then transferred across this simulated population. This allows the latent demand for visits to the policy site by each simulated individual to be predicted and summed, providing an estimate of the total potential demand for recreation at the site. Combining this with an economic value measure of a visit provides an estimate of the potential amenity value of the policy site. The approach is applied to Moyode Wood, a small-scale forest in the West of Ireland, and estimates the potential total economic value of recreation at €0.4 million for the site. The research represents the first time that spatial microsimulation has been used in environmental benefit transfer and shows how it can be used to control for differences in demographic and spatial factors between study and policy sites. It also demonstrates how individual-level single-site travel cost models estimated using on-site survey data can be used to predict demand at alternative policy sites.     

Anomalies in green national accounting

We “extend” standard arguments for greening the product side of the national accounts to the income side of the accounts and turn up an anomaly. For an economy with oil use, no entry for oil income, a supposed primary factor, appears in the income side of the national accounts when the depletion of natural capital is accounted for on the product side of the accounts. We resolve this issue by applying an income definition developed in the theory of national accounting. This, however, leads to another anomaly on the income side of the national accounts.     

Evolutionary macroeconomics: a research agenda

In this article, the goal is to offer a new research agenda for evolutionary macroeconomics. The article commences with a broad review of the main ideas in the history of thought concerning the determinants of economic growth and an introduction to the evolutionary perspective. This is followed by a selective review of recent evolutionary approaches to macroeconomics. These approaches are found to be somewhat disconnected. It is argued that the ‘micro-meso-macro’ approach to economic evolution is capable of resolving this problem by offering an analytical framework in which macroeconomics can be built upon ‘meso-foundations’, not micro-foundations, as asserted in the mainstream. It is also stressed that the economic system and its components are complex adaptive systems and that this complexity must not be assumed away through the imposition of simplistic assumptions made for analytical convenience. It is explained that complex economic systems are, at base, energetic in character but differ from biological complex systems in the way that they collect, store and apply knowledge. It is argued that a focus upon stocks and flows of energy and knowledge in complex economic systems can yield an appropriate analytical framework for macroeconomics. It is explained how such a framework can be connected with key insights of both Schumpeter and Keynes that have been eliminated in modern macroeconomics. A macroeconomic framework that cannot be operationalized empirically is of limited usefulness so, in the last part of the article, an appropriate methodology for evolutionary macroeconomics is discussed.     

Asymmetric auctions with resale: An experimental study

We study auctions with resale based on Hafalir and Krishna's (2008) [6] model. As predicted, weak bidders bid more with resale than without, so that average auction prices tend to increase. When the equilibrium calls for weak types to bid higher than their values with resale they do, but not nearly as much as the theory predicts. In other treatments outcomes are much closer to the risk neutral Nash model's predictions. Bid distributions for weak and strong types are more similar with resale than without, in line with the theory.