Keeping Your Financial Planner to Yourself: Racial and Cultural Differences in Financial Planner Referrals

Literature suggests that the use of a financial expert by Black households improves savings and investment behaviors. However, these households lack the financial knowledge and sophistication needed to select an appropriate financial expert. This admitted inability results in Black households relying on the recommendations of friends and family in selecting and hiring a financial expert. However results from this study suggest that Blacks who have successfully chosen a financial expert, i.e., are satisfied, are nearly two times (92 %) less likely than non-Blacks to refer their financial planner to others. Decomposition analyses indicate that over 80 % of satisfied Blacks should be willing to provide a referral yet only 50 % do. The largest significant component of the difference in referral rates is culturally based perception differences of the variables used in determining the net benefit of providing a referral.     

Irrationality and intertemporal choice in early neoclassical thought

Early neoclassical economists presumed an element of irrationality in the context of intertemporal decision making. W.S. Jevons, Irving Fisher, Alfred Marshall, and A.C. Pigou observed a preference for present over future consumption, and each took this as evidence that consumer 'foresight' or 'will power' was defective. The labouring classes were said to discount future consumption to reflect uncertainty, and such discounting is regarded as 'rational.' But each of these economists focused on an additional, and purportedly 'irrational,' reason for discounting: 'impatience.' Consumers are thus said to make persistent miscalculations when it comes to decisions involving time.
Irrationalité et choix intertemporel dans les débuts de la pensée néo-classique. Les premiers économistes néo-classiques présumaient qu'il y avait un brin d'irrationalité dans le processus de décision intertemporel. W.S. Jevons, Irving Fisher, Alfred Marshall et A.C. Pigou ont observé une certaine préférence de la consommation présente par rapport à la consommation future et en ont déduit que le consommateur manquait de 'prévoyance' et de 'volonté.' On suggérait que les classes travailleuses escomptaient leur consommation future à cause de l'incertitude - ce qui était considé comme rationnel. Mais chacun de ces économistes faisait aussi appel à une raison additionnelle pour escompter la consommation future - l'impatience - un motif jugé irrationnel. On en concluait que les consommateurs faisaient des erreurs persistantes de calcul quand ils prenaient des décisions intertemporelles.     

Model selection for hazard rate estimation in presence of censoring

This note presents an estimator of the hazard rate function based on right censored data. A collection of estimators is built from a regression-type contrast, in a general collection of linear models. Then, a penalised model selection procedure provides an estimator which satisfies an oracle inequality. In particular, we can prove that it is adaptive in the minimax sense on Hölder spaces.     

Implementing What Works with Offenders—The Effective Practice Initiative

The Effective Practice Initiative is a bold attempt to introduce systematic change in the Probation Service so that its practices are based on best evidence of what works with offenders. The main elements of this holistic strategy are outlined and the key implementation issues are discussed.     

Missing information,inferences, and evaluations

Research has shown consumers either form inferences to fill in missing information or adapt processing to accommodate missing values. This article illustrates that processing may influence which attributes are deemed necessary for the choice task and consequently inferred and that attribute-based processing,leads to inference use. The article also tests a framework that incorporates missing information, processing, inference use, and evaluation variables into a single parsimonious model that shows (1) the effects of missing information on processing and inference use and (2) the effects of inference use on evaluations. The model incorporates a link between processing and inference use that may help explain mixed results regarding the degree and direction of impact of missing information on evaluations. Finally, it explores other variables such as missing information overlap, product familiarity and importance, and attribute type that may also influence inference use.     

Umverteilung in verschiedenen Pensionssystemen für Österreich

Using a state-of-the-art microsimulation model, we analyse the redistributional effects of four different pension systems for Austria: the status quo, the new pension account system (APG), and two versions of a Notional Defined Contribution (NDC) system — one with and the other without non-contribution-based pension benefits. We identify the largest redistribution in the status quo. Women, low-income earners and persons with limited years of contributions benefit the most. The redistribution is reduced in the APG and nearly eliminated in the NDC system. We disentangle implicit and explicit redistribution in the APG system. The relative share of implicit redistribution decreases with income, whereas the absolute value of redistribution increases.     

The economic valuation of natural hazards in mountain forests: An approach based on the replacement cost method

Protection from natural hazards is the most important function of mountain forests from an ecological, economic and social point of view. This assertion has been widely debated in recent years by a number of authors. In this paper we focus on the economic aspects of the protective function of forests, developing a quick and simple estimation method that can be applied on a local scale. We present the results of its application in an Italian Alpine forest. After having identified the main forest attributes directly or indirectly involved in protection, the economic value of the protective function for homogeneous zones was estimated by applying the replacement cost method. This value enables environmental concerns to be included in forest planning and political decision-making.     

The Rise and Rise of Evidence in Health Care

Health care practitioners (especially doctors) have always given assurances that what they do is efficacious. But in the past 50 years justification of the effectiveness of health care interventions has attained a new prominence. Evidence, at least notionally, now lies at the heart of health care policy and practice. This article provides an overview of the generation and use of evidence on effectiveness in health care. It explains why rigorous methodologies have taken hold and describes the major preoccupation with trying to ensure that research evidence has an impact on clinical practice. The strengths and weaknesses of evidence-based health care are explored to identify the opportunities for profitable transfer of experience across the public sector.