Ethics at the workplace in the fourth industrial revolution: A Catholic social teaching perspective

While many studies on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIR) focus on efficiency, productivity and economic progress, only a few have considered its ethical aspects. This article tries to contribute to filling this vacuum by providing a comprehensive approach to ethical risks at the workplace. Drawing upon Catholic social teaching (CST)—addressed to all people of good will—it analyzes ethical aspects at the workplace posited by the FIR, and more particularly by Industry 4.0, which is at the core of this revolution. CST emphasizes the dignity of the worker and the necessity to flourish at the workplace. While robots, artificial intelligence, and interconnected technologies are only instrumental, the real subject of work is the worker. This casts specific light on the ethical issues analyzed, including effects on employment, wages and inequality, human quality treatment, relational aspects, safety and health, surveillance on employees, and meaningful work.     

The role of the entrepreneurial encounter in the emergence of opportunities: Vallée’s Dallas Buyers Club

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to explore the conceptual potential of the Deleuzian notion of the encounter in order to better understand the genealogy of opportunities. We adopt a processual perspective of opportunities. In order to translate this notion to the domain of entrepreneurship, we analysed and interpreted Jean-Marc Vallée’s Dallas Buyers Club. This film follows the creation of the first club in the United States that illegally allowed HIV-positive people to supply themselves with foreign antiretroviral drugs from Mexico or Japan. The article highlights encounters in this process that disturb the entrepreneur’s belief systems and allow him or her to be open to potential opportunity. It finally explores how the encounter may improve our understanding of the political becoming of opportunities within the entrepreneurial process.     

Not all high-alexithymia individuals are risk-takers: private self-consciousness moderates the relationship between alexithymia and risk-taking behaviours

This article concerns the influence which alexithymia exerts on risk-taking. In particular, alexithymia is seen as a factor which encourages risk-taking as it allows high-alexithymia individuals to feel emotions which are sufficiently intense to compensate for their deficit of emotional awareness. In this connection, we make the hypothesis that alexithymia’s influence is moderated by private self-consciousness (SC). This is because private SC increases the likelihood that high-alexithymia individuals become aware of their risk-taking tendency and that this tendency is discrepant with their pro-safety standards (‘putting someone in danger is bad’) or self-schemas (‘I am a responsible person’). Thus, private SC is likely to enable and motivate them to consciously regulate their behaviour in a safer direction. This hypothesis was empirically tested by a questionnaire amongst 372 French drivers, whose SC, alexithymia, as well as their current adoption of eight risky behaviours (with a more detailed analysis of speeding). The use of conditional process analyses reveal no main effects of alexithymia and private SC but strong interaction effects, while controlling for other predictors. More precisely, when private SC is low high-alexithymia individuals break more the speed limits and adopt more frequently risky behaviours than low-alexithymia drivers. Conversely, when private SC is high, they are less risk-prone. As practical implication, we recommend the use of techniques increasing private SC amongst high-alexithymia persons.     

Pareto optimal chains of reinsurance

Extending Arrow (1963), we show that coinsurance is the optimal insurance scheme if all companies belonging to a chain of reinsurance are risk averse. The extent to which Borch's (1960) theorem and corollary are still valid in this context is investigated.     

What Prompts the People＇s Bank of China to Change Its Monetary Policy Stance？ Evidence from a Discrete Choice Model

In the present paper, we model the policy stance of the People＇s Bank of China （PBC） as a latent variable, and the discrete changes in the reserve requirement ratio, policy interest rates, and the scale of open market operations are taken as signals of movement of this latent variable. We run a discrete choice regression that relates these observed indicators of policy stance to major trends of macroeconomic and financial developments, which are represented by common factors extracted from a large number of variables. The predicted value of the estimated model can then be interpreted as the implicit policy stance of the PBC. In a second step, we estimate how much of the variation in the PBC＇ s implicit stance can be explained by measures of its policy objectives on inflation, growth and financial stability. We find that deviations of CPI inflation from an implicit target and deviations of broad money growth from the announced targets, but not output gaps, figure significantly in the PBC＇s policy changes.     

Ambiguity in election games

We construct a model in which the ambiguity of candidates allows them to increase the number of voters to whom they appeal. We focus our analysis on two points that are central to obtain ambiguity in equilibrium: restrictions on the beliefs that candidates can induce in voters, and intensity of voters' preferences. The first is necessary for a pure strategy equilibrium to exist, while the second is necessary for ambiguity in equilibrium when there exists a Condorcet winner in the set of pure alternatives (e.g. the spatial model of electoral competition), and when candidates' only objective is to win the election. In this last case, an ambiguous candidate may offer voters with different preferences the hope that their most preferred alternative will be implemented. We also show that if there are sufficiently many candidates or parties, ambiguity will not be possible in equilibrium, but a larger set of possible policies increases the chance that at least one candidate will choose to be ambiguous in equilibrium. We would like to thank Alberto Alesina, Antonio Cabrales, Steve Coate, Olivier Compte, Tim Feddersen, Itzhak Gilboa, Joe Harrington, Michel Le Breton, Alessandro Lizzeri, George Mailath, Steve Matthews, Steve Morris, Ignacio Ortuno, Tom Palfrey, Larry Samuelson, Murat Sertel, Fernando Vega, Eyal Winter and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. The first author acknowledges financial support from DGICYT-PB 95-0983. This work was done while the first author was visiting the Center in Political Economy at Washington University, and visiting the Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences at Harvard University. Their hospitality is gratefully acknowledged. The support of the second author's research by the National Science Foundation is also gratefully acknowledged.     

Gaussian process regression for pricing variable annuities with stochastic volatility and interest rate

Decisions in Economics and Finance - In this paper, we investigate value and Greeks computation of a guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit (GMWB) variable annuity, when both stochastic volatility...     

Using technology to improve the management of development impacts on biodiversity

The mitigation hierarchy (MH) is a prominent tool to help businesses achieve no net loss or net gain outcomes for biodiversity. Technological innovations offer benefits for business biodiversity management, yet the range and continued evolution of technologies creates a complex landscape that can be difficult to navigate. Using literature review, online surveys, and semi-structured interviews, we assess technologies that can improve application of the MH. We identify six categories (mobile survey, fixed survey, remote sensing, blockchain, data analysis, and enabling technologies) with high feasibility and/or relevance to (i) aid direct implementation of mitigation measures and (ii) enhance biodiversity surveys and monitoring, which feed into the design of interventions including avoidance and minimization measures. At the interface between development and biodiversity impacts, opportunities lie in businesses investing in technologies, capitalizing on synergies between technology groups, collaborating with conservation organizations to enhance institutional capacity, and developing practical solutions suited for widespread use.     

Does Team-Based Compensation Give Rise to Problems When Agents Vary in Their Ability?

This paper reports the results of an experiment on how team heterogeneity in terms of productivity influences both the revenue sharing proposed by the principal to the team and the employees' performance. Experimental evidence shows that when the team is heterogeneous, the principal does not try to motivate the agents through her sharing offer. Regardless of the level of team-based compensation, a large amount of free riding occurs since each agent is mainly influenced by his teammate's behavior. In contrast, when the team is homogeneous, agents are better able to cooperate, reciprocating the principal's offer.     

Punishment,counterpunishment and sanction enforcement in a social dilemma experiment

We present the results of an experiment that explores the sanctioning behavior of individuals who experience a social dilemma. In the game we study, players choose contribution levels to a public good and subsequently have multiple opportunities to reduce the earnings of the other members of the group. The treatments vary in terms of individuals’ opportunities to (a) avenge sanctions that have been directed toward themselves, and (b) punish others’ sanctioning behavior with respect to third parties. We find that individuals do avenge sanctions they have received, and this serves to decrease contribution levels. They also punish those who fail to sanction third parties, but the resulting increase in contributions is smaller than the decrease the avenging of sanctions induces. When there are five rounds of unrestricted sanctioning, contributions and welfare are significantly lower than when only one round of sanctioning opportunities exists, and welfare is lower than at a benchmark of zero cooperation. We thank James Andreoni, participants in seminars at Emory University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of New South Wales, the University of Sydney, Deakin University, the 2004 North American Regional Meetings of the ESA in Tucson, Arizona, USA, the 2004 IMEBE Meetings in Cordoba, Spain, and the 2005 SAET meetings in Vigo, Spain, for constructive and helpful comments. We thank Elven Priour for programming and organization of the sessions. Instructions for the experiment are available from the authors.