Relative risk aversion, relative prudence and comparative statics under uncertainty: The case of (μ, σ)‐preferences

From the expected‐utility approach, relative risk aversion being smaller than one and relative prudence being smaller than two emerge as preference restrictions that fully determine the optimal responses of decisions under uncertainty to certain shifts in probability distributions. We characterize the magnitudes of relative risk aversion and relative prudence in terms of the two‐parameter, mean‐standard deviation approach. We demonstrate that this characterization is instrumental in obtaining comparative static results in the two‐parameter setting. We further relate our findings to the results in the expected‐utility framework.     

Food Choice in an Interdisciplinary Context

Reform of agricultural policies, notably the continuing elimination of production‐enhancing subsidies, makes it possible for policies to respond to social issues such as the rural environment and health in future. In this paper, we draw on a Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) research project which is examining the potential for the development of healthy food chains and the implications for human health and the environment. One of the key issues to be addressed is consumers’ willingness to pay for the nutritionally enhanced food products from these new chains, but it is evident that only a partial understanding can be gained from a traditional economics approach. In the paper, we discuss how economists are beginning to incorporate views from other disciplines into their models of consumer choice.     

Moving from the lab to the field: Exploring scrutiny and duration effects in lab experiments

The most important issue facing experimental economists is the generalizability of lab results. This letter examines more than 1200 doctor/patient consultations, in which scrutiny and duration of treatment were varied. We show that scrutiny has an important but short-lived effect.     

Differentiating ambiguity: an expository note

Ghirardato et al. J Econ Theory 118:133–173, 2004 propose a method for distinguishing between perceived ambiguity and the decision-maker’s reaction to it. They study a general class of preferences which they refer to as invariant biseparable. This class includes CEU and MEU. This note presents some examples which illustrate their results. Research supported by ESRC grant no. RES-000-22-0650. For comments and discussion we would like to thank Klaus Nehring and a seminar audience at ESEM, Vienna 2006.     

Would I lie to you? On social preferences and lying aversion

This paper reinterprets the evidence on lying or deception presented in Gneezy (Am. Econ. Rev. 95(1):384–394, 2005). We show that Gneezy’s data are consistent with the simple hypothesis that people are one of two kinds: either a person will never lie, or a person will lie whenever she prefers the outcome obtained by lying over the outcome obtained by telling the truth. This implies that so long as lying induces a preferred outcome over truth-telling, a person’s decision of whether to lie may be completely insensitive to other changes in the induced outcomes, such as exactly how much she monetarily gains relative to how much she hurts an anonymous partner. We run new but broadly similar experiments to those of Gneezy in order to test this hypothesis. While we also confirm that there is an aversion to lying in our subject population, our data cannot reject the simple hypothesis described above either.

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Electronic Supplementary Material  The online version of this article () contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.      

转轨阶段城乡居民收入差距的演变及社会效应

我国经济体制转型期间的城乡居民收入差距呈缩小—扩大—缩小—扩大的趋势,这在一定程度上对农村居民收入的增长和对农村消费市场、人力资本投资产生负面影响,同时也对社会的稳定、经济的可持续发展以及建设和谐社会产生负面效应。     

客户偏好指标和银行渠道使用对应分析研究

随着商业银行竞争的日趋激烈,银行营销渠道在其经营发展中地位日益明显。由于不同渠道其服务范围和条件、成本和效益有明显的区别,同时,客户不同的行为偏好对于不同渠道的应用也存在差异,所以,商业银行客户偏好分析就成为银行渠道发展策略的首要任务和出发点。在介绍相关理论基础上,建立商业银行客户偏好分析的框架,提出了客户偏好分析指标体系,最终利用实际调研数据对客户偏好指标和银行渠道进行分析,得到偏好指标和渠道之间的对应关系,对国内商业银行如何利用客户偏好分析方法实施差异化策略提出方法和建议。     

Measuring Women's Quality of Life: A Discussion of Alternative Approaches

This paper reports our experiences with the application of a number of alternative approaches to a study of women's economic circumstances and quality of life in a typical western city. The important work of, especially, Martha Nussbaum on the capabilities approach to evaluations of “quality of life” has highlighted pitfalls associated with the use of a narrow informational base in studies of women's lives and has emphasized the value of qualitative methods in these evaluations. However, to date, most discussions of the relevance of plural approaches to studies of women's lives have been conducted in the context of developing countries. This paper contributes a practical, current example of the relevance of such approaches to assessments of the lives of women in western countries as well. The research findings reported in the paper also cast further light on the importance of several, related themes in the literature on the capabilities approach, namely the importance of understanding how women's aspirations and expectations change with their economic and social experiences; and the importance of appreciating the social uses of language and how this affects the way in which women describe their lives.