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AI and XAI second opinion: the danger of false confirmation in human–AI collaboration
No full textCan AI substitute a human physician’s second opinion? Recently the Journal of Medical Ethics published two contrasting views: Kempt and Nagel advocate for using artificial intelligence (AI) for a second opinion except when its conclusions significantly diverge from the initial physician’s while Jongsma and Sand argue for a second human opinion irrespective of AI’s concurrence or dissent. The crux of this debate hinges on the prevalence and impact of ‘false confirmation’—a scenario where AI erroneously validates an incorrect human decision. These errors seem exceedingly difficult to detect, reminiscent of heuristics akin to confirmation bias. However, this debate has yet to engage with the emergence of explainable AI (XAI), which elaborates on why the AI tool reaches its diagnosis. To progress this debate, we outline a framework for conceptualising decision-making errors in physician–AI collaborations
What do politicians think of technocratic institutions? European Parliament’s attitudes towards the European Central Bank
No full textTechnocracy has come to be increasingly regarded as a threat to representative democracy. Signif-icant attention has thus been recently devoted to exploring public preferences towards technocraticinstitutions. Elected policy-makers’ attitudes have instead not been investigated as systematically.This article fills this gap by examining politicians’ views on central banks. Based on an originalelite survey of the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), we gauged elected policy-makers’ attitudes towards the mandate and policy conduct of the European Central Bank (ECB).Our findings show that the political orientation of politicians largely drives attitudes towards theECB’s institutional mandate. Interestingly, the findings from two experiments embedded in thesurvey also show that the attitudes of MEPs are not as static as ideological orientations would leadus to expect. The information set to which politicians are exposed significantly shapes their viewson both the ECB’s mandate and its policy conduct, but less on ECB independenc
Essays on Information in Frictional Labor Markets
Get PDFThis dissertation comprises three essays centered around the role of subjective expectations in labor markets. In equilibrium search models of the labor market, processes such as wage formation, job creation, offer acceptance, among others, largely depend on agents’ expectations. Throughout these essays, I research how workers form expectations about aggregate and idiosyncratic factors that determine their behavior, with an emphasis on job search.
In the first chapter, I quantify the pass-through from inflation expectations to job search behavior by designing and implementing a survey of United States workers. The second chapter studies whether workers’ perceived unemployment risk (i.e. their beliefs about job loss) responds to public information about mass lay-offs. The last chapter empirically contrasts individuals’ job loss beliefs with their realized employment outcomes and investigates how overestimation of unemployment risk affects on-the-job search decisions.
Overall, this thesis shows that workers’ expectations about the idiosyncratic and aggregate risk they face predicts their decisions in the labor market. Workers incorporate information about local idiosyncratic events and other macroeconomic variables, such as inflation, when forming expectations about future unemployment. There is vast heterogeneity in expectations, which is only partially explained by factors such as demographics, job related characteristics or location. Together, the chapters in this dissertation provide foundations for future research on various fronts, such as the design of optimal unemployment insurance or employment protection policies, as well as how Central Bank communication can be used as a tool for expectations’ management
Towards a Green Health Technology Assessment: embedding Life Cycle Assessment for sustainable choices
Get PDFThe healthcare sector significantly contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions. Among the various strategies available, exploring the integration of environmental sustainability into Health Technology Assessment (HTA) presents a potential avenue for addressing these impacts. The HTA Core Model, widely utilized by European HTA agencies, evaluates healthcare technologies across nine domains; however, environmental considerations remain peripheral and are primarily confined to certain safety-related aspects. This paper examines the potential role of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in complementing HTA to better address environmental impacts. LCA offers a systematic methodology to evaluate environmental effects across the full lifecycle of a product, from raw material extraction to disposal. Through the analysis of pharmaceuticals, telemedicine, and surgical practices, the study identifies critical environmental impacts at various lifecycle stages, illustrating how LCA could support more informed and sustainable decision-making in healthcare. These findings underscore the diverse environmental impacts associated with healthcare technologies and highlight the need for tailored strategies to mitigate them. This point of view emphasizes the importance of initiating discussions on developing a framework to incorporate environmental impacts into HTA systematically, promoting healthcare decisions that prioritize both human and environmental healths
The future role of government in cybersecurity
Get PDFIn this chapter, we argue that the current government’s narrow perspectives on essential services must be broadened to consider the whole set of critical inter-organisational, network-based, and cross-sectoral relationships that deliver value. We argue the root of this limited view is the origin of much critical infrastructure and cybersecurity policy: the computer science and engineering view of computer security.
this chapter reviews the current trends and prevailing approaches of governments to essential services cybersecurity. Second, it explores the challenges that arise from them. Then, it proposes a value-informed cybersecurity theory that can generate new insights and models for cybersecurity framing that are more ‘fit-for-purpose’ for the contemporary, complex reality of essential services. It concludes by drawing a research agenda for Public Administration scholars
Conciliating environmental and financial performance in emerging countries
No full textWe evaluate the relationship between environmentally sustainable conduct – on the whole Pillar E (e_score) and broken down into the three sub-pillars: environmental emission, resource use and environmental product innovation – of Chinese companies and their economic and financial
performance (FP) through an analysis on 3,550 firm-year observations in the period 2010–2022. The results confirm hypotheses, showing statistically significant coefficients related to all the four independent variables: e_score, emission, resource_use, and product_innovation. Findings are corroborated by conducting robustness test. It can be inferred that also in the most important emerging country from a financial point of view a new business architype can be modelled, in which investors are addressed towards a more cognizant meaning of finance, in which they try to
reconcile economic performances with environmental impact of their decision-making process
Influence-seeking in U.S. corporate elites' campaign contribution behavior
No full textI show that U.S. corporate elites use contributions to political campaigns as a
tool of political influence by leveraging a new panel on the contributions to members of U.S.
Congress (MCs) from 401,557 corporate leaders of 14,807 U.S. corporations over 1999-2018.
Donations increase by 11% when a politician is assigned to a committee dealing with policy
issues relevant to a corporate leader’s company. The effect is driven by donations to MCs
with the greatest power in the committees. I estimate that, absent an influence motive,
donations from corporate leaders during this period would have been lower by $20 million
Trust, family firms, and M&A quality
No full textThis paper examines the effect of trust on the quality of M&A across family and non-family firms. We find that family firms are associated with better M&A quality than non-family firms and that M&A deals involving high trust are of better quality. When we consider the association of trust, family firms and their interaction, we find that trust is the channel/mechanism through which family firms are associated with better M&A quality. Collectively, these results suggest that trust enables family firms to build long-term relationships with employees, suppliers and customers, and potentially mitigate the Type I agency problems
The right to vote of non-resident citizens: not just how, but whether
No full textAbsentee voting raises not only the procedural question of how non-resident citizens vote, but more fundamentally, the normative question of whether and why they should vote, which touches upon the core of the democratic principle. This article argues that reasonable limitations to the right to vote of non-resident citizens are necessary, since they are not only be compatible with democracy, but necessary to preserve i
The benefits of unconditional conservatism for stock valuations during the COVID-19 crisis
No full textWe examine whether unconditional conservatism supported stock valuations during the COVID-19 crisis. Building on evidence that this form of conservatism improves downside-risk assessment and mitigates bankruptcy and litigation concerns, we hypothesize that its benefits were amplified during this period of heightened uncertainty, sustaining valuations and reducing investor uncertainty.
We analyze stock price patterns of US-listed firms around the onset of COVID-19. Following prior literature, we employ a composite measure based on three widely used proxies to measure each firm’s level of unconditional conservatism in the preceding three fiscal years (2017–2019).
Consistent with our hypothesis, higher conservatism resulted in superior abnormal stock returns during the crisis. These benefits were especially pronounced in industries more exposed to COVID-19 and among firms with greater reliance on international sales, which made them more susceptible to global disruptions. In contrast, the advantages of conservatism were less evident in firms with stronger corporate governance, greater financial stability, more transparent reporting, and steadier operating performance. We also find that conservatism resulted in lower volatility and narrower spreads during the crisis and was linked to fewer negative special items in 2020, suggesting reduced vulnerability to write-down losses stemming from the pandemic.
Our findings suggest that unconditional conservatism, often seen as detrimental to valuation, is beneficial amid significant market uncertainty. We contribute to the long-standing debate on the desirability of conservatism in financial reporting, underscoring the critical role that accounting practices can play for investors and the broader economy