1,720,962 research outputs found
Experimental economics and small decision-making problems
Get PDFThis thesis aims at pursuing an extensive investigation into decision making in small decision-making problems with the tool of experimental economics. A typical small decision-making problem is characterised by three critical features: first, it involves repeated tasks; the decision maker faces the same choice problem many times in similar situations. Second, each single choice is of little consequence in terms of net payoff; the alternatives tend to have similar expected value that may be fairly small. Finally, in choosing among the possible alternatives, the decision maker will have to rely on the immediate and unbiased feedback obtained in similar situations in the past. The importance of shedding light on the economics of small decisions is twofold. The first is that nowadays many common economic activities can be captured by small decision-making problems. Second, although each small decision conducted by the decision maker is not very important, the aggregate outcomes may be consequential and significant when repeated. In the first place, the author of this thesis deals with the question of propensities for individual decision making in small decision-making problems. To elicit an answer to the question, a series of economics experiments are conducted. The author identifies the ideas behind individual decision making in small decision making problems and assesses the observed outcomes. A substantial work of this thesis is based on the two experiments presented in this thesis: (1) the search experiment, and (2) the choice experiment. Among the results is the demonstration that in the search experiment the tendency to select best reply to the past and mis-estimation of the payoff distribution leads to robust deviations from maximisation. As for the choice experiment, it raises a discussion on appropriateness of the certainty effect in repeated-play decisions. I present the expected utility model, which shows even in small decision-making problems the certainty effect is appropriate. As well as the search and the choice experiment, this thesis conducts the ambiguity treatment experiment. The experiment includes the situation where the decision maker’s payoff distribution is limited to either favourable distribution or unfavourable distribution. Results are analysed in the context of Bayesian updating. The first observation reveals loss aversion. The second observation includes the law of small numbers and deviations from maximisation. Finally, imperfect Bayesians are observed in the experiment. . Having finished fundamental analysis on small decision-making problems, I analyse a practical application of small decision-making problems and attempts to explain the observations in terms of the theory and experiments. It deals with the question of why a case of small decision-making problems is significant in our daily life. One practical application of small decision-making problems is concerned with individual officer’s petty corrupt behaviour. I experimentally examine that it is caused by subjective underweighting of rare events and its objective probabilities. Results of an experiment reveal that the subjects tend to subjectively underweight rare outcomes in small decision-making problems. It is revealed that petty corrupt behaviour is a consequence of the theoretically-optimal behaviour. This is examined along with the expected utility model. Another practical application of small decision-making problems is concerned with a model of educational efforts in the context of individual learning in small decision-making problems. I will show that an individual student’s optimal investment in education is shown to depend on what other students are doing. On the basis of this simple model, I establish how herding can influence the economic decision making into the formation of human capital: these important individual decisions may be predicated upon collective “whims” and “fashions” and not longrun economic consequences. I also offer a model of product quality in a simple duopoly as one of applications of small decision-making problems. I exploit the full-cost pricing models. Based on these two key features, I derive the dynamics that characterise the evolution of product quality. This thesis presents that duopolists retain and invoke a signal of quality of the items. A series of signals are discussed and investigated in the light of small decision-making problems
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
The hot stove effect in repeated-play decision making under ambiguity
Get PDFThe ''hot stove effect'' has been studied for repeated-play decision making under uncertainty (also referred to as experience-based decision making) in which the decision makers repeatedly face the Allais-type binary choice problems, and have to learn about the outcome distributions through sampling as the decision makers are not explicitly provided with prior information on the payoff structure. The previous studies have found mixed evidence: some studies have found that the hot stove effect is strong in repeated-play decision making under uncertainty, while other studies have found that the effect is weak. Thus, the evidence is inconsistent. This paper reports an experimental investigation of the hot stove effect in repeated-play decision making under ambiguity. The current experiment involves an ambiguity treatment in which (1) the participants perform two binary repeated-play choice problems, each involving 400-fold choice between a risky option and a riskless option; and (2) in each problem, there are two states of nature available: a favourable state and an unfavourable state, but only one of them obtains on any given trial. The realisation of the actual state is not disclosed to the participants, thus they would be expected to discover the actual state through sampling with immediate feedback. The current results suggest that the magnitude of the hot stove effect is significantly different between repeated-play decision making under uncertainty and repeated-play decision making under ambiguity. I shall show that the hot stove effect is attenuated in repeated-play decision making under ambiguity.Allais-type choices; decisions from experience; risk; uncertainty
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
An experimental study of petty corrupt behaviour in small decision making problems
No full textThis research discusses small decision making problems and petty corruption as their practical applications with a structured economic experiment. One of examples of petty corruption considered includes demands for petty bribes by traffic officials followed by police. We examine that it is caused by subjective underweighting of rare events and its objective probabilities. This literature reports results of an experiment, which reveals that the subjects tended to subjectively underweight rare outcomes when they relied on feedback in small decision making problems. Underweighting of rare events lead the subjects to choose a risky option often, but not all the time, to maximise his/her expected utility. This tendency is the opposite of the overweighting of rare outcomes observed in mainstream big description-based decision problems. It is revealed that an individual petty corrupt behaviour is a consequence of the theoretically-optimal behaviour for the risk-seeking decision-maker. This is examined along with the expected utility model. The model well captures results of the experiment and it asserts that it is theoretically-optimal decision to do the petty corrupt behaviour (to receive petty bribes) occasionally for the risk-seeking official, who subjectively underweight rare event and its probability
The hot stove effect in repeated-play decision making under ambiguity
Get PDFThe ''hot stove effect'' has been studied for repeated-play decision making under uncertainty (also referred to as experience-based decision making) in which the decision makers repeatedly face the Allais-type binary choice problems, and have to learn about the outcome distributions through sampling as the decision makers are not explicitly provided with prior information on the payoff structure. The previous studies have found mixed evidence: some studies have found that the hot stove effect is strong in repeated-play decision making under uncertainty, while other studies have found that the effect is weak. Thus, the evidence is inconsistent.
This paper reports an experimental investigation of the hot stove effect in repeated-play decision making under ambiguity. The current experiment involves an ambiguity treatment in which (1) the participants perform two binary repeated-play choice problems, each involving 400-fold choice between a risky option and a riskless option; and (2) in each problem, there are two states of nature available: a favourable state and an unfavourable state, but only one of them obtains on any given trial. The realisation of the actual state is not disclosed to the participants, thus they would be expected to discover the actual state through sampling with immediate feedback.
The current results suggest that the magnitude of the hot stove effect is significantly different between repeated-play decision making under uncertainty and repeated-play decision making under ambiguity. I shall show that the hot stove effect is attenuated in repeated-play decision making under ambiguity
Human cognition in sequential decisions : an experimental approach
No full textThis paper provides a novel insight into human cognition by running a series of experiments on individual behaviour under ambiguity and risk. I focus on what psychologists call “autonomy” as a motivating example of human cognition in decision making. A hypothesis raised in this paper is that autonomous behaviour is an emergent property of decision making under ambiguity. Results of the experiments presented in this paper reveal that, as the hypothesis asserts, the participants would exhibit autonomy that was the absence of excessive need for reliance on the information
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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