1,721,134 research outputs found
A welfare analysis of "junk" information and spam filters
Full text linkThis paper analyses the equilibrium effects of individual information filters. Information is modelled as advertisements which are distributed across a population of consumers with heterogeneous preferences. An advertisement that provides knowledge about a product with little or no utility for a consumer is considered junk. Filters are characterised by their level of tolerance. The quality of the filter is measured in terms of the share of useful items in the total set of items passing the filter. It is shown that in conditions of decentralised competition, multiple equilibria arise. A social optimum can be achieved by demanding each consumer to reject a certain percentage of advertisements, leaving the choice of what is rejected up to the consumer him/herself.global information society, advertising, junk information, spam filter, Internet regulation
A Service of zbw The order of knowledge and robust action: How to deal with economic uncertainty? The Order of Knowledge and Robust Action. How to Deal with Economic Uncertainty?
No full textStandard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may Josef Falkinger Abstract Economic uncertainty has to do with the consequences of actions under different circumstances. This raises two questions: First, how sensitive are the outcomes of actions to variations in the environment? Second, how clearly can we distinguish between environments? Robustness comes at the price of targeting actions less narrowly to specific conditions, so we lose gains from specialization. Need for robustness comes from our limited knowledge. Rational dealing with uncertainty requires to accord the degree of specialization to the reliability of knowledge about the relevant circumstances. In practical terms, under such an approach acting under uncertainty is related to guidelines for strategic thinking: Focus on priorities on a broader scale; the most refined set of actions is not always the best one
Distribution and Use of Knowledge under the “Laws of the Web”
Full text linkEmpirical evidence shows that the perception of information is strongly concentrated in those environments in which a mass of producers and users of knowledge interact through a distribution medium. This paper considers the consequences of this fact for economic equilibrium analysis. In particular, it examines how the ranking schemes applied by the distribution technology affect the use of knowledge, and it then describes the characteristics of an optimal ranking scheme. The analysis is carried out using a model in which agents’ productivity is based on the stock of knowledge used. The value of a piece of information is assessed in terms of its contribution to productivity.global rankings, information and internet services, limited attention, diversity, knowledge society
Structural change and the Kaldor facts in a growth model with relative price e¤ects and non-Gorman preferences. Working Papers 002
No full textAbstract Growth of per-capita income is associated with (i) significant shifts in the sectoral economic structure, (ii) systematic changes in relative prices and (iii) the Kaldor facts. Moreover, (iv) cross-sectional data shows systematic expenditure structure difference between rich and poor households. Ngai and Pissarides (2006) and Keywords: Structural change, relative price effect, non-Gorman preferences, Kaldor facts. JEL classification: O14, O30, O41, D90. * I would like to thank Josef Falkinger, Reto Föllmi, Volker Grossmann, Marcus Hagedorn, Danyang Xie, Fabrizio Zilibotti and Josef Zweimüller for illuminating discussions. Moreover, I would like to thank Gregori Baetschmann, Victoria Galsband, Sandra Hanslin, Andreas Müller, Nick Netzer, Iryna Stewen, Raphael Studer and Franziska Weiss for many valuable comments and suggestions
Protestantism and Education: Reading (the Bible) and other Skills
Full text linkDuring industrialization, Protestants were more literate than Catholics. This paper investigates whether this fact may be led back to the intrinsic motivation of Protestants to read the bible and whether other education motives were involved as well. We employ a historical data set from Switzerland which allows us to differentiate between different cognitive skills: reading, numeracy, essay writing and Swiss history. We develop an estimation strategy to examine whether the impact of religious denomination was particularly large with respect to reading capabilities. We find support for this hypothesis. However, Protestants’ education motives went beyond reading the bible.cognitive skills, education, reading capability, religious denomination, protestant reformation
Was Weber Wrong? A Human Capital Theory of Protestant Economic History: A Comment on Becker and Woessmann
Full text linkThis comment makes a contribution to Becker and Woessmann’s paper on a human capital theory of Protestant economic history eventually challenging the famous thesis by Max Weber who attributed economic success to a specific Protestant work ethic (Quarterly Journal of Economics 124 (2) (2009) forthcoming). The authors argue for a human capital approach: higher literacy among Protestants of the 19th century (and not a Protestant work ethic) contributed to higher economic prosperity at that point in history. However, the paper leaves the question open as to whether a Protestant specific work ethic existed or exists at all. Are there observable denomination-based differences in work ethic or is Protestantism only a veil hiding the underlying role of education? We use recent data to explore the role of Protestantism on work ethic. The results indicate that today’s work ethic in fact is influenced by denomination-based religiosity and also education.Religion, Work Ethic, Protestantism, Education
Wir müssen möglichst alle Menschen in den Prozess der Leistungserstellung integrieren
Full text linkEin Gespräch mit Josef Falkinger über Ungleichheit, Teilhabe und Gerechtigkeit, die gesellschaftliche Bedeutung eines gemeinsamen Fortschrittsprojekts und ökonomische Macht
Limited Attention as a Scarce Resource in Information-Rich Economies
Full text linkThis article uses basic facts from the psychology of attention to show how the limited attention of consumers affects economic competition. The article determines endogenously whether an economy is information rich or information poor. A conventional economic equilibrium results if subjects have spare attention capacity. At the positive level, the respective impacts of advances in information technology, international integration and the media on equilibrium diversity and level of attention-seeking activities are shown. At the normative level, the issues of welfare, efficiency and optimal policy interventions are addressed. Copyright � The Author(s). Journal compilation � Royal Economic Society 2008.
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
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