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Many models of investor behavior predict that investors prefer assets that they believe to have positively skewed return distributions. We elicit detailed return expectations for a broad index fund and a single stock in a representative sample of the Dutch population. The data show substantial heterogeneity in individuals’ skewness expectations of which only very little is captured by sociodemographics. Across assets, most respondents expect a higher variance and skewness for the individual stock compared to the index fund. Portfolio allocations increase with the skewness of respondents’ return expectations for the respective asset, controlling for other moments of a respondent’s expectations.

The aim of the article is to present possible consequences caused by the development of commodity market financialization understood by the influence of financial investor’s speculation. Also the task of elaboration is to outline the existence of financial factors in the price creation process of commodities. The existing impact of financialization on the volatility of commodity prices significantly modifies the market. The results of the research and analyzes carried out indicate a similarity in the behavior of the markets of commodities. The situation results from the redistribution of the risk of financial investors who having a few goods in the investment portfolio, next to large transaction volumes affect the unification of price trends. Price shaping factors are being transformed. The decrease importance of supply or consumption in the context of the commodities market changes its form. The growing influence of investors who create numerous speculations transforms the market. Trade in futures contracts affects the level of commodities prices.

We replicate Meissner (Exp Econ 19:281–298, 2016), where debt aversion was reported for the first time in an intertemporal consumption and saving problem. While Meissner (2016) uses a German sample, our participants are US undergraduate students. All of the original study’s main findings replicate with similar effect sizes. Additionally, we extend the original analysis by introducing a new individual index of debt aversion, which we use to compare debt aversion across countries. Interestingly, we find no significant differences in debt aversion between the original German and the new US sample. We then test whether debt aversion correlates with individual characteristics such as gender, cognitive reflection ability, and risk aversion. Overall, this paper confirms the importance of debt aversion in intertemporal consumption and saving problems and validates the approach of Meissner (2016).

Die Lohnlücke zwischen Frauen und Männern, der sogenannte Gender Pay Gap, ist in Deutschland mit derzeit rund 18 Prozent nach wie vor beträchtlich. Dieser Bericht geht auf Basis von Daten des Berliner-Studienberechtigten-Panels (Best Up) der Frage nach, welche Rolle die Einkommenserwartungen junger Menschen für spätere Verdienstunterschiede spielen. Bereits kurz nach dem (Fach-)Abitur erwarten Frauen demnach, dass sie im Alter von 35 Jahren in einem Vollzeitjob mit Hochschulabschluss um 15,7 Prozent niedrigere monatliche Nettoeinkommen haben werden als Männer. Für Tätigkeiten mit Berufsausbildung ist der Gender Gap in den Einkommenserwartungen mit 13 Prozent etwas geringer. Ein großer Teil der Unterschiede geht darauf zurück, dass Frauen aufgrund erwarteter familiärer Verpflichtungen mit weniger Einkommen rechnen. Männer gehen hingegen nicht davon aus, dass Zeit mit der Familie ihr Einkommen schmälern wird. Da Einkommenserwartungen mit der Aufnahme eines Studiums zusammenhängen, könnten sie sich tatsächlich auf das spätere Einkommen auswirken. Die Politik sollte die Vereinbarkeit von Familien- und Erwerbsarbeit – beispielsweise über Anreize für eine gleichmäßigere Aufteilung der Familienarbeit und den weiteren Ausbau der Kindertagesbetreuung – also auch aus diesem Grund weiter verbessern., DIW Wochenbericht

One possible determinant of overpricing on asset markets is a lack of self-control abilities of traders. Self-control is the individual capacity to override or inhibit undesired behavioral tendencies such as impulses and to refrain from acting on them. We implement the first experiment that is able to address a potential causal relationship between self-control abilities and systematic overpricing on financial markets by introducing an exogenous variation of self-control abilities. Our experimental conditions seek to detect some of the channels through which individual self-control problems could transmit into irrational exuberance on the aggregate level. We observe a strong effect of inhibited self-control abilities on market overpricing. Our findings are furthermore robust to reducing self-control abilities only for a moderate share of traders in a market. Low self-control traders engage in more speculative behavior early on, but because others imitate their trading patterns, they do not end up earning less and are not driven out of the market.

The recent pandemic caused by the novel human coronavirus (CoV), currently referred to as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is responsible for COronaVIrus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), is leading to alarmism among pet owners as a consequence of few case reports of SARS-CoV-2 infection in dogs and cats. COVID-19 emerged in December 2019 in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, in humans exposed to wildlife at the Huanan seafood wholesale market, the largest seafood market in central China. This is a typical Asian wet market, where different species of farm and wild animals are commonly sold dead and live. The blood and other body fluids originating from these animals represent an exceptional source for the spillover of animal viruses (1). SARS-CoV-2 recognizes a probable zoonotic origin, since the virus likely descends from a bat betacoronavirus, strictly related to the one responsible for the 2002–2003 SARS epidemic (SARS-CoV), which was transmitted to humans directly or through previous adaptation to a not yet identified intermediate host (1, 2). After this adaptation to the new host, the virus was able to spread to the human population through a human-to-human transmission, without any further role of animals in the epidemiological chain. However, pets have been alternatively brought into play as a possible source of infection for humans, intermediate hosts for SARS-CoV-2 transmission to humans or hosts of animal CoVs that may cross-protect humans against the highly pathogenic CoV. The aim of this opinion article is to define the role of dogs and cats in the SARS-CoV-2 epidemiology in the light of current knowledge.

In questo saggio produrrò 5 variazioni sul tema dell'odio, in ognuna si sostiene che l'odio - a differenza dei sentimenti di rancore, rabbia, invidia, gelosia, rivalsa - non è un sentimento. L'odio è un gesto del tutto consapevole, è una scelta che può dipendere dalla reazione ai sentimenti elencati sopra, o ad altri, ma i sentimenti, che sono disposizioni all'azione, non determinano ancora la decisione, la deliberazione. L'odio invece è deliberazione. Questa distinzione si è sempre più offuscata, in ambito psicologico, da quando si confonde il "benessere", qualsiasi cosa sia, con la consapevolezza, riducendo la "guarigione" psichica alla consapevolezza. Ma la Shoah, i processi stalinisti e ogni forma di totalitarismo è, in primo luogo, progetto materiale, finalità cosciente e consapevolezza. In questo senso, se Freud disse «la consapevolezza non basta», Bateson aggiunse «la consapevolezza è dannosa».

The efficiency of financial markets and their potential to produce bubbles are central topics in academic and professional debates. Yet, little is known about the contribution of financial professionals to price efficiency. We run 116 experimental markets with 412 professionals and 502 students. We find that professional markets with bubble drivers – capital inflows or high initial capital supply – are susceptible to bubbles, although they are more efficient than student markets. In mixed markets with students, bubbles also occur, but professionals act as price stabilizers. We show that heterogeneous price beliefs drive overpricing, especially in bubble-prone market environments. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

The article aims to speculate on one of the most controversial terms in the sphere of fantastic literature – “hard” science fiction, providing these speculations with condensed and relevant excerpts from the works of specialists in the field. Nevertheless, the major part of the paper is an attempt to justify the high position of “hard” sci-fi among the other modes of science fiction, to test the strength of the proposed statements and draw conclusions on the basis of the discussion in absentia., {"references":["Aldiss, Brian W. (1973). Billion Year Spree. New York. 2nd edition. NY, USA: Doubleday & Schocken Books.","Al-Khlaifate, A. M. S. (2013). Postmodernist Genre in Science Fiction. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 15(1), 66-71.","Angus, T. (2017). Performance in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Workshop. Cambridge, UK: Anglia Ruskin University.","Barikin, A. (2013). Making Worlds in Art and Science Fiction. In K. Cleland, L. Fisher, & R. Harley (Eds.), Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium of Electronic Art, ISEA (pp. 1-3). Sydney, Australia. Retrieved from: http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/9475","Baxter, Stephen. (1992). Raft. New York, NY, USA: Roc.","Beukes, L., Robinson, K. S., Liu, K., Rajaniemi, H., Reynolds, A., & Bodard. (2017). A. Science Fiction When the Future is Now. Nature, 552, 329-333.","Broderick, Damien. (1992). Reading SF as a Mega-text. New York Review of Science Fiction, 47(1), 8-11.","Brooks, Rodney. (2010). Chronicle of Cybernetics Pioneers. Nature, 467, 156–157.","Burton, J. (2015). The Philosophy of Science Fiction: Henri Bergson and the Fabulations of Philip K. Dick. New York, NY, USA: Bloomsbury Academic.","Canavan, G. (2014). Science Fiction in the USA. In Priscilla Wald & Michael A. Elliott (Eds.), The American Novel: 1870-1940 (pp. 370-385). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.","Collins, Robert A. (1988). Editor's note. SFRA Newsletter, 163, 11-12.","Delany, Samuel R. (1976). Triton. New York, NY, USA: Bantam Books.","Delany, Samuel R. (1977). The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction. Elizabethtown, NY, USA: Dragon Press.","Delany, Samuel R. (1991). Teaching to Learn. Unsigned Interview. Locus, 361(5), 74-75.","Forward, Robert L. (1988). Dragon's Egg. New York, NY, USA: Ballantine/Del Rey.","Gunn, James. (2020). Asimov at 100. Science, 367(6473), 20–21. DOI: 10.1126/science.aba0303","Hartwell, David. (1989). The World Treasury of Science Fiction. Boston, MT, USA: Little Brown.","Heinlein, Robert A. (1990). Grumbles from the Grave. New York, NY: Ballantine/Del Rey.","MacCormack, P. (2016). Posthuman Ethics. Embodiment and Cultural Theory. London, UK: Routledge.","Stableford, Brian M. (2006). Science Fact and Science Fiction. An Encyclopedia. New York, NY, USA: Routledge.","VanderMeer, Jerry, & VanderMeer, Anna. (2016). The Big Book of Science Fiction. New York, NY, USA: Vintage Books."]}

Research interest in the reaction of consumption to expected inflation has increased in recent years due to efforts by central banks to kick-start demand by steering inflation expectations. We contribute to this literature by analysing whether various components of households’ balance sheets determinehow consumption reacts to expected inflation. Two channels in particular are conceivable: an increase in inflation expectations can raise consumption through direct increases in expected real wealth, e.g. for households with nominal financial liabilities. By affecting the real interest rate, expected inflationcan interact with wealth if only those households can adapt their consumption to current real interest rates that are not budget constrained or sufficiently liquid to shift funds between consumption and savings. We investigate these channels empirically using household-level information on balance sheets, durable consumption, and inflation expectations from the Dutch Central Bank’s Household Survey. We find that household net worth moderates the relation between expected inflation and durable spending decisions. This effect is particularly strong for households with fixed interest rate mortgages.

Most work on the relationship between science and science fiction focuses on how science fiction can advance science by speculatively elaborating scientific theories. This text, to the contrary, argues that we should understand some science fiction texts as contributing to the making of science as a social practice rather differently: namely by seeing them as a form of didactic literature which offers moral exempla to scientists or potential scientist readers. In order to illustrate this point, this article considers the representation of scientist-heroes in Gregory Benford’s Cosm and Ursula K. Le Guin The Dispossessed. It illustrates the ways which these authors depict model scientists that can help readers to imagine what it might mean to be a scientist, and to engage in science as a profession. It brings out the ways in which their drive to create such didactic examples may have emerged out of a crisis within the ideology of science itself, namely the crisis of legitimacy and authority of science today known as the Science Wars. La plupart des travaux sur la relation entre science et science-fiction se concentrent sur la manière dont la science-fiction peut faire progresser la science en élaborant de manière spéculative des théories scientifiques. Ce texte, au contraire, soutient que nous devrions comprendre certains textes de science-fiction comme contribuant à faire de la science une pratique sociale de façon assez differente, notamment en les considérant comme une forme de littérature didactique qui offre un exemple moral aux scientifiques ou aux lecteurs scientifiques potentiels. Pour illustrer ce propos, cet article examine la représentation de héros scientifiques dans Cosm de Gregory Benford et dans The Dispossessed d’Ursula K. Le Guin. Il illustre la manière dont ces auteurs décrivent des scientifiques modèles qui peuvent aider les lecteurs à imaginer ce que cela signifie d’être scientifique et à faire de la science leur profession. Il montre également comment leur volonté de créer de tels exemples didactiques a pu émerger d’une crise au sein de l’idéologie de la science elle-même, à savoir la crise de la légitimité et de l’autorité de la science, connue aujourd’hui sous le nom de Guerre des sciences.

Auf Grundlage der IAB-BAMF-SOEP-Befragung Geflüchteter in Deutschland vergleicht dieser Bericht die im Jahr 2016 geäußerten Erwartungen zu einer Erwerbstätigkeit in Deutschland mit der realisierten Beschäftigung im Jahr 2018. Die überwiegende Mehrheit der Geflüchteten hat im Jahr 2016 angenommen, mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit eine Beschäftigung in den kommenden zwei Jahren zu finden. Bei 54 Prozent aller Geflüchteten haben sich die Erwartungen erfüllt. Etwa 35 Prozent der Geflüchteten hatten im Jahr 2016 jedoch hohe Erwartungen und konnten sich diese nicht erfüllen. Die Ergebnisse legen nahe, dass sowohl strukturelle Bedingungen als auch individuelle Merkmale, wie beispielsweise fehlende Kinderbetreuung oder die psychische Gesundheit Geflüchteter, die Aufnahme einer Beschäftigung erschwert haben. Maßnahmen, wie zusätzliche Beratungs- und Hintergrundgespräche über den deutschen Arbeitsmarkt, ein geeignetes Angebot für Kinderbetreuung und die Unterstützung von Geflüchteten mit schlechterer psychischer Gesundheit könnten dazu beitragen, dass sich die Beschäftigungserwartungen von Geflüchteten häufiger erfüllen. Weitere Untersuchungen sind notwendig, um die zugrundeliegenden Mechanismen besser zu verstehen., DIW Wochenbericht

Weltweit steigt die Anzahl überschuldeter Privathaushalte. Die möglichen Gründe für diesen Anstieg sind nicht hinreichend erforscht. Der vorliegende Bericht verdeutlicht, dass überhöhte Einkommenserwartungen, die durch unsichere Einkommensverhältnisse befördert werden, zu überoptimistischen Konsumentscheidungen und verstärkter Kreditaufnahme führen können. In einer Umgebung ohne starke Regulierung, in der Konsumentenkredite ohne hinreichende Überprüfung zur Verfügung stehen, kann dies schnell mit einer Überschuldung privater Haushalte einhergehen. Dies zeigen zumindest Untersuchungen in Thailand, ein Land, in dem die Einkommensunsicherheit und die Verschuldungsquote hoch sind. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung sind auch für Deutschland relevant, da auch hierzulande der Niedriglohnsektor groß und in einigen Teilen der Bevölkerung die Arbeitsmarktunsicherheit hoch ist. Gleichzeitig ist es für private Haushalte so einfach wie nie, Kredite zu erhalten. Neue Firmen locken mit Online-Krediten „für alle“, und auch konventionelle Banken haben ihr Kreditangebot auf sogenannte Risikogruppen erweitert. Vor diesem Hintergrund erscheinen aus Sicht des Verbraucherschutzes konkrete Maßnahmen seitens der Politik erforderlich, um Überschuldung privater KreditnehmerInnen durch überhöhte Erwartungen zu vermeiden, DIW Wochenbericht

This report compares employment expectations among refugees in Germany in 2016 with their actual employment situation in 2018, using the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees in Germany. In 2016, the majority of refugees reported that the probability they would find employment within two years was high. Employment expectations were met by 54 percent of all refugees; yet 35 percent of refugees who articulated high expectations in 2016, had no job in 2018. The findings show that both structural factors, such as a lack of childcare, and individual level characteristics, such as mental health, impacted entry into employment. Extra support for refugees seeking employment—the provision of information and advice on the German labor market, better childcare options, or support for those with mental health issues, for example—could help ensure that employment expectations are met more frequently. Further studies are needed to provide a better understanding of the different mechanisms at play here., DIW Weekly Report

In 802/1400-803/1401 Tamerlane occupied Damascus. European merchants abandoned Syria and the news of this event was soon circulating around the main European trading centres, spreading panic by disrupting the functioning of markets and upsetting the prices of spices. By what means was this news spread and what were its consequences for Mediterranean trade as a whole? [fr] En 802/1400-803/1401, Tamerlan occupa Damas. Les marchands européens partirent de la Syrie et la nouvelle de cet événement ne tarda pas à circuler dans les principaux centres commerciaux européens semant la panique en perturbant le fonctionnement des marchés et bouleversant les prix des épices. Par quels moyens cette nouvelle fut-elle diffusée et quelles furent ses séquelles sur l’ensemble du commerce méditerranéen?

We study the information sensitivity of government debt denominated in domestic versus foreign currency: the former is subject to inflation risk and the latter to default. Default only affects sophisticated bond traders, whereas inflation concerns a larger and less informed group. Within a two- period Bayesian trading game, differential information manifests itself in the secondary market, and we display conditions under which debt prices are more resilient to bad news even in the primary market, where only sophisticated players operate. Our results can explain debt prices across countries following the 2008 financial crisis, and also provide a theory of “original sin.” Financial support from the ADEMU (H2020, No. 649396) project and from the ESRC Centre for Macroeconomics is gratefully acknowledged.

Research interest in the reaction of consumption to expected inflation has increased sharply in recent years due to efforts by central banks to kick-start demand through higher inflation expectations. We contribute to this literature by analyzing whether various components of households’ balance sheets determine how consumption reacts to expected inflation. Many channels are conceivable:an increase in inflation expectations can raise consumption through direct increases in expected real wealth, e.g. for households with nominal financial liabilities. By affecting the real interest rate, expected inflation can interact with wealth if only those households can adapt their consumption to current real interest rates that are not budget constrained or sufficiently liquid to shift funds between consumption and savings. We use household-level information on balance sheets, vehicle expenditures and inflation expectations from the Dutch Central Bank’s Household Survey. We find evidence for a relation between a household’s expected inflation and the probability to have positive expenditureson durables. This effect is stronger for households with low net worth. We find no evidence of such effects on the amount of durable expenditures.

The transition from general schooling to vocational training or to the labour market marks a crucial threshold in the life course of young adults. It has been well documented that successful school-to-work transitions are influenced by (regional) labour-market conditions. However, what has been rather neglected is that before actual transitions take place, adolescents need to make plans and evaluate their wishes and choices against the background of existing constraints. (Regional) labour-market conditions are a part of such constraints. This paper complements previous research by focusing on the impact of the regional labour market on students’ educational and occupational aspirations before school-to-work transitions take place. Regionalised administrative data on unemployment is linked with survey data from the Starting Cohort 4 of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS-SC4). Results indicate that a relatively higher level of regional unemployment is associated with aspirations for higher-status occupations. Their status aspiration push students towards continuing general school to obtain higher general qualifications. The effects vary with the attended secondary school track and with parents’ educational aspirations for their children.

The transition from general schooling to vocational training or to the labour market marks a crucial threshold in the life course of young adults. It has been well documented that successful school-to-work transitions are influenced by (regional) labour-market conditions. However, what has been rather neglected is that before actual transitions take place, adolescents need to make plans and evaluate their wishes and choices against the background of existing constraints. (Regional) labour-market conditions are a part of such constraints. This paper complements previous research by focusing on the impact of the regional labour market on students’ educational and occupational aspirations before school-to-work transitions take place. Regionalised administrative data on unemployment is linked with survey data from the Starting Cohort 4 of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS-SC4). Results indicate that a relatively higher level of regional unemployment is associated with aspirations for higher-status occupations. Their status aspiration push students towards continuing general school to obtain higher general qualifications. The effects vary with the attended secondary school track and with parents’ educational aspirations for their children.

A key policy argument in favor of emissions markets (relative to command-and-control types of regulation) is their ability to aggregate dispersed information and generate price signals to guide firms' trading and abatement decisions. We investigate this argument in a multi-period model where firms receive noisy private signals about their current period emissions and privately observe their previous period emissions before this information is made public to the rest of the market. Firms respond to information by trading and abating emissions. We show that there exists a rational expectations equilibrium that fully aggregates firms' private information, justifying the policy argument in favor of emissions markets, in the absence of other frictions. We also derive predictions about how prices should be reacting to new private or public information and show that the possibility of abatement dampens the impact of shocks on prices. Finally, we show that the information aggregation result breaks down if firms' abatement costs are also private information., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Traditional groups meetings are an inefficient and ineffective method for making forecasts and decisions. We compare two structured alternatives to traditional meetings: the Delphi technique and prediction markets. Delphi is relatively simple and cheap to implement and has been adopted for diverse applications in business and government since its origins in the 1950s. It can be used for nearly any forecasting, estimation, or decision making problem not barred by complexity or ignorance. While prediction markets were used more than a century ago, their popularity waned until more recent times. As a consequence there is less evidence on their validity. Prediction markets need many participants. They need clear outcomes in order to determine participants’ pay-offs. Even so, relating their knowledge to market prices is not intuitive to everyone and constructing contracts that will provide a useful forecast may not be possible for some problems. It is difficult to maintain confidentiality with markets and they are vulnerable to manipulation. Delphi is designed to reveal panelists’ knowledge and opinions via their forecasts and the reasoning they provide. This format allows testing of knowledge and learning by panelists as they refine their forecasts. Such a process does not happen explicitly in prediction markets and may not happen at all. The reasoning provided as an output of the Delphi process is likely to be reassuring to forecast users who are uncomfortable with the “black box” nature of prediction markets. We consider that, half a century after its original development, Delphi is greatly under-utilized.

We propose a micro-founded equilibrium model to examine the interactions between the physical and the derivative markets of a commodity. This model provides a unifying framework for the hedging pressure and storage theories. The model shows a variety of behaviors at equilibrium that can be used to analyze price relations for any commodity. Further, through a comparative statics analysis, we precisely identify the losers and winners in the financialization of the commodity markets. Therefore, this paper clarifies the political economy of regulatory issues, like speculators’ influence on prices.

Why do employees help more or less their colleagues? Why do they feel misunderstood and not supported by their superiors or peers? Why is employees’ professional development not necessarily improved after multisource feedback? Could all of these organizational outcomes be influenced by people’s metaperception, a phenomenon largely ignored in the field of organizational behavior? The literature about Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB), Workplace Relationship (WR), Perceived Organizational Support (POS) and Multisource Feedback (MSF) seems to carry a black box. It may concern the motivational aspects of OCB, the conceptualization of POS or even the mechanisms behind MSF’s shortfalls. This paper highlights several gaps in the field of Organizational Behavior and then, addresses this gap through the lens of metaperception. This paper aims to provide convincing evidence that metaperception is the missing link to improve our understanding of OCB, WR, POS and MSF. We conclude on clear directions for future research investigating how metaperception could intervene in these three outcomes., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

People may or not know the impression they convey to others (meta-accuracy). However, little research has addressed to what extent meta-accuracy affects social outcomes such as hireability (recruiter’s intention to hire). Three studies were conducted to test whether people who knew the impression they conveyed are the ones who are more likely to get hired. Results of polynomial regression and responses surface analyses showed that meta-accuracy was related to hireability, whether meta-accuracy concerns skills during an interview (Study 1, N = 49, and Study 2, N = 127) or traits and skills on a résumé (Study 3, N = 135). The pattern of results takes three forms. First, the lack of meta-accuracy, as the simple gap between metaperception and other’s perception, reduces hireability. Second, hireability is higher when meta- and other’s perception are favorable rather than unfavorable, while staying in agreement. Third, hireability is higher for applicants underestimating the extent to which a recruiter would perceive favorably their traits and/or skills than for overestimators. These results suggest that the best chance to get hired does not rely only on good impressions but also on knowing, or at least on underestimating, the impressions made upon others., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

The efficiency of financial markets and their potential to produce bubbles are central topics in academic and professional debates. Yet, surprisingly little is known about the contribution of financial professionals to price efficiency. To close this gap, we run 86 experimental markets with 294 professionals and 384 students. We report that professional markets with bubble-drivers - capital inflows or high initial capital supply - are susceptible to bubbles, but they are significantly more efficient than student markets. In a survey with 245 professionals and students we show that cognitive skills and risk attitudes do not explain subject pool differences in bubble formation.

At the 2015 UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris France, 195 nations reached a decision to commit to decrease the severe effects of climate change on the planet. As we embark what some call the Anthropocene Era, we bare witness to how civilization has impacted the Earth’s ecosystem, diminishing its resources and threatening its biodiversity. With this shift in our ecosystem, a new pedagogical model for a graduate architecture studio responded to the Anthropocene through a technologically sublime intervention: The Living Archive, a new architectural type capturing the magnitude of Earth’s inevitable transformation. This archive is conceived as the anti-thesis to sustainability and optimization that consumes much of our built world. The ‘living archive’ program is not meant to be a stable, secure vessel but uses technological invention to bracket what is being invaded by human existence. Through the invention of an ‘archiving machine’, the studio used technological speculation to question what nature can or will become. The aim was to use ‘living archive’ as a physical commentary or critique on our current relationship to the environment. The paper describes three projects that speculate on the inevitable future of various biomes. Through environmental analysis, technological research, and formal aspirations, each project embodies a potential reality and potential future of the Anthropocene., UPLanD - Journal of Urban Planning, Landscape & environmental Design, GREEN 2.0

Information frictions play a central role in the formation of household inflation expectations, but there is no consensus about their origins. We address this question with novel evidence from survey experiments. We document two main findings. First, individuals in low inflation contexts have significantly weaker priors about the inflation rate. This finding suggests that rational inattention may be an important source of information frictions. Second, cognitive limitations also appear to be a source of information frictions: Even when information about inflation statistics is available, individuals still place a significant weight on inaccurate sources of information, such as their memories of the price changes of the supermarket products they purchase. We discuss the implications of these findings for macroeconomic models and policymaking., Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales

Recent theories of expectation-based reference-dependent preferences offer a structured approach of the formation of reference points, yet do not incorporate important context-specific characteristics. One implicit assumption is that individuals form their reference point as expectations by correctly predicting the probabilistic environment they are facing. In an experimental setup, we demonstrate that a simple change in the framing of a decision problem alters the reference point formation by evoking a different moment of first focus. Apart from providing evidence on the limitations of current theories of expectation-based reference dependence, this paper further offers a theoretical extension that overcomes these limitations and allows reference points to be contingent on contextual effects., info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Using two surveys, we study how respondents process visual cues to identify the political orientation (left- vs. right-wing) of members of the French National Assembly (referred to as “deputies”), based on official photographs only, to test the type of heuristic that they use. We first confirm that respondents outperform random guesses. Second, we find that their categorizations correlate with observable characteristics (gender, tie color, jewelry) and subjective assessments of deputies’ personality traits (attractiveness, competence, trustworthiness). Third, the objective visual cues that respondents use are consistent with the actual characteristics of left- and right-wing deputies, and respondents mistakenly react to subjective personality traits that differ little across the two groups of deputies. Fourth, left- and right-wing respondents use the same cues in the same way, attractiveness being the only exception. Fifth, the magnitude of the marginal impact of a characteristic on the probability of a respondent categorizing a photograph as left- or right-wing increases strictly with the representativeness of that characteristic. Finally, we find evidence that some characteristics correlate with categorization errors. Findings 1, 2, 4, and the finding that respondents use cues in the correct way are consistent with both Bayesian behavior and the representativeness heuristic. Findings 5, 6, and the finding that respondents react to subjective cues that do not differ across groups are at odds with Bayesian inference but consistent with the representativeness heuristic suggested by Kahneman and Tversky (1972) and recently modelled by Gennaioli and Shleifer (2010), and Bordalo et al. (forthcoming)., info:eu-repo/semantics/published