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We investigate how a cautious decision maker might aggregate opinions from experts who are concerned with model misspecification. We use Cerreia-Vioglio et al. (in: Working paper or preprint, 2022, https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI%5fWP%5f2020103.pdf) criterion to account for concerns related to model misspecification. Under a Pareto-type axiom and a cautious axiom, the decision maker, whose preference falls within the class of variational preferences proposed by Maccheroni et al. (Econometrica, 74(6):1447–1498, 2006), also takes model misspecification into account. The decision maker regards all the experts' structured models as her most accurate approximations of the correct model and penalizes unstructured models less than any expert. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The data-generating process underlying productivity includes both trend and business cycle shocks, generating counterfactuals for prices under full information. In practice, agents' inability to immediately distinguish between the two shocks creates "rational confusion": each shock inherits properties of its counterpart. This confusion magnifies the perceived share of permanent shocks and implies that, contrary to canonical frameworks, transitory shocks are the main driver of long-run risk through trendy business cycles. With learning, the equity premium turns positive, while investment and valuation ratios become procyclical, as in the data. Consequently, rational confusion is key for reconciling disciplined macro-dynamics with equilibrium 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the principle-agency problem between landlords and real estate agents using novel data on rental contracts. Real estate agents are found to obtain higher contract rents by approximately 1% more for themselves (and family members) than for other landlords, which is economically small. The results suggest that the principle-agency program with real estate agents is less of a concern in the rental market than the ownership market. The reason potentially relates to the commission structure, the relatively low effort associated with finding a tenant, the landlord's ability to evaluate an agent's performance, and reputation concerns from repeated interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As countries worldwide grapple with the urgent need to mitigate climate change, adopting low-carbon energy sources has become a top global priority. This priority is particularly emphasized in the European Union (EU), with various initiatives, policies, and regulations to promote renewable energy sources and reduce carbon emissions. Despite these efforts, the transition to a low-carbon energy future has faced several challenges, such as the high cost of renewable energy technologies, land use, and technical issues. These challenges require decision-makers to consider and address various factors to ensure sustainable and low-carbon energy development. In this context, the present study identified challenges to the low-carbon energy transition through a literature review from 2013 to 2023. The study then set out a novel intuitionistic fuzzy cognitive map method to map the interactions of identified challenges and analyze the case study performance in dealing with the challenges under three scenarios: people first, technology first, and duet. Subsequently, the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method was applied to find the best scenario according to performance analysis. The results indicated that the most significant challenge is investment, followed by short-termism, and reformation, out of seventeen identified challenges. Results also indicated that the duet scenario was the best, and broad conclusions and policy implementations were provided according to the obtained results.

In the context of the digital economy, empowering firm innovation investment through digital transformation is an important strategy for promoting innovation development in China. This study investigates the effects and mechanisms of digital transformation on firm innovation investment from the perspective of total factor productivity, using a sample of manufacturing companies listed on the A-share market in China from 2012 to 2021. The following three main findings were obtained. First, results of both fixed- and random-effects regression methods revealed that digital transformation significantly promotes firms’ innovation investment. This conclusion remains robust after controlling for endogeneity issues using the instrumental variable method and replacing the explanatory variable measurement methods. Second, stepwise regression analysis revealed a negative mediating mechanism of total factor productivity (TFP) in the impact of digital transformation on the level of firm innovation investment. The main reason for this is that an improvement in TFP intensifies the competition for capital and labor input between the production and innovation departments. Third, the group regression for heterogeneity analysis found that the overall effect of digital transformation on firm innovation investment is significantly positive in groups with low financing constraints and high human capital, but not significant in groups with high financing constraints and low human capital. Moreover, the negative mediating mechanism of TFP is significantly valid in all groups, further validating the competition between the production and innovation departments for capital and labor input. Based on the findings of this study and from the perspective of governance by the Chinese government, three policy recommendations are proposed to empower firm innovation development through digital transformation.

To identify expertise, forecasters should not be tested by their calibration score, which can always be made arbitrarily small, but rather by their Brier score. The Brier score is the sum of the calibration score and the refinement score; the latter measures how good the sorting into bins with the same forecast is, and thus attests to "expertise." This raises the question of whether one can gain calibration without losing expertise, which we refer to as "calibeating." We provide an easy way to calibeat any forecast, by a deterministic online procedure. We moreover show that calibeating can be achieved by a stochastic procedure that is itself calibrated, and then extend the results to simultaneously calibeating multiple procedures, and to deterministic procedures that are continuously calibrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurship has emerged as a major research theme across a number of disciplines and fields, including the industrial dynamics tradition. Entrepreneurship is often seen as closely linked to firms and firm formation. However, the links between economic organization and entrepreneurship are unclear. Do entrepreneurs always need firms to realize their plans? If so, why? Can firms be "entrepreneurial"? If so, what is the difference between an entrepreneurial and a non-entrepreneurial firm? More broadly, how can entrepreneurship be informed by the theory of the firm and vice versa? These foundational issues in both the theory of the firm and the field of entrepreneurship have not been resolved. This dialogue between two scholars who have worked at the intersection of entrepreneurship and the theory of the firm for more than 20 years addresses such key questions as: What is the meaning of "uncertainty" and what is its role? What are the features and roles of resources? How are resources linked to property rights and the firm? On what basis can we say that firms differ in the extent to which they are "entrepreneurial"? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, both information technology (IT) labor demand and IT job characteristics have been significantly influenced by the advent of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) and the digital age. The higher education sector is expected to upgrade itself with such progress and train graduates capable of meeting the new industry requirements. However, due to the present demand gap, universities are seeking to identify the skills new digital workers are expected to have. As we live in the digital age, the literature has failed to address the questions of the consequences for individual workers adequately. Considerable scientific efforts should be made to design certain curricula and training programs that could nurture digital competencies (DC). There is a need to construct an inclusive framework of the term. In addition, different options exist for studying the DC of the workforce in relation to human resources management (HRM). The current paper attempts to fill the gap by developing an integrated decision-making framework. The paper aims to introduce an innovative discrimination measure and discuss its elegant properties. A Measurement of Alternatives and Ranking according to the COmpromise Solution (MARCOS) framework for evaluating the MCDM problem on a fuzzy set has been developed based on it. On the other hand, the new methodology of the PF-entropy-RS weight technique is used to compute the criteria weights or significance degrees of criteria. Then, the MARCOS method is a new elegant approach to handle the MCDM problems. Thus, in this study, we have developed a new approach to the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method using the PF-entropy-RS and PF-MARCOS methods and further implemented for the evaluation of the competencies of the future workforce for digital technologies implementation in higher education. It helps to calculate the objective/subjective weights of criteria to evaluate the competencies of the future workforce for digital technologies implementation in higher education; then, the approach is used to assess the preferences of higher education institutes over different competencies of the future workforce for digital technologies implementation in higher education. An empirical case study is carried out in this paper for the evaluation of the most important competencies of the future workforce for digital technologies implementation in higher education. In addition, to evaluate the performance quality of the proposed framework, this study also involves some comparison and sensitivity analyses. This study found that data and information processing has emerged as the most important competencies of the future workforce for digital technologies implementation in higher education. The ability to interact with modern interfaces is the second most important competency of the future workforce for digital technologies implementation in higher education. In conclusion, the workforce responsible for implementing digital technologies in higher education will significantly impact students’ learning experiences. As technological advancements continue, higher education institutions will require skilled professionals with diverse digital expertise to manage and integrate these technologies successfully.

For nearly every crime, there is a victim. However, the vast majority of studies in the economics of crime have focused on the causal determinants of criminality. We present novel evidence on the causal determinants of victimization, focusing on legal access to alcohol. The social costs of alcohol use and abuse are sizable and well documented. We find criminal victimization—for both violent and property crimes—increases noticeably at age 21. Effects are not present at other birthdays and do not appear to be driven by a "birthday celebration effect." The effects are particularly large for sexual assaults, especially those that occur in nonresidential locations. Our results suggest prior research that has focused on criminality has understated the true social costs associated with increased access to alcohol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the susceptibility of committee governance (e.g. by boards of directors), modelled as the collective determination of a ranking of a set of alternatives, to manipulation of the order in which pairs of alternatives are voted on— agenda-manipulation. We exhibit an agenda strategy called insertion sort that allows a self-interested committee chair with no knowledge of how votes will be cast to do as well as if she had complete knowledge. Strategies with this "regret-freeness" property are characterized by their efficiency, and by their avoidance of two intuitive errors. What distinguishes regret-free strategies from each other is how they prioritize among alternatives; insertion sort prioritizes lexicographically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study information design with multiple privately informed agents who interact in a game. Each agent's utility is linear in a real‐valued state. We show that there always exists an optimal mechanism that is laminar partitional and bound its "complexity." For each type profile, such a mechanism partitions the state space and recommends the same action profile within a partition element. Furthermore, the convex hulls of any two partition elements are such that either one contains the other or they have an empty intersection. We highlight the value of screening: the ratio of the optimal and the best payoff without screening can be equal to the number of types. Along the way, we shed light on the solutions to optimization problems over distributions subject to a mean‐preserving contraction constraint and additional side‐constraints, which might be of independent interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Objects of different quality are to be allocated to agents. Agents can receive at most one object, and there are not enough high‐quality objects for every agent. The value to the social planner from allocating objects to any given agent depends on that agent's private information. The social planner is unable to use transfers to give incentives for agents to convey their private information. Instead, she is able to imperfectly verify their reports through signals that are positively affiliated with each agent's type. We characterize mechanisms that maximize the social planner's expected payoff. In the optimal mechanism, each agent chooses one of various tracks, which are characterized by two thresholds. If the agent's signal exceeds the upper threshold of the chosen track, the agent receives a high‐quality object, if it is between the two thresholds, he receives a low‐quality object, and if it is below the lower threshold, he receives no object. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a duopoly model of horizontal and vertical differentiation, where consumers are ex-ante unaware of product qualities, we study the firms' incentives to signal quality via prices. Consumers, after they observe prices, can evaluate a firm's product quality before purchase if they incur a search cost. We show that a complete information (undistorted) separating equilibrium and a unique pooling equilibrium (in pure strategies) exist. A lower search cost moves the market equilibrium from pooling to separating and induces a mean-preserving spread in the distribution of the equilibrium prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms have ever-increasing access to consumer data, which they use to personalize their advertising and to price discriminate. This raises privacy concerns. Policymakers have argued in response that consumers should be given control over their data, able to choose what to share and when. Since firms learn about a consumer's preferences both from what they do and do not disclose, the equilibrium implications of consumer control are unclear. We study whether such measures improve consumer welfare in monopolistic and in competitive markets. We find that consumer control can improve consumer welfare relative to both perfect price discrimination and uniform pricing. First, consumers can use disclosure to amplify competitive forces. Second, consumers can disclose information to induce even a monopolist to lower prices. Whether consumer control improves welfare depends on the disclosure technology and market competitiveness. Simple disclosure technologies suffice in competitive markets. When facing a monopolist, a consumer needs partial disclosure possibilities to obtain any welfare gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, unemployment is an important problem for almost all countries and is one of the major problems affecting countries economically. The purpose of this study is put forward the relationship between unemployment and inflation in D8 (Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Egypt, Nigeria) countries within the framework of the Phillips Curve Theory. For this purpose, unemployment and inflation data of the study covers the period between 1996 and 2020. In this study, dynamic panel data regression analysis was used. As a result of the study, statistically significant and negative results were determined in the lagged values of the dependent variable and the lagged values of the unemployment rate. Thus, the existence of a negative relationship between inflation and unemployment has been revealed and Phillips curve hypothesis confirm the statistically significant results.

The flow of information between markets is important to guide investors and policymakers in the effective allocation of assets and proactive market regulation, respectively. This study examines the impact of information flow from global financial market stress on the African stock markets using the daily US financial stress index (USFSI) and other advanced economies' financial stress index (OAEFSI) to proxy the global financial stress index. To understand the information flow dynamics across various investment horizons, the ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD)-based transfer entropy is employed. Our findings reveal that African equity markets are highly risky for information flow from global financial market stress. However, we identify diversification prospects based on market conditions for Ghana and Egypt in the short term and Tanzania, Cote D'Ivoire, and Egypt in the medium term. Empirical results also show that the information flow from global financial stress to African stock markets depends on time scales, economic relations, and the state of global financial markets. The findings are important for investors, portfolio managers, practitioners, and policymakers.

As internet penetration rapidly expanded throughout the world, press freedom and government accountability improved in some countries but backslid in others. We propose a formal model that provides a mechanism that explains the observed divergent paths of countries. We argue that increased access to social media makes partial capture, where governments allow limited freedom of the press, an untenable strategy. By amplifying the influence of small traditional media outlets, higher internet access increases both the costs of capture and the risk that a critical mass of citizens will become informed and overturn the incumbent. Depending on the incentives to retain office, greater internet access thus either forces an incumbent to extend capture to small outlets, further undermining press freedom; or relieve pressure from others. We relate our findings to the cases of Turkey and Tunisia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim/purpose – The COVID-19 pandemic generated a new communication universe with numerous actors, including conspiracy theory (CT) promoters who spread skepticism about the authenticity of the pandemic and the necessity of health emergency regulations. This study explores the dissemination of COVID-19 conspiracy theories in Canada to create a model for verifying conspiracy theories, especially in the context of decision making.

Purpose: The main aim of the study is the analysis of the awareness of competency needs in businesses in relation to the development of Industry 4.0 and the possibility of meeting those needs within business cooperation networks.

An essential part of entrepreneurial activity is the drafting and narrating of an entrepreneurial vision. This study is premised on the observation that entrepreneurial groups form an interaction arena for the practice of imagining the future and asks how the content of entrepreneurial visions is shaped by the conditions of the group. Taking an entrepreneurship-as-practice lens, which we enrich with sociological theory on the future (Beckert) and small groups (Fine), we engage in an in-depth case study of 12 entrepreneurial groups. We show how the content of entrepreneurial visions is configured by four elements (i.e., fictional expectation for the business or the group; future orientation that is continuing or divergent) and name two group conditions (i.e., role confidence and hierarchical congruence) that direct their configuration. We propose that lacking role confidence can impede thinking about the future of a business and that narrative hierarchies that challenge structural hierarchies can open a window for divergent future orientation. This study contributes to a novel theoretical understanding of where entrepreneurial visions come from by emphasizing politics of expectations within groups and calling to consider group conditions as a relevant context for entrepreneurial visions. Plain English Summary: Entrepreneurs make futures! To do so, they have to be confident in their role within an entrepreneurial group or they will be caught up in thinking about how the group should work together rather than drafting a future for the business. This is a key finding of the study put forward by Stamm and Gutzeit on the practice of imagining the future. Family members, friends, or former colleagues who jointly engage in an entrepreneurial venture form such a group, with its own history, structure, and culture. The authors' qualitative study, based on group interviews, reveals that these group conditions influence the content of entrepreneurial visions. For entrepreneurship research, this study implies that an entrepreneurial vision is a product of group political processes rather than individual mental images. This study further implies that entrepreneurial groups and their advisors should reflect on group conditions before engaging in the drafting of an entrepreneurial vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]