Financial Exposure and Productive Performance in French Arable Farms

This paper examines the dynamic relationship between financial exposure and productive performance in agriculture. To this end, Granger's concept of causality and VAR representation are used. Indeed, in spite of several studies, the causality and the direction are not clearly defined. However, investigation of this question can provide with valuable information at policy makers to formulate appropriate credit policies. Using a large micro panel of French farmers over 1994-2001, we find that there is a bidirectional causality running from financial constraints and productive performance. Nevertheless, variance decompositions and impulse response analysis suggest a weak relationship existing between these two variables.actual efficiency

Investigating the Impact of Firm Strategy – Click-and-Brick, Brick-and-Mortar, and Pure-Click – on Financial Performance

Attracted by the numerous benefits of E-commerce, many traditional brick-and-mortar firms have embraced the Internet to supplement their business operations and have adopted the “click-and-brick” approach. Despite these changes, insufficient empirical research has been conducted on the impact of different firm types on financial performance. Based on the resource-based view, this study presents empirical research examining the possible ramifications and an overall impact. This study does this by comparing financial performance of click-and-brick firms with the performance of traditional, as well as pure-click firms that rely solely on the Internet.E-commerce, pure-click, click-and-brick, brick-and-mortar, financial performance, resourced-based view

Determining the parameters in a social welfare function using stated preference data: an application to health

One way in which economists might determine how best to balance the competing objectives of efficiency and equity is to specify a social welfare function (SWF). This paper looks at how the stated preferences of a sample of the general public can be used to estimate the shape of the SWF in the domain of health benefits. The results suggest that it is possible to determine the parameters in a social welfare function from stated preference data, but show that people are sensitive to what inequalities exist and to the groups across which those inequalities exist

Ordering effects and strategic response in discrete choice experiments

This study explores ordering effects and response strategies in repeated binary discrete choice experiments (DCE). Mechanism design theory and empirical evidence suggest that repeated choice tasks per respondent introduce strategic behavior. We find evidence that the order in which choice sets are presented to respondents may provide strategic opportunities that affect choice decisions (‘strategic response’). The findings propose that the ‘strategic response’ does not follow strong cost-minimization but other strategies such as weak cost-minimization or good deal/ bad deal heuristics. Evidence further suggests that participants, as they answer more choice questions, not only make more accurate choices (‘institutional learning’) but may also become increasingly aware of and learn to take advantage of the order in which choice sets are presented to them (‘strategic learning’).discrete choice experiments, incentive compatibility, mixed logit models, ordering effects, repeated binary choice task, response strategies, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Event reconstruction in high resolution Compton telescopes

The development of germanium Compton telescopes for nuclear gamma-ray astrophysics (~0.2-20 MeV) requires new event reconstruction techniques to accurately determine the initial direction and energy of photon events, as well as to consistently reject background events. This paper describes techniques for event reconstruction, accounting for realistic instrument/detector performance and uncertainties. An especially important technique is Compton Kinematic Discrimination, which allows proper interaction ordering and background rejection with high probabilities. The use of these techniques are crucial for the realistic evaluation of the performance and sensitivity of any germanium Compton telescope configuration.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&AS

Inequality and risk aversion in health and income: an empirical analysis using hypothetical scenarios with losses

Four kinds of distributional preferences are explored: inequality aversion in health, inequality aversion in income, risk aversion in health, and risk aversion in income. Face to face interviews of a representative sample of the general public are undertaken using hypothetical scenarios involving losses in either health or income. Whilst in health risk aversion is stronger than inequality aversion, in the income context we cannot reject that attitudes to inequality aversion and risk aversion are the same. When we compare across contexts we find that inequality aversion and risk aversion are both stronger in income than they each are in health

Mostly Harmless Simulations? Using Monte Carlo Studies for Estimator Selection

We consider two recent suggestions for how to perform an empirically motivated Monte Carlo study to help select a treatment effect estimator under unconfoundedness. We show theoretically that neither is likely to be informative except under restrictive conditions that are unlikely to be satisfied in many contexts. To test empirical relevance, we also apply the approaches to a real-world setting where estimator performance is known. Both approaches are worse than random at selecting estimators which minimise absolute bias. They are better when selecting estimators that minimise mean squared error. However, using a simple bootstrap is at least as good and often better. For now researchers would be best advised to use a range of estimators and compare estimates for robustness

Effects of alternative elicitation formats in discrete choice experiments

An elicitation format prevalently applied in discrete choice experiments (DCEs) offers each respondent a sequence of choice tasks. Each choice task contains more than two choice options. Empirical evidence shows, however, that repeated choice tasks influence choice behaviour through institutional learning, fatigue, value learning and strategic response. The study reported in this paper uses a split sample approach. This approach was based on field surveys using a single binary elicitation format. To expand the research on effects of sequential binary DCE formats, a majority vote baseline was used. We present evidence for effects caused by institutional learning, and by either strategic behaviour or value learning, after respondents answered repeated choice questions. However, we did not find any indications for strategic behaviour in respondents caused by their awareness of having multiple choices. The decision to use a sequential or a single elicitation format may therefore imply a trade-off between decreased choice accuracy and potentially increased strategic behaviour in respondents. This trade-off is due to an incentive incompatible mechanism. Further research is needed to explore strategic behaviour induced by incentive incompatible elicitation formats, using alternative approaches that are not compromised by a confounded baseline, that facilitate the differentiation between value learning and strategic behaviour, and that allow the use of less restrictive model specifications. Such research should also investigate the effects of varying incentives induced by the order in which choice questions are presented to respondents.discrete choice experiments, split sample approach, elicitation format, incentive compatibility, strategic behaviour, learning effects, panel mixed logit models, Environmental Economics and Policy, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Effects of alternative elicitation formats in discrete choice experiments

An elicitation format prevalently applied in DCE is to offer each respondent a sequence of choice tasks containing more than two choice options. However, empirical evidence indicates that repeated choice tasks influence choice behavior through institutional learning, fatigue, value learning, and strategic response. The study reported in this paper employs a split sample approach based on field surveys using a single binary elicitation format with a majority vote implementation as the baseline to expand the research on effects of sequential binary DCE formats. We provide evidence for effects caused by institutional learning and either strategic behavior or value learning after respondents answered repeated choice questions. However, we did not find any indications for strategic behavior caused by awareness of having multiple choices. The choice between a sequential and a single elicitation format may thus imply a trade-off between decreased choice accuracy and potentially increased strategic behavior due to an incentive incompatible mechanism. Further research is needed to explore strategic behavior induced by incentive incompatible elicitation formats using alternative approaches that are not compromised by a confounded baseline, that facilitate the differentiation between value learning and strategic behavior, and that allow the use of less restrictive model specifications. Such research should also investigate the effects of varying incentives induced by the order in which choice questions are presented to respondents.discrete choice experiments, split sample approach, elicitation format, incentive compatibility, strategic behavior, learning effects, panel mixed logit models, Environmental Economics and Policy,