Optimal funding and investment strategies in defined contribution pension plans under Epstein-Zin utility

A defined contribution pension plan allows consumption to be redistributed from the plan member’s working life to retirement in a manner that is consistent with the member’s personal preferences. The plan’s optimal funding and investment strategies therefore depend on the desired pattern of consumption over the lifetime of the member. We investigate these strategies under the assumption that the member has an Epstein-Zin utility function, which allows a separation between risk aversion and the elasticity of intertemporal substitution, and we also take into account the member’s human capital. We show that a stochastic lifestyling approach, with an initial high weight in equity-type investments and a gradual switch into bond-type investments as the retirement date approaches is an optimal investment strategy. In addition, the optimal contribution rate each year is not constant over the life of the plan but reflects trade-offs between the desire for current consumption, bequest and retirement savings motives at different stages in the life cycle, changes in human capital over the life cycle, and attitude to risk

Value of Travel Time Reliability: A review of current evidence

Travel time reliability is a fundamental factor in travel behavior. It represents the temporal uncertainty experienced by users in their movement between any two nodes in a network. The importance of the time reliability depends on the penalties incurred by the users. In road networks, travelers consider the existence of a trip travel time uncertainty in different choice situations (departure time, route, mode, and others). In this paper, a systematic review of the current state of research in travel time reliability, and more explicitly in the value of travel time reliability is presented. Moreover, a meta-analysis is performed in order to determine the reasons behind the discrepancy among the reliability estimates.variability, reliability, travel time, scheduling.

The Menstrual Cycle and Performance Feedback Alter Gender Differences in Competitive Choices

Economic experiments have shown that in mixed gender groups women are more reluctant than men to choose tournaments when given the choice between piece rate and winner-take-all tournament style compensation. These gender difference experiments have all relied on a framework where subjects were not informed of their abilities relative to potential competitors. We replicate these findings with math and word tasks, and then show that feedback about relative performance moves high ability females towards more competitive compensation schemes, moves low ability men towards less competitive schemes such as piece rate and group pay, and removes the average gender difference in compensation choices. We also examine between and within-subjects differences in choices for females across the menstrual cycle. We find women's relative reluctance to choose tournaments comes mostly from women in the low hormone phase of their menstrual cycle. Women in the high hormone phase are substantially more willing to compete than women in the low phase, though still somewhat less willing to compete than men. There are no significant differences between the choices of any of these groups after they receive relative performance feedback.competition, tournaments, gender, hormones, menstruation, feedback

Scaling Empirical Game-Theoretic Analysis.

To analyze the incentive structure of strategic multi-agent interactions, such scenarios are often cast as games, where players optimize their payoffs by selecting a strategy in anticipation of the strategic decisions of other players. When our modeling needs are too complex to address analytically, empirical game models, game models in which observations of simulated play are used to estimate payoffs of agents, can be employed to facilitate game-theoretic analysis. This dissertation focuses on extending the capability of the empirical game-theoretic analysis (EGTA) framework for modeling and analyzing large games. My contributions are in three distinct areas: increasing the scale of game simulation through software infrastructure, improving performance of common analytic tasks by bringing them closer to the data, and reducing sampling requirements for statistically confident analysis through sequential sampling algorithms. With the advent of EGTAOnline, an experiment management system for distributed game simulation that I developed, EGTA practitioners no longer limit their studies to what can be conducted on a single computer. Over one billion payoff observations have been added to EGTAOnline's database to date, corresponding to hundreds of distinct experiments. To reduce the cost of analyzing this data, I explored conducting analysis in the database. I found that translating data to an in-memory object representation was a dominant cost for game-theoretic analysis software. By avoiding that cost, conducting analysis in the database improves performance. A further way to improve scalability is to ensure we only gather as much data as is necessary to support analysis. I developed algorithms that interweave sampling and evaluations of statistical confidence, improving on existing ad hoc sampling methods by providing a measure of statistical confidence for analysis and reducing the number of observations taken. In addition to these software and methodological contributions, I present two applications: a strategic analysis of selecting a wireless access point for your traffic, and an investigation of mapping an analytical pricing model to a large simulated stock market.PhDComputer Science and EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110315/1/bcassell_1.pd

Cystic fibrosis adults' perception and management of the risk of infection with Burkholderia cepacia complex

The risk of infection for cystic fibrosis patients from Burkholderia cepacia complex pathogens is of increasing concern to doctors and scientists. This paper reports on how these patients perceive and manage the risk of cepacia infection using Douglas and Calvez's (1990) typology of four cultures of the community (the central community, dissenting enclaves, isolates, and individualists) and Douglas' works on pollution, risk, and culture. We attempt to develop Douglas's cultural theory in the light of the data, which were drawn from in-depth interviews with 31 adults with cystic fibrosis attending a specialist treatment centre in the UK. We found that our respondents' group membership depended on their health state and contact with the hospital. The central community of adults was found to be dispersing to form a series of isolates, perceiving others who may potentially have infection as individualists. Due to the nature of cepacia infection, no dissenting enclave was identified for this group. Medical and lay uncertainty in testing for infection and managing the risk of its spread was expressed by the majority of adults, many of whom admitted that they limited hospital attendance as a part of managing such risk

TRADE-OFF BALANCING FOR STABLE AND SUSTAINABLE OPERATING ROOM SCHEDULING

The implementation of the mandatory alternative payment model (APM) guarantees savings for Medicare regardless of participant hospitals ability for reducing spending that shifts the cost minimization burden from insurers onto the hospital administrators. Surgical interventions account for more than 30% and 40% of hospitals total cost and total revenue, respectively, with a cost structure consisting of nearly 56% direct cost, thus, large cost reduction is possible through efficient operation management. However, optimizing operating rooms (ORs) schedules is extraordinarily challenging due to the complexities involved in the process. We present new algorithms and managerial guidelines to address the problem of OR planning and scheduling with disturbances in demand and case times, and inconsistencies among the performance measures. We also present an extension of these algorithms that addresses production scheduling for sustainability. We demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of these algorithms via simulation and statistical analyses

Reading The Bricklin: Narrating the Place of Dreaming in an Era of Self-Sufficiency

The Bricklin: An Automotive Fantasy traces the rise and fall of efforts to build Malcolm Bricklin’s signature sports car in rural New Brunswick in the early 1970s. I read The Bricklin as an effort by contemporary Atlantic Canadian writers and artists to highlight how the history of place shapes experience without replicating formulaic conceptions of rural life on the East Coast. Rather than subverting festishized versions of an anti-modern Atlantic Canada, The Bricklin both critiques and celebrates the nostalgic exploration of place.RésuméThe Bricklin: An Automotive Fantasy retrace l’essor et le déclin des efforts déployés pour construire la voiture de sport signée Malcolm Bricklin en région rurale du Nouveau-Brunswick dans le début des années 1970. J’ai considéré The Bricklin comme un effort des écrivains et artistes contemporains du Canada atlantique à souligner à quel point l’histoire d’une région façonne l’expérience sans pour autant se rattacher aux conceptions stéréotypées de la vie rurale de la côte Est. De fait, The Bricklin réussit à la fois à critiquer et célèbrer l’exploration nostalgique d’un endroit plutôt que de renverser des versions fétichisées d’un Canada atlantique anti-moderniste.The Bricklin: An Automotive Fantasy retrace l’essor et le déclin des efforts déployés pour construire la voiture de sport signée Malcolm Bricklin en région rurale du Nouveau-Brunswick dans le début des années 1970. J’ai considéré The Bricklin comme un effort des écrivains et artistes contemporains du Canada atlantique à souligner à quel point l’histoire d’une région façonne l’expérience sans pour autant se rattacher aux conceptions stéréotypées de la vie rurale de la côte Est. De fait, The Bricklin réussit à la fois à critiquer et célèbrer l’exploration nostalgique d’un endroit plutôt que de renverser des versions fétichisées d’un Canada atlantique anti-moderniste