Preferences of children in grades two through eight in social studies subject areas

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

End of Life Care: Achieving Quality in Hostels and for Homeless People, A Route to Success

This publication aims to provide a practical guide to support hostel staff in ensuring that people nearing the end of their life receive high quality end of life care

Changing preferences: an experiment and estimation of market-incentive effects on altruism

This paper studies how altruistic preferences are changed by markets and incentives. We conduct a laboratory experiment in a within-subject design. Subjects are asked to choose health care qualities for hypothetical patients in monopoly, duopoly, and quadropoly. Prices, costs, and patient benefits are experimental incentive parameters. In monopoly, subjects choose quality to tradeoff between profits and altruistic patient benefits. In duopoly and quadropoly, we model subjects playing a simultaneous-move game. Each subject is uncertain about an opponent's altruism, and competes for patients by choosing qualities. Bayes-Nash equilibria describe subjects' quality decisions as functions of altruism. Using a nonparametric method, we estimate the population altruism distributions from Bayes-Nash equilibrium qualities in different markets and incentive configurations. Markets tend to reduce altruism, although duopoly and quadropoly equilibrium qualities are much higher than those in monopoly. Although markets crowd out altruism, the disciplinary powers of market competition are stronger. Counterfactuals confirm markets change preferences.Accepted manuscrip

Transformation without Paternalism

Human development is meant to be transformational in that it aims to improve people's lives by enhancing their capabilities. But who does it target: people as they are or the people they will become? This paper argues that the human development approach relies on an understanding of personal identity as dynamic rather than as static collections of preferences, and that this distinguishes human development from conventional approaches to development. Nevertheless, this dynamic understanding of personal identity is presently poorly conceptualized and this has implications for development practice. We identify a danger of paternalism and propose institutionalizing two procedural principles as side constraints on development policies and projects: the principle of free prior informed consent and the principle of democratic development

(WP 2016-01) Transformation without Paternalism

Human development is meant to be transformational in that it aims to improve people’s lives by enhancing their capabilities. But who does it target: people as they are or the people they will become? This paper argues that the human development approach relies on an understanding of personal identity as dynamic rather than as static collections of preferences, and that this distinguishes human development from conventional approaches to development. Nevertheless this dynamic understanding of personal identity is presently poorly conceptualized and this has implications for development practice. We identify a danger of paternalism and propose institutionalizing two procedural principles as side constraints on development policies and projects: the principle of free prior informed consent, and the principle of democratic development

Why the Realist-Instrumentalist Debate about Rational Choice Rests on a Mistake

Within the social sciences, much controversy exists about which status should be ascribed to the rationality assumption that forms the core of rational choice theories. Whilst realists argue that the rationality assumption is an empirical claim which describes real processes that cause individual action, instrumentalists maintain that it amounts to nothing more than an analytically set axiom or ‘as if’ hypothesis which helps in the generation of accurate predictions. In this paper, I argue that this realist-instrumentalist debate about rational choice theory can be overcome once it is realised that the rationality assumption is neither an empirical description nor an ‘as if’ hypothesis, but a normative claim

The Causal Decision Theorist's Guide to Managing the News

According to orthodox causal decision theory, performing an action can give you information about factors outside of your control, but you should not take this information into account when deciding what to do. Causal decision theorists caution against an irrational policy of 'managing the news'. But, by providing information about factors outside of your control, performing an act can give you two, importantly different, kinds of good news. It can tell you that the world in which you find yourself is good in ways you can't control, and it can also tell you that the act itself is in a position to make the world better. While the first kind of news does not speak in favor of performing an act, I believe that the second kind of news does. I present a revision of causal decision theory which advises you to manage the news about the good you stand to promote, while ignoring news about the good the world has provided for you