Seller Cheap Talk in Common Value Auctions

Sellers benefit on average from revealing information about their goods to buyers, but the incentive to exaggerate undermines the credibility of seller statements. When multiple goods are being auctioned, we show that ordinal cheap talk, which reveals a complete or partial ordering of the different goods by value, can be credible. Ordinal statements are not susceptible to exaggeration because they simultaneously reveal favorable information about some goods and unfavorable information about other goods. Any informative ordering increases revenues in accordance with the linkage principle, and the complete ordering is asymptotically revenue-equivalent to full revelation as the number of goods becomes large. These results provide a new explanation in addition to bundling, versioning, and complementarities for how a seller benefits from the sale of multiple goods.cheap talk; linkage principle; winner's curse; auctions

Best Foot Forward or Best for Last in a Sequential Auction?

Should an informed seller of multiple goods sell the best goods first to make a favorable impression on buyers, or instead hold back on the best goods until buyers have learned more from earlier sales? To help answer this question we consider the sequential auction of two goods by a seller with private information about their values. We find that the seller's sequencing strategy endogenously generates correlation in the values of the goods across periods, thereby giving the seller an incentive to impress buyers by leading with the better good. This impression effect implies that selling the better good first is the unique equilibrium in many situations, and that selling the better good last is never a unique equilibrium. Nevertheless, if the seller could commit to a sequencing strategy, revenues would often be higher from waiting to sell the better good last. Either sequencing strategy reveals the seller's ranking of the goods and thereby, due to the linkage principle, generates higher revenues than either randomly selling the goods or selling them simultaneously.sequential auction; impression effect; linkage principle; declining price anomaly

First Impressions in a Sequential Auction

Should an informed seller lead with the best or worst good in a sequential auction? Considering the sale of two stochastically equivalent goods over two periods, we show that if second period buyers can observe the first period price, the seller has an incentive to lead with the best good so as to send a positive signal about the quality of the following good. This result holds even though the goods' values are independent because the seller's sequencing strategy endogenously generates correlation in the quality of the goods across periods. In contrast, a best for last strategy may not be as credible as the seller has an incentive to then sell his better good early. We also show that ex-ante expected profits from either of these strategies is higher than a babbling strategy of randomly sequencing the sale, even when the second period buyers do not observe the first period price.We discuss implications for the choice of sequential versus simultaneous auctions, the strategic choice of auction houses, the sequential auction of items of varying expected quality, the declining price anomaly observed in auction data, and the effects of selection bias on empirical studies of privatization auctions.

Extreme Levels of Underweight and Stunting Among Pre-Adolescent Children of Low Socioeconomic Class from Madhyamgram and Barasat, West Bengal, India

A cross-sectional study on 1206 children (788 boys, 618 girls) aged 1–12 years, belonging to low socioeconomic status, of Barasat and Madhyamgram, West Bengal, India, was undertaken to investigate age and sex variations in height and weight. It also evaluated the levels of underweight and stunting among them. Anthropometric measurements included weight and height. Weight-for-age (WA) and height-for-age (HA) <–2 z-scores were used to evaluate underweight (UW) and stunting (ST), respectively, following the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Guidelines. Results showed that boys aged 4 and 11 years were significantly heavier than girls of corresponding ages. Boys aged 7 years were significantly taller than girls of the same age. Significant (p<0.001) age differences existed in mean weight and height in boys (weight: F=336.762; height: F=565.160) as well as girls (weight: F=275.320; height =498.715). Results also revealed that the mean z-scores of WA (WAZ) and HA (HAZ) were less than (negative values) those of NCHS for both sexes at all ages. The overall (age combined) rate of UW was 60.4% and 51.3%; while that of ST was 51.7% and 48.4%, in boys and girls, respectively. Based on World Health Organization classification of severity of malnutrition, the prevalence of UW and ST were very high (30%) in both sexes. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that the prevalence of UW and ST were very high among the subjects. Since the nutritional status of the subjects is not satisfactory, there is need for immediate supplementary nutrition

Family-led rehabilitation after stroke in India (ATTEND): a randomised controlled trial

Background Most people with stroke in India have no access to organised rehabilitation services. The effectiveness of training family members to provide stroke rehabilitation is uncertain. Our primary objective was to determine whether family-led stroke rehabilitation, initiated in hospital and continued at home, would be superior to usual care in a low-resource setting. Methods The Family-led Rehabilitation after Stroke in India (ATTEND) trial was a prospectively randomised open trial with blinded endpoint done across 14 hospitals in India. Patients aged 18 years or older who had had a stroke within the past month, had residual disability and reasonable expectation of survival, and who had an informal family-nominated caregiver were randomly assigned to intervention or usual care by site coordinators using a secure web-based system with minimisation by site and stroke severity. The family members of participants in the intervention group received additional structured rehabilitation training—including information provision, joint goal setting, carer training, and task-specific training—that was started in hospital and continued at home for up to 2 months. The primary outcome was death or dependency at 6 months, defined by scores 3–6 on the modified Rankin scale (range, 0 [no symptoms] to 6 [death]) as assessed by masked observers. Analyses were by intention to treat. This trial is registered with Clinical Trials Registry-India (CTRI/2013/04/003557), Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12613000078752), and Universal Trial Number (U1111-1138-6707). Findings Between Jan 13, 2014, and Feb 12, 2016, 1250 patients were randomly assigned to intervention (n=623) or control (n=627) groups. 33 patients were lost to follow-up (14 intervention, 19 control) and five patients withdrew (two intervention, three control). At 6 months, 285 (47%) of 607 patients in the intervention group and 287 (47%) of 605 controls were dead or dependent (odds ratio 0·98, 95% CI 0·78–1·23, p=0·87). 72 (12%) patients in the intervention group and 86 (14%) in the control group died (p=0·27), and we observed no difference in rehospitalisation (89 [14%]patients in the intervention group vs 82 [13%] in the control group; p=0·56). We also found no difference in total non-fatal events (112 events in 82 [13%] intervention patients vs 110 events in 79 [13%] control patients; p=0·80). Interpretation Although task shifting is an attractive solution for health-care sustainability, our results do not support investment in new stroke rehabilitation services that shift tasks to family caregivers, unless new evidence emerges. A future avenue of research should be to investigate the effects of task shifting to health-care assistants or team-based community care

Articulation of media on juvenile delinquency with special reference to India

Media plays a vital role in our society today. With the advent of mass media, including television and more recently, video and computer games, children and teenagers are exposed to increasingly higher doses of aggressive images. Media is a double-edged tool. On the one hand, it plays an important role in framing public opinion, and on the other, its character is to sensationalize issues to attract readers. But its objective should be clear; that is, to reform a juvenile and not to penalize him or her.&nbsp; The article depicts the media's influence on juvenile delinquency and the tendency for delinquency. Several media reports show the cases of juvenile delinquency, with special reference to India

The first phase of clean India mission: A step towards new India: With the reference of selected Indian newspapers

Clean India's mission is the world’s largest toilet-building and behavioral change initiative. The Mission is the world’s largest toilet-building and behavioral change initiative. Media’s role is to inform, educate, and entertain; so mass media make nationwide campaigns to open the eyes of poor, backward-class people; and also want to enlighten the open-minded ideas into rigid superstitious people. Most of all third-world countries are facing a big problem of access to safe and healthy sanitation. Media can spread the message of safe and hygienic sanitation for all the citizens. The Clean India movement will fulfill the dream and vision of Mahatma Gandhiji to make a ‘Swachha Bharat’ for all Indians in a real sense

Green journalism and global environment: A statistical analysis on impact of news coverage in environmental issues

The study aims to determine, that, media coverage is important to influence people for environmental awareness and taking action in the cases of environmental protection. Primary data analysis has done for graphical representation of data. Research shows that, a large number of respondents agreed that, media coverage can generate awareness to environmental issues and disaster management. So, from the statistical analysis, we can say that green journalism and &nbsp;environmental Journalists, as well as mass media are playing a vital role to protect the environment. Media has uncommon occasions to gain the societies and policy makers the value of biodiversity in giving financial and ecological services and thereby promote its conservation, sustainable use and impartial sharing of benefits

Ordinal Cheap Talk in Common Value Auctions

Sellers benefit on average from revealing information about their goods to buyers, but the incentive to exaggerate undermines the credibility of seller statements. When multiple goods are being auctioned, we show that ordinal cheap talk, which reveals a complete or partial ordering of the different goods by value, can be credible. Ordinal statements are not susceptible to exaggeration because they simultaneously reveal favorable information about some goods and unfavorable information about other goods. Any informative ordering increases revenues in accordance with the linkage principle, and the complete ordering is asymptotically revenue-equivalent to full revelation as the number of goods becomes large. These results provide a new explanation in addition to bundling, versioning, and complementarities for how a seller benefits from the sale of multiple goods.linkage principle; winner's curse; cheap talk