Surveying the solar system by measuring angles and times: from the solar density to the gravitational constant

A surprisingly large amount of information on our solar system can be gained from simple measurements of the apparent angular diameters of the sun and the moon. This information includes the average density of the sun, the distance between earth and moon, the radius of the moon, and the gravitational constant. In this note it is described how these and other quantities can be obtained by simple earthbound measurements of angles and times only, without using any explicit information on distances between celestial bodies. The pedagogical and historical aspects of these results are also discussed briefly.Comment: 12 pges, one figur

An Analysis of Private School Closings

We add to the small literature on private school supply by exploring exits of K-12 private schools. We find that the closure of private schools is not an infrequent event, and use national survey data from the National Center for Education Statistics to study closures of private schools. We assume that the probability of an exit is a function of excess supply of private schools over the demand, as well as the school's characteristics such as age, size, and religious affiliation. Our empirical results generally support the implications of the model. Working Paper 07-0

Risk Tolerance, Self-Interest, and Social Preferences

We use an experimental method to investigate whether systematic relationships exist across distinct aspects of individual preferences: risk aversion in monetary outcomes, altruism in a twoperson context, and social preferences in a larger group context. Individual preferences across these three contexts are measured, and there is no possibility for risk sharing, wealth effects, or updating expectations of the population choices. We find that social preferences are related to demographic variables, including years of education, gender, and age. Perhaps most importantly, self allocation in a two-person dictator game is related to social preferences in a group context. Participants who are more generous in a dictator game are more likely to vote against their selfinterest in a group decision-making task which we interpret to be expressions of social preferences

Community-level impacts of the third sector: Does the local distribution of voluntary organizations influence the likelihood of volunteering?

Scholars have attributed various beneficial outcomes to the presence and density of the voluntary, third or non-profit sector in communities. One way in which the distribution of such organizations may benefit communities is through providing opportunities for volunteering. We hypothesize that the distribution of third-sector organizations has an influence, after controlling for relevant individual and area characteristics, on the likelihood of engaging in formal volunteering (defined as unpaid help given through, and to, third-sector organizations, rather than directly to individuals). Using administrative data from the Charity Commission, we classify organizations in terms of their geographical scale of operation. We then construct indicators of the distribution of charities, and their expenditures, for local authorities in England. We obtain data on volunteering by individuals from the Citizenship Survey and link this to administrative data contained in the Charity Commission register on the distribution of charities. We find that there is a positive relationship between the numbers of charities operating locally and the likelihood of volunteering. Other measures, however, including the distribution of charities operating either regionally or nationally, have no statistically significant effects. We find no relationship between a measure of the size of charities (the median expenditures of charities within local authorities) and the likelihood of volunteering. These findings are relevant beyond the UK to debates about the understanding of variations in voluntary action, and to discussions about the impact of the third sector upon communities

Performance Standards and Employee Effort: Evidence from Teacher Absences

The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) increased accountability pressure in U.S. public schools by threatening to impose sanctions on Title 1 schools that failed to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) in consecutive years. Difference-in-difference estimates of the effect of failing AYP in the first year of NCLB on teacher effort in the subsequent year suggest that, on average, teacher absences in North Carolina fell by about 10 percent, and the probability of being absent 15 or more times fell by about 30 percent. Reductions in teacher absences were driven by within-teacher increases in effort and were larger among more effective teachers

Number preferences in lotteries

We explore people's preferences for numbers in large proprietary data sets from two different lottery games. We find that choice is far from uniform, and exhibits some familiar and some new tendencies and biases. Players favor personally meaningful and situationally available numbers, and are attracted towards numbers in the center of the choice form. Frequent players avoid winning numbers from recent draws, whereas infrequent players chase these. Combinations of numbers are formed with an eye for aesthetics, and players tend to spread their numbers relatively evenly across the possible range