Study on the impact of regulation (EC) No 1/2005 on the protec-tion of animals during transport

The objective of the findings of an evaluation of Regulation (EC) 1/2005 was to provide a detailed assessment of the implementation of the Regulation (EC) and its impact on the animals being transported and on operators, with special reference to trade flows, navigation systems and the socio‐economic and regional implications

New Insights into Behavioral Finance

This thesis applies insights from psychology and other behavioral sciences to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional finance approach (which assumes that agents and markets are rational) and improves our understanding of financial markets and its participants. More specific, this thesis provides important new insights into the preferences of investors, their investment decisions, and the behavior of financial markets. The results show that people dislike downside risk and employ decision-making patterns that may result in risk-taking behavior of which they are not aware, or in which they normally would not engage, and that can result in non-optimal behavior. More specific, people behave 'non-optimal' by changing their behavior in response to previous outcomes and by letting their preferences depend heavily on the other outcomes that are or were available, even when hundred thousands of euros are at stake. Moreover, people tend to use simplifying heuri! stics to construct their investment portfolios by focusing on the outcomes of the individual assets available instead of their total investment portfolio. Furthermore, this thesis shows that incorporating behavioral-based preference patterns has substantial influence on investorâ?Ts optimal behavior in financial markets. More specific, the value premium (the empirical finding that stocks with an high measure of book value relative to market value earn higher returns than stocks with a low measure) is nearly absent for investors with an substantial fixed income exposure, an annual evaluation horizon and an aversion to losses

Deal or No Deal? Decision-making under Risk in a Large-payoff Game Show

The popular television game show deal or No Deal offers a unique opportunity for analyzing decision making under risk: it involves very large stakes, simple take-or-leave decisions that require minimal skill or strategy and near-certainty about the probability distribution. Based on a panel data set of the choices of contestants in all game rounds of 53 episodes from Australia and the Netherlands, we find an average Pratt-Arrow relative risk aversion (RRA) between roughly 1 and 2 for initial wealth levels between 0 and 50,000. The RRA differs substantially across the contestants and some even exhibit risk seeking behavior. The cross-sectional differences in RRA can be explained in large part by the previous outcomes experienced by the contestants during the game. Most notably, consistent with the break-even effect,the RRA strongly decreases following earlier losses and risk seeking arises after large losses.To be published in American Economic Revie

Random incentive systems in a dynamic choice experiment

Experiments frequently use a random incentive system (RIS), where only tasks that are randomly selected at the end of the experiment are for real. The most common type pays every subject one out of her multiple tasks (within-subjects randomization). Recently, another type has become popular, where a subset of subjects is randomly selected, and only these subjects receive one real payment (between-subjects randomization). In earlier tests with simple, static tasks, RISs performed well. The present study investigates RISs in a more complex, dynamic choice experiment. We find that between-subjects randomization reduces risk aversion. While within-subjects randomization delivers unbiased measurements of risk aversion, it does not eliminate carry-over effects from previous tasks. Both types generate an increase in subjects' error rates. These results suggest that caution is warranted when applying RISs to more complex and dynamic tasks

A Parallel Monte-Carlo Tree Search-Based Metaheuristic For Optimal Fleet Composition Considering Vehicle Routing Using Branch & Bound

In this paper, a Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS)-based metaheuristic is developed that guides a Branch & Bound (B&B) algorithm to find the globally optimal solution to the heterogeneous fleet composition problem while considering vehicle routing. Fleet Size and Mix Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (FSMVRPTW). The metaheuristic and exact algorithms are implemented in a parallel hybrid optimization algorithm where the metaheuristic rapidly finds feasible solutions that provide candidate upper bounds for the B&B algorithm which runs simultaneously. The MCTS additionally provides a candidate fleet composition to initiate the B&B search. Experiments show that the proposed approach results in significant improvements in computation time and convergence to the optimal solution.Comment: Submitted to the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium 202

Brain Processes Underlying the Influence of Prior Gains and Losses on Decisions Under Risk

The risk attitudes of consumers generally depend on previous outcomes. Here we study behavioral changes and differential brain activations related to prior relative gains and losses. Subjects showed decreased risk aversion after both relative gains and losses. Neuroimaging results revealed that relative gains and losses are processed similarly to actual gains and losses, indicated by ventral striatum and medial prefrontal cortex activity. During subsequent choices, however, insular cortex and right inferior frontal gyrus showed differential activation depending on the prior experience. Activity in these neural regions, related to emotion and control, also correlated with the magnitude of observed behavioral changes

Cost-Effectiveness and Resource Allocation (CERA) – directions for the future

The journal Cost-Effectiveness and Resource Allocation (CERA) is now in its seventh year, and is an excellent example of how open access publishing can improve dissemination. Now the journal is through its infancy, it is time to reflect on its orientation and to define the strategy for the years to come. Firstly, the journal will pay particular attention to stimulating and publishing studies originating from low- and middle-income countries. Second, CERA will continue to solicit contributions originating from high-income countries, but with the caveat that such studies should be of interest to the broad international readership of the journal. Third, the journal encourages submissions on methodological work from any setting, that is generalisable between low-, middle-, and high income countries. Fourth, CERA recognizes the development of national health accounts and expenditure tracking as a first step to improved resource allocation, and solicit manuscripts of this nature. Finally, CERA recognizes that cost and cost-effectiveness analysis alone may not provide sufficient information to decision makers to guide their choices on the allocation of resources, and therefore encourages submission of studies that advance the broader field of priority-setting

When Equity Factors Drop Their Shorts

Although factor premiums originate in both long and short legs of factor portfolios, we found that (1) most added value comes from the long legs, (2) the long legs offer more diversification than the short legs, and (3) the performance of the short legs is generally subsumed by that of the long legs. These results are robust over size, time, and markets and cannot be attributed to differences in tail risk. We also found that the claim that the value and low-risk factors are subsumed by the new (post-2015) Fama–French factors does not hold for the long legs of these factors.Disclosure: The authors disclose that they are employed by Robeco, a firm that offers various investment products. The construction of these products may, at times, draw on insights related to this research. No other person or party at Robeco except the authors had the right to review this article prior to its circulation. The views and results presented in this article were not driven by the views o

Priority setting for universal health coverage: We need evidence-informed deliberative processes, not just more evidence on cost-effectiveness

Priority setting of health interventions is generally considered as a valuable approach to support low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in their strive for universal health coverage (UHC). However, present initiatives on priority setting are mainly geared towards the development of more cost-effectiveness information, and this evidence does not sufficiently support countries to make optimal choices. The reason is that priority setting is in reality a value-laden political process in which multiple criteria beyond cost-effectiveness are important, and stakeholders often justifiably disagree about the relative importance of these criteria. Here, we propose the use of ‘evidence-informed deliberative processes’ as an approach that does explicitly recognise priority setting as a political process and an intrinsically complex task. In these processes, deliberation between stakeholders is crucial to identify, reflect and learn about the meaning and importance of values, informed by evidence on these values. Such processes then result in the use of a broader range of explicit criteria that can be seen as the product of both international learning (‘core’ criteria, which include eg, cost-effectiveness, priority to the worse off, and financial protection) and learning among local stakeholders (‘contextual’ criteria). We believe that, with these evidence-informed deliberative processes in place, priority setting can provide a more meaningful contribution to achieving UHC