Probability: modeling and applications to random processes

This is a review of the book "Probability: Modeling and Applications to Random Processes" by Gregory K. Miller

Do Professional Traders Exhibit Myopic Loss Aversion? An Experimental Analysis

Two behavioral concepts, loss aversion and mental accounting, have been combined to provide a theoretical explanation of the equity premium puzzle. Recent experimental evidence supports the theory, as students-behavior has been found to be consistent with myopic loss aversion (MLA). Yet, much like certain anomalies in the realm of riskless decision-making, these behavioral tendencies may be attenuated among professionals. Using traders recruited from the CBOT, we do indeed find behavioral differences between professionals and students, but rather than discovering that the anomaly is muted, we find that traders exhibit behavior consistent with MLA to a greater extent than students.

A simple test of expected utility theory using professional traders

We compare behavior across students and professional traders from the Chicago Board of Trade in a classic Allais paradox experiment. Our experiment tests whether independence, a necessary condition in expected utility theory, is systematically violated. We find that both students and professionals exhibit some behavior consistent with the Allais paradox, but the data pattern does suggest that the trader population falls prey to the Allais paradox less frequently than the student population.Allais paradox, experiments, futures traders

Industrial relations: will they survive the Labour Relations Act 1987?

To venture predictions in the Held of industrial relations is unwise. Many if not most predictions will be wrong, and these tend to be remembered by industrial law commentators. Having said that it is the writer's view that the heyday of the use of unjunctions in industrial law has been and gone. Their future use is likely to be considerably reduced. To support th1s proposition. a brief examination of the use of interim injunctions in industrial law is necessary

The Place of Research Paradigms in SoTL Practice: An Inquiry

Research paradigms constitute views that a researcher holds about (a) the nature of reality and what they can know about it (that is, ontology); (b) the potential influence of their existing ideas and values on what they want to know, how they try to get to know, and criteria they use to make judgments about knowledge (epistemology); and (c) appropriate strategies for developing and evaluating knowledge (methodology). These views may influence their conception, design, implementation, and accounts of research projects. Critical self-reflection (reflexivity) is required to recognize these views and articulate their implications for projects. As scholars of teaching and learning, we attend explicitly to these views and their implications for our projects. However, our observation of  practice in the field of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) in general, as documented in publications, indicates that while some colleagues attend to such views and implications, others do not. This observation prompted us to explore the extent to which journal-based accounts of SoTL projects refer to paradigm-related views and possible explanations for the attention that their authors do, or do not, give to this consideration. Explanations proposed include conceptions of SoTL, journal author guidelines and review criteria, and properties of the concept of a paradigm. Recommendations for educating new SoTL practitioners about research paradigms and their possible relevance to SoTL, based on our inquiry, are also presented

Hybrid Organizations as Shape-Shifters: Altering Legal Structure for Strategic Gain

Social entrepreneurs navigate a complex landscape of legal structures in which they need to select among for-profit, nonprofit, and mixed-entity structures. This study of 48 hybrid organizations identifies why social entrepreneurs chose one legal structure over another and explains what motivates half of them to change their legal structure as they build their enterprise. It highlights the critical desire for flexibility among social entrepreneurs, discusses the implications that changes to legal structure may have for companies and hybrids in partnerships, and explores how companies can leverage hybrid structures to go beyond their current scope of CSR initiatives

Investment under Uncertainty: Testing the Options Model with Professional Traders

An important class of investment decisions is characterized by unrecoverable sunk costs, resolution of uncertainty through time, and the ability to invest in the future as an alternative to investing today. The options model provides guidance in such settings, including an investment decision rule called the “bad news principle”: the downside investment state influences the investment decision whereas the upside investment state is ignored. This study takes a new approach to examining predictions of the options model by using the tools of experimental economics. Our evidence, which is drawn from student and professional trader subject pools, is broadly consonant with the options model.