Peer Effects in the Workplace: Evidence from Random Groupings in Professional Golf Tournaments

This paper uses the random assignment of playing partners in professional golf tournaments to test for peer effects in the workplace. We find no evidence that the ability of playing partners affects the performance of professional golfers, contrary to recent evidence on peer effects in the workplace from laboratory experiments, grocery scanners, and soft-fruit pickers. In our preferred specification, we can rule out peer effects larger than 0.045 strokes for a one stroke increase in playing partners' ability, and the point estimates are small and actually negative. We offer several explanations for our contrasting findings: that workers seek to avoid responding to social incentives when financial incentives are strong; that there is heterogeneity in how susceptible individuals are to social effects and that those who are able to avoid them are more likely to advance to elite professional labor markets; and that workers learn with professional experience not to be affected by social forces. We view our results as complementary to the existing studies of peer effects in the workplace and as a first step towards explaining how these social effects vary across labor markets, across individuals and with changes in the form of incentives faced. In addition to the empirical results on peer effects in the workplace, we also point out that many typical peer effects regressions are biased because individuals cannot be their own peers, and suggest a simple correction.

“I been hungrier than this”: Food Finances in Slaughterhouse-Five

This project investigates the role of food in a canonical American novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, ultimately concluding that food is used as currency and a display of power over those without food

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion: (OTEC) Outlook for the Future

The temperature differential between the tropical ocean surface and deep waters represents tremendous energy potential. Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) systems represent an environmentally sound method to extract that energy resource. Included in this paper is a review of the history of OTEC, basic thermodynamic principles involved and major components of the system. The three basic types of OTEC systems are discussed, citing the various advantages and disadvantages of each. The resource extent and possible environmental impacts are examined from the U. S. perspective. After reviewing the conflicting ocean use interest involved, comparative cost calculations of energy types, and the secondary benefits of plants, projections for the future of OTEC facilities are given

Should Unemployment Insurance Vary With the Unemployment Rate? Theory and Evidence

We study how the level of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits that trades off the consumption smoothing benefit with the moral hazard cost of distorting job search behavior varies over the business cycle. Empirically, we find that the moral hazard cost is procyclical, greater when the unemployment rate is relatively low. By contrast, our evidence suggests that the consumption smoothing benefit of UI is acyclical. Using these estimates to calibrate our model, we find that a one standard deviation increase in the unemployment rate leads to a roughly 14 to 27 percentage point increase in the welfare-maximizing wage replacement rate.

CHARACTERIZATION, DISTRIBUTION, AND EVOLUTIONARY ACQUISITION OF ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE ELEMENTS AMONG DIVERSE SALMONELLA SUBSPECIES

Insights into the evolution of antimicrobial resistance can be gleaned by examination of historical strains of Salmonella collected from a variety of locations, time periods, and sources. Here, the Salmonella Reference Collections were utilized to gain evidence into the distribution, prevalence, and reticulate nature of antimicrobial resistance from strains that represent the collective genetic diversity of Salmonella. Of the 141 strains examined, 25.5% were fully or intermediately resistant to one or more agents. Resistance to the older antimicrobials sulfisoxazole and streptomycin were more common than resistance to newer antimicrobials, with 15.6% and 14.2% of strains resistant, respectively. No strains presented with resistance to newer drugs--ciprofloxacin, cefoxitin, and ceftiofur specifically. Of particular importance was the identification of a correlation between strains isolated from food animal sources and the presence of resistance to streptomycin and kanamycin, as food animals have been implicated in the transfer of resistance elements through the food chain. Increased incidences of resistance were identified in serotypes Saintpaul, Heidelberg, and Typhimurium. Integrons, a major contributor to the horizontal transfer of resistance genes, were identified in 9.93% of strains and the most commonly harbored gene was aadA1, conferring resistance to streptomycin. Identification of exogenous genes responsible for the observed phenotypes revealed that 73.1% of resistant phenotypes could be accounted for by the presence of such an element. Analysis of horizontal gene transfer among the regulatory mar, ram and sox operon regions, which have been implicated in the development of multi-drug resistance via increased cellular efflux, revealed that recombination helped to maintain a handful of presumably beneficial alleles across subspecies I S. enterica. Diversification was particularly limited in the sox operon and in the global regulatory genes, as opposed to local regulators. Such lack of diversity speaks to the requirement for proper functioning of many processes in the cell. Retention of some clonality was seen in the closely-related SARA strains, with assortment of alleles more obvious across the more diverse SARB strains. Supported by evidence gathered here is the importance of horizontal gene transfer in evolution of selective benefits harbored by bacterial pathogens, in particular, S. enterica

The effects of urban density on the provision of multiple health related ecosystem services

North American cities are currently expanding at an unprecedented rate. Rapid growth in urban development has sparked debate about how to grow cities in a way that minimizes environmental impact and provides ecological benefits to people. Part of this conversation has involved the idea that urban areas should be densely built, so as to minimize their environmental impact, and promote sustainable development goals. However, there is minimal research available on whether there may be a point at which urban areas become too dense for ecosystem service provision (the provision of benefits to humans by nature). Our research explores the relationship between urban density and ecosystem service provision by measuring indicators of health related ecosystem services (temperature regulation, air pollution regulation, and green space accessibility) at 250 study sites in Montreal across a range of building densities (ranging from 0-100%) and population densities (number of households). Using data derived from Landsat-8 and SENTINEL 5P images as well as GIS based analyses, this study addresses the questions: 1) How does building density and its associated landscape features affect multiple health-based ecosystem service indicators? And 2) Is population density related to the provision of ecosystem services at the scale of investigation once building density is accounted for? Results indicate that higher building densities lead to decreases in temperature regulation, but do not impact air quality regulation. High population density sites tend to be more exposed to high temperatures, but are not more exposed to high levels of air pollution. We did not find a statistically significant relationship between household density and distance to public green space, and although marginally significant, the relationship between building density and distance to public green space was weak. Area of private green space per household is negatively correlated with both building density and population density. These results indicate that while some ecosystem services are unaffected by densification, maintenance of multiple services may require creative solutions at the interface of ecology, planning and design

Identification of dispersion and attenuation curves of thin non-prismatic heterogeneous viscoelastic rods

SGS-2022-008, GA 22-00863