The Affective Impact of Financial Skewness on Neural Activity and Choice

Few finance theories consider the influence of “skewness” (or large and asymmetric but unlikely outcomes) on financial choice. We investigated the impact of skewed gambles on subjects' neural activity, self-reported affective responses, and subsequent preferences using functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI). Neurally, skewed gambles elicited more anterior insula activation than symmetric gambles equated for expected value and variance, and positively skewed gambles also specifically elicited more nucleus accumbens (NAcc) activation than negatively skewed gambles. Affectively, positively skewed gambles elicited more positive arousal and negatively skewed gambles elicited more negative arousal than symmetric gambles equated for expected value and variance. Subjects also preferred positively skewed gambles more, but negatively skewed gambles less than symmetric gambles of equal expected value. Individual differences in both NAcc activity and positive arousal predicted preferences for positively skewed gambles. These findings support an anticipatory affect account in which statistical properties of gambles—including skewness—can influence neural activity, affective responses, and ultimately, choice

Genetic Determinants of Financial Risk Taking

Individuals vary in their willingness to take financial risks. Here we show that variants of two genes that regulate dopamine and serotonin neurotransmission and have been previously linked to emotional behavior, anxiety and addiction (5-HTTLPR and DRD4) are significant determinants of risk taking in investment decisions. We find that the 5-HTTLPR s/s allele carriers take 28% less risk than those carrying the s/l or l/l alleles of the gene. DRD4 7-repeat allele carriers take 25% more risk than individuals without the 7-repeat allele. These findings contribute to the emerging literature on the genetic determinants of economic behavior

Tenosynovial giant cell tumors as accidental findings after episodes of distortion of the ankle: two case reports

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Tenosynovial giant cell tumors are benign tumors of uncertain pathogenesis. They occur in the joints, tendons and synovial bursas. Due to a high recurrence rate of up to 50%, some authors call a giant cell tumor a semimalignant tumor. To date, less than 10 cases of tenosynovial giant cell tumor of the ankle have been published in the international medical literature.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>In this case report, we present two patients with localized tumors that were detected accidentally after the occurrence of ankle sprains with persisting pain in the joint. The tumors were resected by open marginal surgery and regular follow-up examinations were carried out.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We present an unusual occurrence of a tumor along with a possible follow-up strategy, which has not been previously discussed in the international literature.</p

Gain and Loss Learning Differentially Contribute to Life Financial Outcomes

Emerging findings imply that distinct neurobehavioral systems process gains and losses. This study investigated whether individual differences in gain learning and loss learning might contribute to different life financial outcomes (i.e., assets versus debt). In a community sample of healthy adults (n = 75), rapid learners had smaller debt-to-asset ratios overall. More specific analyses, however, revealed that those who learned rapidly about gains had more assets, while those who learned rapidly about losses had less debt. These distinct associations remained strong even after controlling for potential cognitive (e.g., intelligence, memory, and risk preferences) and socioeconomic (e.g., age, sex, ethnicity, income, education) confounds. Self-reported measures of assets and debt were additionally validated with credit report data in a subset of subjects. These findings support the notion that different gain and loss learning systems may exert a cumulative influence on distinct life financial outcomes

Genetic variability for carotenoid content of grains in a composite maize population

Local maize (Zea mays L.) varieties are cultivated by small-scale farmers in western Santa Catarina (SC) State, in southern Brazil. These small areas frequently present many problems related to biotic and non-biotic stresses, which have limited the economic output and income of the farmers. Production from local varieties for human consumption would be an alternative way of improving income and stimulating on farm conservation. The genetic variability of the total carotenoid content (TCC) of kernels in a local maize population was evaluated for their economic exploitation potential as biofortified food. Two independent samples of 96 half-sib families (HSF) plus four checks were evaluated in two groups of experiments in western SC and each one was carried out in two environments. They were set out in a 10 × 10 partially balanced lattice with three replications per location; plots consisted of one row, 5.0 m long with 1.0 m between rows. TCC ranged from 11 to 23 µg g-1, averaging ≈16 µg g-1 in the pooled analysis over the two sets. The local composite population exhibited genetic variability in order to increase the TCC of grains in the second cycle of selection by the convergent-divergent scheme

How robust is the optimistic update bias for estimating self-risk and population base rates?

Humans hold unrealistically optimistic predictions of what their future holds. These predictions are generated and maintained as people update their beliefs more readily when receiving information that calls for adjustment in an optimistic direction relative to information that calls for adjustment in a pessimistic direction. Thus far this update bias has been shown when people make estimations regarding the self. Here, we examine whether asymmetric belief updating also exists when making estimations regarding population base rates. We reveal that while participants update beliefs regarding risk in the population in an asymmetric manner, such valence-dependent updating of base rates can be accounted for by priors. In contrast, we show that optimistic updating regarding the self is a robust phenomenon, which holds even under different empirical definitions of desirable information

CEO Compensation

This paper surveys the recent literature on CEO compensation. The rapid rise in CEO pay over the past 30 years has sparked an intense debate about the nature of the pay-setting process. Many view the high level of CEO compensation as the result of powerful managers setting their own pay. Others interpret high pay as the result of optimal contracting in a competitive market for managerial talent. We describe and discuss the empirical evidence on the evolution of CEO pay and on the relationship between pay and firm performance since the 1930s. Our review suggests that both managerial power and competitive market forces are important determinants of CEO pay, but that neither approach is fully consistent with the available evidence. We briefly discuss promising directions for future research

Limbic Justice—Amygdala Involvement in Immediate Rejection in the Ultimatum Game

Imaging studies have revealed a putative neural account of emotional bias in decision making. However, it has been difficult in previous studies to identify the causal role of the different sub-regions involved in decision making. The Ultimatum Game (UG) is a game to study the punishment of norm-violating behavior. In a previous influential paper on UG it was suggested that frontal insular cortex has a pivotal role in the rejection response. This view has not been reconciled with a vast literature that attributes a crucial role in emotional decision making to a subcortical structure (i.e., amygdala). In this study we propose an anatomy-informed model that may join these views. We also present a design that detects the functional anatomical response to unfair proposals in a subcortical network that mediates rapid reactive responses. We used a functional MRI paradigm to study the early components of decision making and challenged our paradigm with the introduction of a pharmacological intervention to perturb the elicited behavioral and neural response. Benzodiazepine treatment decreased the rejection rate (from 37.6% to 19.0%) concomitantly with a diminished amygdala response to unfair proposals, and this in spite of an unchanged feeling of unfairness and unchanged insular response. In the control group, rejection was directly linked to an increase in amygdala activity. These results allow a functional anatomical detection of the early neural components of rejection associated with the initial reactive emotional response. Thus, the act of immediate rejection seems to be mediated by the limbic system and is not solely driven by cortical processes, as previously suggested. Our results also prompt an ethical discussion as we demonstrated that a commonly used drug influences core functions in the human brain that underlie individual autonomy and economic decision making

Differential effects of insular and ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions on risky decision-making

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and insular cortex are implicated in distributed neural circuitry that supports emotional decision-making. Previous studies of patients with vmPFC lesions have focused primarily on decision-making under uncertainty, when outcome probabilities are ambiguous (e.g. the Iowa Gambling Task). It remains unclear whether vmPFC is also necessary for decision-making under risk, when outcome probabilities are explicit. It is not known whether the effect of insular damage is analogous to the effect of vmPFC damage, or whether these regions contribute differentially to choice behaviour. Four groups of participants were compared on the Cambridge Gamble Task, a well-characterized measure of risky decision-making where outcome probabilities are presented explicitly, thus minimizing additional learning and working memory demands. Patients with focal, stable lesions to the vmPFC (n = 20) and the insular cortex (n = 13) were compared against healthy subjects (n = 41) and a group of lesion controls (n = 12) with damage predominantly affecting the dorsal and lateral frontal cortex. The vmPFC and insular cortex patients showed selective and distinctive disruptions of betting behaviour. VmPFC damage was associated with increased betting regardless of the odds of winning, consistent with a role of vmPFC in biasing healthy individuals towards conservative options under risk. In contrast, patients with insular cortex lesions failed to adjust their bets by the odds of winning, consistent with a role of the insular cortex in signalling the probability of aversive outcomes. The insular group attained a lower point score on the task and experienced more ‘bankruptcies’. There were no group differences in probability judgement. These data confirm the necessary role of the vmPFC and insular regions in decision-making under risk. Poor decision-making in clinical populations can arise via multiple routes, with functionally dissociable effects of vmPFC and insular cortex damage

An open-source database for the synthesis of soil radiocarbon data: International Soil Radiocarbon Database (ISRaD) version 1.0

Radiocarbon is a critical constraint on our estimates of the timescales of soil carbon cycling that can aid in identifying mechanisms of carbon stabilization and destabilization and improve the forecast of soil carbon response to management or environmental change. Despite the wealth of soil radiocarbon data that have been reported over the past 75 years, the ability to apply these data to global-scale questions is limited by our capacity to synthesize and compare measurements generated using a variety of methods. Here, we present the International Soil Radiocarbon Database (ISRaD; http://soilradiocarbon.org, last access: 16 December 2019), an open-source archive of soil data that include reported measurements from bulk soils, distinct soil carbon pools isolated in the laboratory by a variety of soil fractionation methods, samples of soil gas or water collected interstitially from within an intact soil profile, CO2 gas isolated from laboratory soil incubations, and fluxes collected in situ from a soil profile. The core of ISRaD is a relational database structured around individual datasets (entries) and organized hierarchically to report soil radiocarbon data, measured at different physical and temporal scales as well as other soil or environmental properties that may also be measured and may assist with interpretation and context. Anyone may contribute their own data to the database by entering it into the ISRaD template and subjecting it to quality assurance protocols. ISRaD can be accessed through (1) a web-based interface, (2) an R package (ISRaD), or (3) direct access to code and data through the GitHub repository, which hosts both code and data. The design of ISRaD allows for participants to become directly involved in the management, design, and application of ISRaD data. The synthesized dataset is available in two forms: the original data as reported by the authors of the datasets and an enhanced dataset that includes ancillary geospatial data calculated within the ISRaD framework. ISRaD also provides data management tools in the ISRaD-R package that provide a starting point for data analysis; as an open-source project, the broader soil community is invited and encouraged to add data, tools, and ideas for improvement. As a whole, ISRaD provides resources to aid our evaluation of soil dynamics across a range of spatial and temporal scales. The ISRaD v1.0 dataset is archived and freely available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2613911 (Lawrence et al., 2019).Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry; European Research CouncilEuropean Research Council (ERC) [695101]; USGS Land Change Science mission area; US Department of AgricultureUnited States Department of Agriculture (USDA) [2018-67003-27935]; US Geological Survey Powell Center for the working group on Soil Carbon Storage and FeedbacksOpen access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]