Ambiguity Attitudes and Social Interactions: An Experimental Investigation

This paper reports the results of experiments designed to test (a) whether and to what extent individuals display non-neutral ambiguity attitudes in their choice behavior and (b) if and how do ambiguity attitudes change as a result of interpersonal interactions and persuasion. To address the first question we designed and conducted experiments involving individual choice between betting on ambiguous and unambiguous events of their choice. We found that a large majority of subjects display ambiguity-neutral attitudes, many others display ambiguity-incoherent attitudes, and few subjects display either ambiguity-averse attitudes or ambiguity-seeking attitudes. To address the second question we introduced a new experimental design with a built-in incentive to persuade. We found that interpersonal interactions without incentive to persuade have no effect on behavior, but when incentives were introduced, the ambiguity-neutral subjects were better able to persuade ambiguity seeking and ambiguity-incoherent subjects to follow ambiguity-neutral choice behavior. No such influence was detected with respect to ambiguity-neutral subjects.

Higher-order perturbation solutions to dynamic, discrete-time rational expectations models

We present an algorithm and software routines for computing nth order Taylor series approximate solutions to dynamic, discrete-time rational expectations models around a nonstochastic steady state. The primary advantage of higher-order (as opposed to first- or second-order) approximations is that they are valid not just locally, but often globally (i.e., over nonlocal, possibly very large compact sets) in a rigorous sense that we specify. We apply our routines to compute first- through seventh-order approximate solutions to two standard macroeconomic models, a stochastic growth model and a life-cycle consumption model, and discuss the quality and global properties of these solutions.Macroeconomics - Econometric models ; Business cycles ; Monetary policy

Ambiguity attitudes: An experimental investigation

This paper reports the results of experiments designed to test (a) whether and to what extent individuals display non-neutral ambiguity attitudes in their choice behavior and (b) if and how do ambiguity attitudes change as a result of interpersonal interactions and persuasion. To address the first question we designed and conducted experiments involving individual choice between betting on ambiguous and unambiguous events of their choice. We found that a large majority of subjects display ambiguity-neutral attitudes, many others display ambiguity-incoherent attitudes, and few subjects display either ambiguity-averse attitudes or ambiguity-seeking attitudes. To address the second question we introduced a new experimental design with a built-in incentive to persuade. We found that interpersonal interactions without incentive to persuade have no effect on behavior, but when incentives were introduced, the ambiguity-neutral subjects were better able to persuade ambiguity seeking and ambiguity-incoherent subjects to follow ambiguity-neutral choice behavior. No such influence was detected with respect to ambiguity-neutral subjects

Ariel - Volume 12(13) Number 4

Co-Editors Gary Fishbein Lynn Solomon Business Manager Rich Davis Assistant Business Manager Jeff Lavanier Layout Editors Paul J. Berlin Tracy A. Glauser Photography Editor Ben Alma

DOI 10.1007/s11166-012-9157-1 Ambiguity attitudes and social interactions: An

Abstract This paper reports the results of experiments testing prevalence of nonneutral ambiguity attitudes and how these attitudes change as a result of interpersonal interactions. To address the first question we conducted experiments involving individual choice between betting on ambiguous and unambiguous events of the subject’s choice. We found that a large majority of subjects display ambiguity neutral attitudes, many others display ambiguity incoherent attitudes, and few subjects display either ambiguity-averse attitudes or ambiguity-seeking attitudes. To address the second question we designed a new experiment with a built-in incentive to persuade. We found that interpersonal interactions without incentives to persuade have no effect on behavior. However, when incentives were introduced, the ambiguity neutral subjects were better able to persuade ambiguity seeking and ambiguity incoherent subjects to adopt ambiguity neutral choice behavior and, to a lesser extent, also ambiguity averse subjects. We are grateful to Stefan Trautmann, Peter Duersch, Luca Rigotti and an anonymous referee for their useful comments. We also benefited from comments and suggestions of the participants of the conference on “Ambiguity: Theory and Experiments, ” at the Center for the Economic Analysi

Hypervelocity Planets and Transits Around Hypervelocity Stars

The disruption of a binary star system by the massive black hole at the Galactic Centre, SgrA*, can lead to the capture of one star around SgrA* and the ejection of its companion as a hypervelocity star (HVS). We consider the possibility that these stars may have planets and study the dynamics of these planets. Using a direct $N$-body integration code, we simulated a large number of different binary orbits around SgrA*. For some orbital parameters, a planet is ejected at a high speed. In other instances, a HVS is ejected with one or more planets orbiting around it. In these cases, it may be possible to observe the planet as it transits the face of the star. A planet may also collide with its host star. In such cases the atmosphere of the star will be enriched with metals. In other cases, a planet is tidally disrupted by SgrA*, leading to a bright flare.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA

Formin is associated with left-right asymmetry in the pond snail and the frog

While components of the pathway that establishes left-right asymmetry have been identified in diverse animals, from vertebrates to flies, it is striking that the genes involved in the first symmetry-breaking step remain wholly unknown in the most obviously chiral animals, the gastropod snails. Previously, research on snails was used to show that left-right signalling of Nodal, downstream of symmetry-breaking, may be an ancestral feature of the Bilateria. Here we report that a disabling mutation in one copy of a tandemly duplicated, diaphanous-related formin is perfectly associated with symmetry-breaking in the pond snail. This is supported by the observation that an anti-formin drug treatment converts dextral snail embryos to a sinistral phenocopy, and in frogs, drug inhibition or over-expression by microinjection of formin has a chirality-randomizing effect in early (pre-cilia) embryos. Contrary to expectations based on existing models, we discovered asymmetric gene expression in 2 and 4 cell snail embryos, preceding morphological asymmetry. As the formin-actin filament has been shown to be part of an asymmetry-breaking switch in vitro, together these results are consistent with the view that animals with diverse bodyplans may derive their asymmetries from the same intracellular chiral elements