Psychological pressure in competitive environments: Evidence from a randomized natural experiment: Comment

Apesteguia and Palacios-Huerta (forthcoming) report for a sample of 129 shootouts from various seasons in ten different competitions that teams kicking first in soccer penalty shootouts win significantly more often than teams kicking second. Collecting data for the entire history of six major soccer competitions we cannot replicate their result. Teams kicking first win only 53.4% of 262 shootouts in our data, which is not significantly different from random. Our findings have two implications: (1) Apesteguia and Palacios-Huerta’s results are not generally robust. (2) Using specific subsamples without a coherent criterion for data selection might lead to non-representative findings

Checking formalism for central exclusive production in the first LHC runs

We discuss how the early LHC data runs can provide crucial tests of the formalism used to predict the cross sections of central exclusive production.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures; Based on a talk by A.D. Martin at the CERN - DESY Workshop "HERA and the LHC", 26 - 30 May 2008, CER

Lessons from LHC elastic and diffractive data

In the light of LHC data, we discuss the global description of all high energy elastic and diffractive data, using a one-pomeron model, but including multi-pomeron interactions. The LHC data indicate the need of a $k_t(s)$ behaviour, where $k_t$ is the gluon transverse momentum along the partonic ladder structure which describes the pomeron. We also discuss tensions in the data, as well as the $t$ dependence of the slope of $d\sigma_{el}/dt$ in the small $t$ domain.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, Proceedings of Diffraction 2014, Primosten, Croatia, Sept. 10-1

Diffraction at the LHC

We show that the diffractive pp (and p\bar{p}) data (on \sigma_tot, d\sigma_el/dt, proton dissociation into low-mass systems, \sigma^D(low M), and high-mass dissociation, d\sigma/d(\Delta\eta)) in a wide energy range from CERN-ISR to LHC energies, may be described in a two-channel eikonal model with only one `effective' pomeron. By allowing the pomeron coupling to the diffractive eigenstates to depend on the collider energy (as is expected theoretically) we are able to explain the low value of \sigma^D(low M) measured at the LHC. We calculate the survival probability, S^2, of a rapidity gap to survive `soft rescattering'. We emphasize that the values found for S^2 are particularly sensitive to the detailed structure of the diffractive eigenstates.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures. Version to be published in EPJC. Typos corrected in eqs.(4) and (11

Partonic description of soft high energy pp interactions

We discuss how the main features of high-energy `soft' and `semihard' pp collisions may be described in terms of parton cascades and multi-Pomeron exchange. The interaction between Pomerons produces an effective infrared cutoff, k_sat, by the absorption of low k_t partons. This provides the possibility of extending the parton approach, used for `hard' processes, to also describe high-energy soft and semihard interactions. We outline a model which incorporates these features. Finally, we discuss what the most recent LHC measurements in the soft domain imply for the model.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures. Presented at Linear Collider 2011: Understanding QCD at Linear Colliders in searching for old and new physics, 12-16 September 2011, ECT*, Trento, Ital

Monitoring and Pay: An Experiment on Employee Performance under Endogenous Supervision

We present an experimental test of a shirking model where monitoring intensity is endogenous and effort a continuous variable. Wage level, monitoring intensity and consequently the desired enforceable effort level are jointly determined by the maximization problem of the firm. As a result, monitoring and pay should be complements. In our experiment, between and within treatment variation is qualitatively in line with the normative predictions of the model under standard assumptions. Yet, we also find evidence for reciprocal behavior. Our data analysis shows, however, that it does not pay for the employer to solely rely on the reciprocity of employees.incentive contracts; supervision; efficiency wages;experiment; incomplete contracts; reciprocity