DIMINISHING MARGINAL VALUE

The notion of diminishing marginal value has had a profound impact on the development of neoclassical theory. Early neoclassical scholars had considerable difficulty convincing contemporaries of the new paradigm's value until political economists, including Jevons and Walras, used the critical assumption of diminishing marginal value to link utility and demand. While diminishing marginal value remains a key component of modern economic intuition, there is surprisingly little empirical verification of its existence or level. This paper gathers field data across a myriad of subject pools--from undergraduate students to PTA members to sportscard enthusiasts--to examine several aspects of preferences in both price and exchange institutions. Examining behavior of nearly 900 subjects across several treatments, we find strong evidence of diminishing marginal value.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Radiocarbon dating of mumiyo from the Vestfold Hills, East Antarctica

Accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon dating of mumiyo deposited by snow petrels at nesting sites in the Vestfold Hills indicates the colonies were established after 4800 yr BP (uncorrected for marine reservoir effect). Sites on the highest hills were probably established first, but colonisation took place long after initial deglaciation, which was well advanced by 12.5k yr BP. The reason for late colonisation is not known. Perhaps older sites exist, but current evidence suggests the main colonisation occurred after the mid-Holocene re-advance of the Sorsdal Glacier. (il3C values indicate a diet of krill

A Test of Competing Explanations of Compensation Demanded

The disparity between willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept, also known as compensation demanded, is a robust experimental finding. Two types of explanations been proposed. The first invokes psychological effects, broadly categorized as reference dependence and loss aversion. The second explanation is that there are large substitution effects but that underlying behavior is neoclassically utility-theoretic. The key observation motivating the present study is that loss aversion implies concavity of willingness to accept, whereas the utility-theoretic explanation implies convexity. We report experiments in which subjects were endowed with 3 items and asked the minimum payments they required to be willing to relinquish 1, 2, or 3 of them. We examine whether the compensation demanded is convex, concave, neither, or both in the number of items being relinquished

The amylase gene cluster in house mice (Mus musculus) was subject to repeated introgression including the rescue of a pseudogene

Amylase gene clusters have been implicated in adaptive copy number changes in response to the amount of starch in the diet of humans and mammals. However, this interpretation has been questioned for humans and for mammals there is a paucity of information from natural populations

‘‘There’s so much more to it than what I initially thought’’: Stepping into researchers’ shoes with a class activity in a first year psychology survey course

In psychology, it is widely agreed that research methods, although central to the discipline, are particularly challenging to learn and teach, particularly at introductory level. This pilot study explored the potential of embedding a student-conducted research activity in a one-semester undergraduate Introduction to Psychology survey course, with the aims of (a) engaging students with the topic of research methods; (b) developing students’ comprehension and application of research methods concepts; and (c) building students’ ability to link research with theory. The research activity explored shoe ownership, examining gender differences and relationships with age, and linking to theories of gender difference and of consumer identity. The process of carrying out the research and reflecting on it created a contextualized, active learning environment in which students themselves raised many issues that research methods lectures seek to cover. Students also wrote richer assignments than standard first year mid-term essay

Stability analysis of polarized domains

Polarized ferrofluids, lipid monolayers and magnetic bubbles form domains with deformable boundaries. Stability analysis of these domains depends on a family of nontrivial integrals. We present a closed form evaluation of these integrals as a combination of Legendre functions. This result allows exact and explicit formulae for stability thresholds and growth rates of individual modes. We also evaluate asymptotic behavior in several interesting limits.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, Late

DRC-1339 AND DRC-2698 RESIDUES IN STARLINGS: PRELIMINARY EVALUATION OF THEIR EFFECTS ON SECONDARY HAZARD POTENTIAL

DRC-1339 (3-chloro-4-methylbenzenamine HCI) is the active ingredient in Starlicide Complete, a commercial bait used to control starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) at animal feedlots throughout the U.S. Because of the recent widespread use of this product, par- ticularly within the wintering range of many raptors, they and other avian or mammalian scavenger or predator species may be exposed to large numbers of dead or dying star- lings and blackbirds (Icteridae) throughout the winter roosting season (November-March). Acute toxicity data are available for five species of raptors and a number of mammals indicating that DRC-1339 or its primary toxic metabolite DRC-2698 (N-(3-chloro-4-methylphenyl) acetamide, CAT), a potential roost toxicant, are only moderately toxic (100-300 mg/kg) to these animals. However, there are some avian and mammalian scavengers or predators to which these compounds are considerably more toxic (i.e., cats, owls, magpies). Secondary hazards have not been observed when DRC-1339 killed starlings were fed to three raptor species for as long as 141 days and to domestic cats for seven days (DeCino, Cunningham and Schafer 1966; Holler et al. 1979, unpubl, manuscript); however, the direct long-term effects of both chemicals have not been determined on raptors or other predatory or scavenger species. In order to decide if long-term studies are needed on predator or scavenger species, it is necessary to estimate accurately the degree of expected exposure to DRC-1339 and DRC-2698under actual use conditions. Since exposure will depend primarily upon the amount of these chemicals that remains in bird carcasses from bait ingestion until death, the metabolic or excretion rate of DRC-1339 and DRC-2698 must be known in target and at-risk, nontarget bird species. Although considerable data are available to determine the metabolic or excretion rate of DRC-1339 in target birds, some of these data are conflicting. We are therefore presenting the preliminary results of some of our current research with DRC-1339 and DRC-2698