On ordinal utility, cardinal utility, and random utility

Though the Random Utility Model (RUM) was conceived  entirely in terms of ordinal utility, the apparatus throughwhich it is widely practised exhibits properties of  cardinal utility.  The adoption of cardinal utility as a  working operation of ordinal is perfectly valid, provided  interpretations drawn from that operation remain faithful  to ordinal utility.  The paper considers whether the latterrequirement holds true for several measurements commonly  derived from RUM.  In particular it is found that  measurements of consumer surplus change may depart from  ordinal utility, and exploit the cardinality inherent in  the practical apparatus.

Lifting As We Climb : An Exploration of Older Black Men\u27s Willingness to Help Younger Black Men Seeking Work

This exploratory study examines the role that older black men\u27s attitudes play in their willingness to offer job-linking assistance to younger black men. A series of in-depth interviews were conducted with ten black male business owners 35-years-old or older to determine their disposition towards younger black men, their ability to provide job-linking assistance, and their willingness to provide assistance. The study found that despite negative opinions towards their younger counterparts, the older black men in the sample were willing to offer job-linking assistance. However, the men\u27s own problems with perceived discrimination, as well as a troubled economy provide barriers to their do so

Holographic predictions for cosmological 3-point functions

We present the holographic predictions for cosmological 3-point correlators, involving both scalar and tensor modes, for a universe which started in a non-geometric holographic phase. Holographic formulae relate the cosmological 3-point functions to stress tensor correlation functions of a holographically dual three-dimensional non-gravitational QFT. We compute these correlators at 1-loop order for a theory containing massless scalars, fermions and gauge fields, and present an extensive analysis of the constraints due to Ward identities showing that they uniquely determine the correlators up to a few constants. We define shapes for all cosmological bispectra and compare the holographic shapes to the slow-roll ones, finding that some are distinguishable while others, perhaps surprisingly, are not.Comment: 51pp; 4 fig