Best Strategies for Mitigating Choice Overload

Objectives of the study As the growth in product variety and assortment continues to soar, consumers nowadays are more susceptible to choice overload. In order to attract and retain customers, retailers must take actions to mitigate the choice overload problem in their product assortments. Hence, this study aims to find out best strategies that enterprises can employ to mitigate choice overload. Academic background and methodology Prior research has mainly concentrated on proving the existence of choice overload problem as well as the effects of assortment size reduction on mitigating the problem. However, little research has been done on examining additional mitigation strategies for choice overload. Therefore, this study aims to identify further approaches that enterprises can adopt to mitigate choice overload problem by examining different assortment strategies as well as the consumer groups in experienced choice overload level. The assortment strategies examined in the study are Assortment Size Reduction, Categorization, Provision of a Default Option and Unconscious Information Processing. As for consumer groups, different groups classified by Gender, Age, Education and Continent were compared. The thesis employed a behavioral experiment to examine participants’ degree of experienced choice overload when making their decisions in different assortment conditions. Participants were assigned to 9 different assortment scenarios corresponding to different combinations of mitigation approaches. After making their decision in the assortment, they were asked to evaluate their choice overload based on a set of statements. The experiment results revealed the effectiveness of different mitigation approaches and the differences among consumer groups in experienced choice overload. Findings and conclusion First, the experiment confirmed the existence of choice overload effect. Second, the experiment suggested the effectiveness of assortment strategies. Third, we uncovered that most effective mitigation strategies are Reduction of Assortment Size and Unconscious Information Processing. Fourth, the mitigation strategies were discovered to be more effective when being in combination with each other instead of being stand-alone. Finally, regarding the differences among consumer groups in experienced choice overload, those who demonstrated low levels of choice overload are men, elders and highly educated people. These results suggest various actions that enterprises should consider to mitigate choice overload in their product assortments

Improving Texture Categorization with Biologically Inspired Filtering

Within the domain of texture classification, a lot of effort has been spent on local descriptors, leading to many powerful algorithms. However, preprocessing techniques have received much less attention despite their important potential for improving the overall classification performance. We address this question by proposing a novel, simple, yet very powerful biologically-inspired filtering (BF) which simulates the performance of human retina. In the proposed approach, given a texture image, after applying a DoG filter to detect the "edges", we first split the filtered image into two "maps" alongside the sides of its edges. The feature extraction step is then carried out on the two "maps" instead of the input image. Our algorithm has several advantages such as simplicity, robustness to illumination and noise, and discriminative power. Experimental results on three large texture databases show that with an extremely low computational cost, the proposed method improves significantly the performance of many texture classification systems, notably in noisy environments. The source codes of the proposed algorithm can be downloaded from https://sites.google.com/site/nsonvu/code.Comment: 11 page

Multivariate stochastic loss reserving with common shock approaches

Les provisions techniques (ou « réserves ») constituent habituellement l'un des plus importants passifs au bilan d'un assureur IARD (Incendie, Accidents et Risques Divers). Conséquemment, il est crucial pour les assureurs de les estimer avec précision. En outre, un assureur IARD opère généralement dans plusieurs lignes d'affaires dont les risques ne sont pas parfaitement dépendants. Il en résulte un « bénéfice de diversification » qu'il est primordial de considérer pour son effet sur les réserves et le capital. Il est donc essentiel de prendre en compte la dépendance entre lignes d'affaires dans l'estimation des réserves. L'objectif de cette thèse est de développer de nouvelles approches d'évaluation des réserves pour des portefeuilles d'assurance avec lignes d'affaires dépendantes. Pour ce faire, nous explorons la technique de choc commun, une méthode populaire de modélisation de la dépendance qui offre plusieurs avantages, tels qu'une structure de dépendance explicite, une facilité d'interprétation et une construction parcimonieuse des matrices de corrélation. Afin de rendre les méthodes utiles à la pratique, nous incorporons au modèle des caractéristiques réalistes et souhaitables. Motivés par la richesse de la famille de distributions de probabilité Tweedie, laquelle recoupe les distributions Poisson, amma et bien d'autres, nous introduisons un cadre commun de choc Tweedie avec dépendance entre lignes d'affaires. Les propriétés attrayantes de ce cadre sont étudiées, y compris la flexibilité de ses marges, ses moments ayant une forme analytique et sa capacité d'inclure des masses à 0. Pour surmonter la complexité de la structure distributionnelle Tweedie, nous utilisons une approche bayésienne dans l'estimation des paramètres du modèle, que nous appliquons à un ensemble de données réelles. Nous formulons des remarques sur les caractéristiques pratiques de notre cadre. Les données sur les provisions techniques pour sinistres sont asymétriques par nature. C'est-à-dire, les montants de réclamations qu'on retrouve dans différentes cases d'un même triangle et entre différents triangles peuvent varier considérablement. Ceci s'explique car, habituellement, le nombre de sinistres est plus élevé dans les premières périodes de développement. Nous tenons compte explicitement de cette caractéristique dans nos modèles de chocs communs en y incluant un ajustement parcimonieux. Des illustrations utilisant des données théoriques (simulées) et réelles sont présentées. Enfin, dans la dernière partie de cette thèse, nous élaborons un cadre dynamique avec des facteurs évolutifs tenant compte des tendances de développement des sinistres pouvant changer avec le temps. Une dépendance entre années civiles est introduite à l'aide de chocs communs. Nous formulons également une méthode d'estimation adaptée à la structure des données de provisionnement des sinistres, que nous illustrons à l'aide de données réelles.Outstanding claims liability is usually one of the largest liabilities on the balance sheet of a general insurer. Therefore, it is critical for insurers to accurately estimate their outstanding claims. Furthermore, a general insurer typically operates in multiple business lines whose risks are not perfectly dependent. This results in ``diversification benefits", the consideration of which is crucial due to their effects on the aggregate reserves and capital. It is then essential to consider the dependence across business lines in the estimation of outstanding claims. The goal of this thesis is to develop new approaches to assess outstanding claims for portfolios of dependent lines. We explore the common shock technique for model developments, a very popular dependence modelling technique with distinctive strengths, such as explicit dependence structure, ease of interpretation, and parsimonious construction of correlation matrices. We also aim to enhance the practicality of our approaches by incorporating realistic and desirable model features. Motivated by the richness of the Tweedie distribution family which covers Poisson distributions, gamma distributions and many more, we introduce a common shock Tweedie framework with dependence across business lines. Desirable properties of this framework are studied, including its marginal flexibility, tractable moments, and ability to handle masses at 0. To overcome the complex distributional structure of the Tweedie framework, we formulate a Bayesian approach for model estimation and perform a real data illustration. Remarks on practical features of the framework are drawn. Loss reserving data possesses an unbalanced nature, that is, claims from different positions within and between loss triangles can vary widely as more claims typically develop in early development periods. We account for this feature explicitly in common shock models with a parsimonious common shock adjustment. Theoretical and real data illustrations are performed using the multivariate Tweedie framework. Finally, in the last part of this thesis, we develop a dynamic framework with evolutionary factors to account for claims development patterns that change over time. Calendar year dependence is introduced using common shocks. We also formulate an estimation approach that is tailored to the structure of loss reserving data and perform a real data illustration

Where Does the Money Go? College Endowments and Their Influence on Expenditures towards Financial Aid

In 2017, Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which imposes a tax of 1.4 percent on the investment returns of highly endowed colleges and universities. One motivation for the law was that these colleges have not sufficiently used their extensive resources to reduce the high prices students pay. My thesis examines the relationship between changes in endowment values and colleges’ overall spending and spending by category, with a particular focus on financial aid. I take advantage of the exogenous variation in endowment values generated by the 2008 financial crisis to establish a causal relationship. I find that changes in endowment values consistently result in changes in non-financial aid expenditures in the same direction. In the context of the 2008 financial crisis, falling endowments caused colleges to cut overall spending and spending in each category. However, colleges continued to support low-income students by providing financial aid to even more of them. My results imply that the tax is unlikely to be effective, since the income loss it generates is unlikely to prompt colleges to increase endowment spending, or spending on financial aid without an increase in students’ financial need

Climate Change and Sustainable Agricultural Practices Program in Northern Vietnam: An Approach to Evaluation

Climate change is the biggest challenge to human beings. Among other Southeast Asia countries, Vietnam is considered to be one of the countries that has the most affected by climate change. Climate change is threatening the food security and agricultural development of Vietnam as well as affecting the country’s economy. Climate Change and Sustainable Agricultural Practices Program in Northern Vietnam: An Approach to Evaluation provides a brief review of the “Climate Change and Ethnic Minorities in Northern Vietnam” Project (CEMI), which is implemented by Agricultural Development Denmark Asia in collaboration with People and Nature Reconciliation in Dien Bien, Lai Chau and Son La provinces. The research focuses on the climate change problem in Vietnam; identifies some unsustainable agricultural practices that the ethnic farmers use and the sustainable practices that exist. From there, the paper will include the Term of Reference (TOR), which is a planning tool for Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) for the project. The TOR will include the project description of CEMI, stakeholders mapping and their participation level in the project, the theory of change of the project as well as the logical framework, the budget timeline, and approaches that are used to evaluate the project and data collection plan. This capstone paper is a course – linked paper that ties the research and M&E concepts together; how M&E has been applied to climate change indicators and some approaches that practitioners can use for the purpose of M&E