129 research outputs found
Adatom diffusion on vicinal surfaces with permeable steps
We study the behavior of single atoms on an infinite vicinal surface assuming
certain degree of step permeability. Assuming complete lack of re-evaporation
an ruling out nucleation the atoms will inevitably join kink sites at the steps
but can do many attempts before that. Increasing the probability of step
permeability or the kink spacing lead to increase of the number of steps
crossed before incorporation of the atoms into kink sites. The asymmetry of the
attachment-detachment kinetics (Ehrlich-Schwoebel effect) suppresses the step
permeability and completely eliminates it in the extreme case of infinite
Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier. The average number of permeability events per atom
scales with the average kink spacing. A negligibly small drift of the adatoms
in a direction perpendicular to the steps leads to a significant asymmetry of
the distribution of the permeability events the atoms thus visiting more
distant steps in the direction of the drift.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure
Does Envy Destroy Social Fundamentals? The Impact of Relative Income Position on Social Capital
Retail Demand for Voluntary Carbon Offsets – A Choice Experiment Among Swiss Consumers
Who Said or What Said? Estimating Ideological Bias in Views Among Economists
There exists a long-standing debate about the influence of ideology in economics. Surprisingly, however, there is no concrete empirical evidence to examine this critical issue. Using an online randomized controlled experiment involving economists in 19 countries, we examine the effect of ideological bias on views among economists. Participants were asked to evaluate statements from prominent economists on different topics, while source attribution for each statement was randomized without participants’ knowledge. For each statement, participants either received a mainstream source, an ideologically different less-/non-mainstream source, or no source. We find that changing source attributions from mainstream to less-/non-mainstream, or removing them, significantly reduces economists’ reported agreement with statements. Using a model of Bayesian updating we examine two competing hypotheses as potential explanations for these results: unbiased Bayesian updating versus ideologically-biased Bayesian updating. While we find no evidence in support of unbiased updating, our results are consistent with biased Bayesian updating. More specifically, we find that changing/removing sources (1) has no impact on economists’ reported confidence with their evaluations; (2) similarly affects experts/non-experts in relevant areas; and (3) affects those at the far right of the political spectrum much more significantly than those at the far left. Finally, we find significant heterogeneity in our results by gender, country, PhD completion country, research area, and undergraduate major, with patterns consistent with the existence of ideological bias
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