What is an Award Worth? An Econometric Assessment of the Impact of Awards on Employee Performance

Behavioral economics documents the importance of status and self-image concerns in the workplace, but is largely silent about how to instrumentalize them to induce effort. Awards - widespread in the corporate sector and elsewhere - are motivators that derive their value from such social concerns. Panel data from the call center of a large international bank allow us to estimate the impact of receiving an award on effort. The performance of winners proves to be significantly higher than that of comparable non-recipients after the award has been presented. This increase in work effort is sizeable, robust, and not driven by reverse causation.awards, motivation, non-monetary compensation, event-study, incentives

Monotone Volume Formulas for Geometric Flows

We consider a closed manifold M with a Riemannian metric g(t) evolving in direction -2S(t) where S(t) is a symmetric two-tensor on (M,g(t)). We prove that if S satisfies a certain tensor inequality, then one can construct a forwards and a backwards reduced volume quantity, the former being non-increasing, the latter being non-decreasing along the flow. In the case where S=Ric is the Ricci curvature of M, the result corresponds to Perelman's well-known reduced volume monotonicity for the Ricci flow. Some other examples are given in the second section of this article, the main examples and motivation for this work being List's extended Ricci flow system, the Ricci flow coupled with harmonic map heat flow and the mean curvature flow in Lorentzian manifolds with nonnegative sectional curvatures. With our approach, we find new monotonicity formulas for these flows.Comment: v2: final version (as published

Why Invest In Art?

In recent years, the art market experienced a price explosion for paintings. Frey and Cueni shed light on the reasons for the price increase, on the rate of return in the art market, on the emergence and decline of art hedge funds, and on the risks of art investment

REE Zoning in Allanite Related to Changing Partition Coefficients During Crystallization: Implications for REE Behaviour in an Epidote-Bearing Tonalite

Allanite is present in most samples of the tonalitic Bell Island Pluton, with an average mode near 0.05 wt.%. Allanite occurs as cores in igneous epidote-clinozoisite and exhibits characteristic and consistent zoning patterns. REE-rich cores (All40–70) grade out towards epidote-clinozoisite with REE below electron microprobe detection limits. La, Ce and Pr contents are highest in the REE-rich cores of zoned crystals. Nd and Sm contents both initially increase as total REE decreases and are highest in intermediate zones. Y contents are generally low throughout, but tend to be highest in analyses with All5–20. The zoning behaviour exhibited by the allanite, specifically the rimward increases in Nd, Sm, and Y, cannot be accounted for by simple fractionation and are best explained by increases in allanite/melt partition coefficients (Kd values) for these elements during crystallization. We propose that the variation in Kd values reflects modification of the allanite structure with changing REE content. These modifications are manifested by changes in colour, extinction, and pleochroism within the zoned crystals and include changes in unit-cell volume and dimensions. The changes in Kd values are large enough to result in crossing REE patterns within single allanite crystals. Fractional crystallization of zoned allanite can have noticeable effects on LREE contents and La/Sm (and almost certainly La/Lu) in magmas. In the Bell Island pluton, 80% of La, but \u3c3% of Y is contained in allanite. Although some of the variation in the LREE chemistry of the pluton is attributable to statistical sampling error, much of it appears to reflect petrogenetic processes that controlled LREE abundance and, ultimately, allanite mode. One sample of Bell Island tonalite is depleted in LREE and has low La/Lu and La/Sm. These chemical features can be modelled by fractionation of zoned allanite

Awards at work

Social incentives like employee awards are widespread in the corporate sector and may be important instruments for solving agency problems. To date, we have little understanding of their effect on behavior. Unique panel data from the call center of a Fortune 500 financial services provider allow us to estimate the impact of awards on performance. Winning an award for voluntary work behaviors significantly increases subsequent core call center performance. The effect is short-lived, mainly driven by underperforming agents, and is reflected mostly in dimensions of the job that are hard to observe. We discuss various theories that could explain the effect

Activation of Protein Kinase C Modulates Light Responses in Horizontal Cells of the Turtle Retina

The effect of phorbol esters on the light-evoked responses of horizontal cells were studied in the turtle eyecup preparation. Phorbol esters caused a reduction in receptive field size and a significant decrease in the amplitude of responses to annular and full-field illumination; however, they caused only minor changes in responses to small spots in the receptive field centre. The dark membrane potential was not affected. The results suggest that phorbol esters may affect both coupling resistance and membrane resistance in horizontal cells. The effects of phorbol esters were blocked by the protein kinase C inhibitor staurosporine, and inactive phorbol ester had no effect, making it very likely that the phorbol ester effects were mediated through activation of protein kinase C. The above effects of the phorbol esters were considerably reduced by the dopamine antagonists haloperidol and fluphenazine, suggesting that they were in part mediated by release of dopamine.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73620/1/j.1460-9568.1992.tb00183.x.pd

Femoral anteversion change is associated with ischiofemoral impingement after total hip arthroplasty: a retrospective CT evaluation

OBJECTIVES We evaluated the relationship between femoral anteversion (FA), FA change, and ischiofemoral impingement (IFI) and the relationship between FA, femoral offset (FO), and greater trochanteric pain syndrome (GTPS) after total hip arthroplasty (THA). MATERIALS AND METHODS In this retrospective study, two readers assessed FA and FO on CT images of 197 patients following primary THA with an anterior surgical approach between 2014 and 2021. FA change was calculated relative to preoperative CT, while FO change was calculated relative to preoperative radiographs and classified as decreased (≥-5 mm), increased (≥ + 5 mm), or restored (± 5 mm). Clinical and imaging data were analyzed for IFI and GTPS after surgery. Group differences were evaluated using Student's t-test, chi-square analysis, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. RESULTS The change in FA was 3.6 ± 3.3° to a postoperative FA of 22.5 ± 6.8°, while FO increased by 1.7 ± 3.5 mm to a postoperative FO of 42.9 ± 7.1 mm. FA and FA change were higher in patients with IFI (p ≤ 0.006), while no significant difference was observed for patients with and without GTPS (p ≥ 0.122). IFI was more common in females (p = 0.023). In the ROC analysis, an AUC of 0.859 was observed for FA change to predict IFI, whereas the AUC value was 0.726 for FA alone. No significant difference was found for FO change in patients with and without IFI or GTPS (p ≥ 0.187). CONCLUSION Postoperative FA, FA change, and female sex were associated with IFI after anterior-approached THA. The change in FA was a better predictor of IFI than absolute postoperative FA alone. CLINICAL RELEVANCE STATEMENT The findings of this study suggest that preservation of the preoperative femoral anteversion may reduce postoperative ischiofemoral impingement in patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty. KEY POINTS • Higher postoperative femoral anteversion and anteversion change were associated with ischiofemoral impingement. • Femoral anteversion change was a better predictor of impingement than absolute postoperative anteversion. • No significant association was found between femoral offset and postoperative hip pain

Glucosylceramide synthase inhibitors differentially affect expression of glycosphingolipids

Glucosylceramide synthase (GCS) catalyzes the first committed step in the biosynthesis of glucosylceramide (GlcCer)-related glycosphingolipids (GSLs). Although inhibitors of GCS, PPMP and PDMP have been widely used to elucidate their biological function and relevance, our comprehensive literature review revealed that the available data are ambiguous. We therefore investigated whether and to what extent GCS inhibitors affect the expression of lactosylceramide (LacCer), neolacto (nLc4 and P1), ganglio (GM1 and GD3) and globo (Gb3 and SSEA3) series GSLs in a panel of human cancer cell lines using flow cytometry, a commonly applied method investigating cell-surface GSLs after GCS inhibition. Their cell-surface GSL expression considerably varied among cell lines and more importantly, sublethal concentrations (IC10) of both inhibitors preferentially and significantly reduced the expression of Gb3 in the cancer cell lines IGROV1, BG1, HT29 and T47D, whereas SSEA3 was only reduced in BG1. Unexpectedly, the neolacto and ganglio series was not affected. LacCer, the precursor of all GlcCer-related GSL, was significantly reduced only in BG1 cells treated with PPMP. Future research questions addressing particular GSLs require careful consideration; our results indicate that the extent to which there is a decrease in the expression of one or more particular GSLs is dependent on the cell line under investigation, the type of GCS inhibitor and exposure duratio

Motivation crowding theory: A survey of empirical evidence.

Abstract: The motivation crowding effect suggests that an external intervention via monetary incentives or punishments may undermine (and under different indentifiable conditions strengthen) intrinsic motivation. As of today, the theoretical possibility of crowding effects is widely accepted among economists. Many of them, however, have been critical about its empirical relevance. This survey shows that such scepticism is unwarranted and that there exists indeed compelling empirical evidence for the existence of crowding out and crowding in. It is based on circumstantial insight, laboratory studies by both psychologists and economists as well as field research by econometric studies. The presented pieces of evidence refer to a wide variety of areas of the economy and society and have been collected for many different countries and periods. Crowding effects thus are an empirically relevant phenomenon, which can, in specific cases, even dominate the traditional relative price effect